Anil Dash uses an essay by Malcolm Gladwell to illustrate some of the ambiguity behind what is considered plagiarism.
"The core, then, of Gladwell's exploration of inspiration and
attribution is that he forgave the writer who used his words to create
a work about forgiveness. All the legal handwringing and creativity of
the commons aside, those who accused Lavery of plagiarism did so on the
assumption that Malcolm Gladwell's feelings would be hurt by the final
product using his words without permission."
Gladwell uses a play, "Frozen,” written by the British playwright Bryony Lavery, to explore the subject. Lavery used a mother forgiving the mass murdered who killed her daughter as a central character, and talked with the woman who's story in the Guardian about the murder of her sister inspired the play. She also created an expert on serial killers from an article written by Gladwell about a real-life expert. She quoted liberally from Gladwell's article, and used real-life details about the expert in her character. The final phrase from Anil Dash's paragraph above is one of the key elements, which is that our current definitions of plagarism don't consider real lives:
- Lavery realized the sister would be upset if her story of reaching forgiveness appeared in the play without talking with the sister first.
- Lavery didn't think that lifting quoted dialog and Gladwell's descriptions from his article needed attribution.
- Lavery didn't consider the effect of the play on the real person on whom she based her serial killer expert.
Gladwell did react at first as if something had been stolen, but came to realize that he didn't really feel that way. He uses some terrific examples of music being built on phrases from other music (did you know that Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit” lifts one of its key parts from the 70's hit “More Than a Feeling?” Those who remember "More Than A Feeling" [think ooga chacka, ooga chacka] and enjoy Nirvana might be stunned, like I was, but it's true).
The expert on serial killers was upset. Gladwell tells a great story of forgiveness that creates a spectrum to illuminate the difficulties with copyright law and practice. On one end of the spectrum is the key character's source, the woman who wrote about her sister being killed, and someone with whom the author felt she had to discuss the play. In the middle, the author of an article about an expert on the psychology of serial killers, who ends up not caring that his phrases were inserted into the play without attribution.
On the other end, a psychiatrist named Dorothy Lewis, who says that Lavery "... took things about my own life, and that is the part that made me feel violated.”
“We as a culture have lost this sense of balance,” Lessig writes. “A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, now reigns in this culture.” Referencing his quote of Lawrence Lessig, Gladwell writes that "this is the second problem with plagiarism. It is not merely
extremist. It has also become disconnected from the broader question of
what does and does not inhibit creativity. [...] When I worked at a newspaper, we were
routinely dispatched to “match” a story from the Times: to do a new version of someone else’s idea. But had we “matched” any of the Times’
words—even the most banal of phrases—it could have been a firing
offense. The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of
small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily
derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the
sentence."
No one comes off as guilty or innocent, but rather human, which is really the issue, and is what gets left out of many debates about the laws and rules we create: what's the effect on real people? It seems the worst laws that we create are the ones that adhere to a principle without considering the effect it has on people in use. In copyright law, the creator of a story is often the owner, although the person who lived the story may have some rights. But what about the ancillary people living the story? What about those who tell the story of the ancillary characters? And if we protect property rights by limiting most of the influences on which artists draw, will we be a better society?
A fundamental property of extremism is the tendency to see everything in simplistic black and white terms. Lavery's compassion for Marian Partington, who forgave her sister's killer, is contrasted with the tears Lavery sheds for the pain she caused Dorothy Lewis. The contrast shows the grey spectrum along which this debate should be taking place.
Gladwell's article is long, but worth the time to read.
The New Yorker: SOMETHING BORROWED by MALCOLM GLADWELL
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