A Mash-Up Artist Defends Plagiarism
Monday, February 15th, 2010 by Patrick Ross
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It would seem that Helene Hegemann is a talented, creative young woman. One wonders what sort of fiction she could have created had she simply “stood on the shoulders of giants” and written an original work inspired by past literary giants. Instead, she decided to cut and paste pages of published literary works and pass off the result as her own work. Of course, she eventually got caught, as plagiarists almost always do in this digital age (see Chris Anderson).
Here’s the twist, reprinted from a New York Times piece by Nicholas Kulish (thank you to another author, Brenna Lyons, for pointing out this story):
Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for not being more open about her sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new. “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke.
Well, there you go.
As a professional writer for about a quarter-century, I’ve long been wary of what I view as a growing cultural acceptance of plagiarism. In 2006 I publicly called out my own daughter (withholding her name, of course) for appalling plagiarism in a school essay she wrote on Jesse Owens. That 2006 post linked to a BBC story about the “Google generation,” which doesn’t understand the difference between research and plagiarism, between expanding one’s intellect and lifting someone’s intellectual expression.
There are two key take-aways here:
1. Education is key. Since that incident with my daughter, we’ve moved and she now is in a different school district. I’ve been pleased with her new teachers and my son’s teachers, how they are instilling in my kids an understanding of research and documentation. At times they even insist that some or all of the works cited must be from a book or research article; nothing that is ephemeral, like a Wikipedia entry. We parents share a responsibility to help our children understand that just because you can cut and paste something doesn’t mean you should. (See “Is Technology Our Master?” for more on how we enable technology, not the other way around.)
2. Mash-ups happen because someone creates an original work. Our would-be novelist says nothing is original, yet the passages she lifted from other books were original expressions in those books, even if the ideas were not new. Copyright is ownership of expression. It encourages new expression. If one cannot have any rights over one’s creative expression — if releasing that expression into the world creates common ownership of that expression — there will be little incentive for many to put in the months and years of work required to write an original novel. We need to ask ourselves if we want to live in a culture where new expression does not just build on the creativity of others but appropriates and repurposes it. That is a culture that will quickly grow stale.
February 15th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
How the heck do you plagiarize pages out of works of fiction? I can’t even imagine how you could get the material to fall into place with your completely separate plot, characters, and setting so perfectly that it wouldn’t look obviously discontinuous. It’s not like this is a scientific article where you can quote facts and previous discoveries seamlessly inside other paragraphs/sections.
Unrelated: Oh look, comments are suddenly enabled, again.
February 16th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Justin,
Though she was caught at the plagiarism, the fact was that it went unnoticed for a bit, because she DIDN’T change the context it started with in the original book, as I understand it from someone that has read both books. Arien’s book was about the sharing culture and people in it. Guess what Hegemann was writing about? The same thing. It was easy to hide pages of the lesser known text in the new book, until someone that had read Arien recognized the deception.
A similar situation happened with a 17 y/o (what is it with teens?) NY conglomerate author that took scenes she liked, nearly unchanged, and fit them into her book, because they fit what she needed to do there.
Of course, neither acted legally or ethically, but that’s another issue. You just asked how it could be done.
Now, what is the legal way to incorporate/weave someone else’s work into your own? What is the right way to jump start from an existing work, without infringing?
1. You can parody. Consider Joy Nash’s story “Heroes, Inc.”, which is a parody of the Justice League. Consider EPIC MOVIE. Parody is legal and built into copyright law. There are defined rules for it.
2. You can get permission or license permission from the original copyright owner.
3. You can use a work that is truly in the public domain and do what you wish with it, since it is legally free and clear. That’s what Gregory Maguire (sp?) did with WICKED and SON OF THE WITCH. But, keep in mind that he could only use what was in the books…not the movie, which is NOT public domain. He used jeweled multicolor shoes instead of ruby slippers. Why? Ruby slippers were from the movie. Baum wrote silver. He couldn’t use ruby slippers without permission, but he could use silver or make something up.
Now, mind you that all the things he invented for WICKED and SON OF THE WITCH are HIS IP. The new characters, the new character twists, and those lovely jeweled slippers are his creations. If someone wants to write another Oz related story, he/she can, but the new author cannot use either the ruby slippers or the new things Macguire created, because neither are public domain.
And that new work doesn’t have to adhere to anything Macguire did, either. In fact, it’s better if it doesn’t. Someone else doing a story there does not make it world bible for the original creation Baum made, and someone using Baum’s public domain works can write something completely different than Macguire did…aliens, shifters, or whatever.
4. You can hint. Subtlety is a wonderful thing in the hands of a skillful author. Casting vague shadows to something else is perfectly legal.
5. You can use the recognized icon/popular image to set a mood, opinion, mental image… If a character in your book calls another “a regular Superman” it has a very different connotation than calling the character “a regular Batman.” Think about the images each bring to mind.
In the same way, you can use trademarked items (properly handled) to build character. Chick lit does this fairly often, but you can choose to have your character drive a Mustang, a Prius, or a H2. Each one gives a very different feel of the character in question.
6. “Loosely basing a story on…” is another common one. But it’s not a close resemblance. You have your six degrees of separation going here. Take one of mine that is “loosely based” on Victor/Victoria. The only thing I took from V/V was the idea of a woman hiding as a man pretending to be a woman and both the main characters having bodyguards or companions that become involved, as well. In my case, it was a female mage whose only chance of escape is hiding as a male mage, and all mages are effeminate in appearance. In anyone’s universe, that’s not a copy of V/V anymore.
That’s the way the system is SUPPOSED to work. That’s how new works are supposed to emerge, using the INSPIRATION of older works but not the copyright-protected material directly.
February 16th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
I find it particularly hubristic for Hegemann to claim that her (or whatever) generation came up with the idea of combining sources into one work. This is a basic element of the artistic process.
February 16th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
[...] Copyright Alliance [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Another thing to note is that a LOT of people go back to Warhol and the Campbell’s soup can for an example of sampling, but Warhol was before a lot of the newer “sampling” suits that established the limits for it…and Warhol is art (as opposed to music or writing), where collage is acceptable, though it’s not considered “original art” by artists I talk to on a regular basis.
Back to the subject… It’s a poor example for the world of today, legally. Instead of looking at Warhol, one should be looking at music sampling today (with established limits) and perhaps the JKR problem with the omnibus of her world. It was okay while it was a free site, but when they tried to make money on it, the hammer came down. And further…fan fic, where you can write it for yourself but if you distribute or sell it, you face suit, if you don’t have permission from the original creator.
So, since she likened it to music, let’s look at how music really works. The suits established a limit of somewhere around 4 seconds of music being sampled before permission of the original artist must be sought and perhaps licenses paid for to use it. Even below that, the new work must have an attribution to the old. Patrick, feel free to smack me, if I have the limits wrong. I get permissions for all music I use, so I’ve never had to play with the limit before.
The suits also established that a single line of a song is significant to the whole and may not be quoted without permission of the rights owner, if it’s not public domain, because songs are typically so short. The exception is the song title, because titles cannot be copyright protected. When using a song title, it’s considered good form to attribute to the band, as well.
These changes are all within the last decade. I can tell you that eight years ago, no one worried about a novelist opening a chapter with two lines of a famous song. Today, books are issued with permissions for it, with them removed, or something similar…even if they were issued with those quotes in place, before the court cases.
The confusion between fiction and non-fiction and what you can quote from each and how is a problem for many people. Since they can quote into a research paper with attribution, they don’t understand that something they are writing for SALE is a different animal. Since they can quote factoids into a paper or a fiction or non-fiction book for sale, they don’t understand that you can’t use someone else’s non-fiction work willy-nilly in something for sale, whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction. And let’s not even get into the difference between factoids and someone else’s fiction work. The simple differences elude them, and they are largely spelled out.
Part of that problem is what they are being taught. When CNN discussed piracy, there was a self-proclaimed college professor blatantly misrepresenting what fair use was an what inter-library loan was. If this is what he’s teaching his students, I have no question why we have 17-year-old kids with no clue about what the rules are.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Brenna articulates a good point. We have the fox in charge of the henhouse. Students trust their teachers, and teachers trust the universities for guidance on copyright.
Yet, it was the Universities, jointly with Google that committed outrageous copyright infringement (which they appear likely to be forgiven) in scanning works without permission.
Moreover, copyright isn’t the same for a student at a terminal inside a University Library and a private citizen at their desk at home or in the office. Universities and Libraries are covered by an Exception. Is it Section 108 ? Is it the Sonny Bono exception?
Universities appear to tell teachers the Exception version of copyright without caveat, and teacher pass that on to students, who go out in the world not realizing that the version they were taught doesn’t apply to their private rights.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Justin,
Brenna gave you a scholarly answer. I’ll give you a common one. Sex scenes. Without in any way casting aspersions on the original and creative talents of my colleagues, all a plagiarist would really need to change would be the first names, and maybe hair and eye color…. unless of course the hero and heroine had an off-topic conversation or a flashback.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Vince,
I agree. To be honest, when I asked friends who are artists about the subject, the general consensus was: “Collage is art but not original art. It’s the kind of thing you display for class, but it’s not the kind of thing you enter in an art contest.” In many ways, they seem to view collage how I view fan fic. It’s fun to bring it out and discuss it with your friends, but if you enter it in a contest and it’s recognized as fan fic, I fully expect you to be booted for it. Writing contests typically require original works.
In fact, I’ve had to caution middle school and high school students entering contests not to enter fan fic or plagiarized work, with examples. It amazes me how many kids think it’s okay to take their favorite TV shows and change a few details…just a few, which is not skillful, in anyone’s book…and try to pass it off as an original creation. Changing a few names and one or two details does not an original creation make.
Brenna
February 16th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
How dare you equate plagiarism with mashups. Mushup artists do not try to pass off the works of others that they use as being originated by themselves. This is very disingenuous. Just because you do not like mashups does not mean you get to say they are plagiarism. I know you know the difference, Patrick. Plagiarism is passing something off as your own. Mashups borrow where the sources are made obvious as a cultural reference point. The word Mashup is not even used in the NYT article.
February 16th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Such indignation!
The headline of the NYT piece notes the “author” herself calls her work “mixing.” Substitute “mixing” for “mash-up” (also called “remixing”) — or your word, “mushup” — and you’ll see you’re focusing on semantics.
You distinguish based on giving credit, which is incorrect. When writing a novel, you don’t get a pass on lifting large passages if you simply acknowledge the original source. When you see a song lyric quoted in a novel, for example, that lyric was licensed from the composer and music publisher. It’s not enough to say it was written by Bruce Springsteen.
Read some of the comments here by published authors, they will help illuminate the issue for you.
February 17th, 2010 at 1:07 am
I think it’s unfair to dismiss fanfic as non-original. Most TV shows are written by a staff of writers these days, are you suggesting that that makes the writing less original? For instance, the Seinfeld characters and universe were created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, however Elaine Pope and Larry Charles won a Primetime Oscar for writing “The Fix-Up”.
February 17th, 2010 at 1:08 am
Sorry, Primetime Emmy.
February 17th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I wonder if the publisher who issued her statement for her will mind if I lift a few passages from some of the other works they’ve published? Somehow I feel like they’d probably be sending me a letter.
February 17th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Just an idea: perhaps a system of “compulsory licensing” similar to the form used in the field of musical arrangements is possible. Under such a system, any piece that is published becomes available in the use in a mashup, but with a modest payment that is somehow related to the extent to which the material is used. An entity like Harry Fox Agency (if not Harry Fox Agency itself) would be required for registering the mashups and interfacing with ASCAP/BMI/SESAC etc.
It might seem like a gnarly database problem, but seems quite implementable.
I’m not a lawyer, just a composer brainstorming on how there should be a way to acknowledge and allow mashups as an artistic form while making sure the artists that originated the material being used still get a reasonable amount of compensation.
February 17th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Sorry, anonymous, but Larry Charles & Elaine Pope were not “fan-fic” writers. They were hired guns who worked with the approval of Jerry Seinfeld to write scripts for his TV characters. Their work was done at the direction of Seinfeld and his production company specifically to be used as a script for those shows. Fan-fic is written by amateurs for their own enjoyment, and is acceptable as such — unless the fan tries to publish (inclusing online) or market the fan-fiction. Then, it is a violation of copyright.
February 17th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Through much discussion and debate, I have learned that many members of the (typically) younger generation feel entitled to freely download music without paying for it, or for that matter, shoot video of live performances without the permission of the artist. Some believe they are sticking it to the ‘Man’, somehow circumventing the money-grubbers who control the flow of creative product. This argument has been skewered so many ways it is not worth pursuing here other than to say that major media companies do need to overhaul practices and policies to suit a new age.
Many who download illegitimately simply have difficulty appreciating that the digital stream they allow to flow into their computers and portable devices is in fat a tangible product, no different in many ways than the new cellular phone they desire but would never actually steal from Best Buy. This is where education becomes so relevant. I tell these same people that the upcoming generation will derive more of its income from intellectual property than any other before them and that when and if someone acquires their creative work (music, technical white paper, art, published article, etc.) without permission, the light will most certainly go on.
Much, if not most of the attention is focused on the monetary component of the problem, namely the legitimate and negative financial impact on companies and, more importantly to me, the creators themselves. What’s happening in the case of Helene Hegemann is crucial as it turns our attention in an equally important direction: That is the undeniable right of the individual artist or author to protect their works from being used in a repugnant manner. What if Ms. Hegemann had written a book on her desire to see Nazism rise to its former ‘glory’ and used Airen’s words to support her beliefs? Could anyone reasonably argue that Airen would have the right to restrict this sort of distortion? One would have to disagree with this premise before they could begin to legitimize the unauthorized use of a creator’s work for ‘any’ purpose.
There are several camps espousing different solutions to all of this. None is without flaws. I believe a multi-pronged approach is necessary due to the fluid nature of technology and changing consumer trends. I for one will continue to try and engage anyone with an open mind in a considerate manner allowing for the possibility that most will at least listen and some may not agree. JW
February 17th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
OK, first off, a lot of what is written above is inaccurate. Or to be precise, is accurate only in the United States.
That said, yes, I’d regard this as plagiarism, because it wasn’t declared. I would however regard FanFic as original. Larry Niven described all creative works as “Playgrounds of the Mind”, places where after the story is over, you can continue playing. By publishing (or producing) a work, you are giving implicit permission for your readers/watchers to play in your universe. Some creators don’t like this. Some do. One of the reasons that Star Trek has been so successful is that Paramount was willing to let people play - see hiddenfrontier.com or starwreck.com for examples. The feedback that Paramount has gotten from people playing in the Star Trek universe has made Star Trek stronger.
February 17th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Spelling update: In paragraph two I clearly meant to write ‘in fact’ and not ‘in fat’. Please correct this before publishing. Thank you, JW
February 17th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I’m sorry, JW, I don’t know how to edit others’ comments, probably a good thing!
We all have typos occasionally.
February 17th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Thanks Patrick. Cheers.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
“Fan-fic is written by amateurs for their own enjoyment, and is acceptable as such — unless the fan tries to publish (inclusing online) or market the fan-fiction. Then, it is a violation of copyright.”
That depends entirely on where you live. While it is, to my knowledge, a violation of copyright, there is an industry in Japan of for-profit sales of fan fiction that is large enough to rival the industry producing the original works. And this receives the full blessing of the original creators, despite the fact that it typically has far less artistic (i.e. novel and creative) content than the types of things that would get your grandchildren’s wages garnished in the US.
Not all creativity-centered cultures are systematically hostile to unlicensed derivative works.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Well, I’d address the speaker here, but since he/she didn’t leave a NAME, that’s not possible.
Teams of authors are not fan fic. Never have been. If they are writing something original, it’s still original, even if it’s a writing team doing the work and spitballing off each other as part of the creative process. There’s nothing wrong with that, and there are some very famous writing teams at work in the world. Where you got the idea to connect this to fan fic is beyond me.
I think you might be talking about “working on spec” for a licensed world. While people use the established world rules and world and even some characters in a licensed world, they are also creating in the world. BUT, they don’t own what they create, and they don’t have full creative say over it, either. That’s what writing on spec is. The result is approved, tweaked, or rejected outright by the continuity team that licenses the world, in total, to make sure they approve of where you intend to take the world bible. In many ways, this is not original creation, since you are legally building on someone else’s established world. Your portion of it is, but only as far as the creative team above you allows it to be.
Now, mind you, if they reject what you wrote on spec (because it didn’t match the outline you gave them or you couldn’t keep quality up through the whole thing), it becomes useless to you. You can cannibalize pieces of your OWN work into something new, but you cannot take the licensed world information into the new creation without facing lawsuit, and the book cannot stand alone without the licensed world input into it. Or if it can, that may be why you were rejected, in the first place.
So, from that POV, while you can create a certain amount of original work in fan fic, you are NOT creating the whole thing. So, no… I don’t consider it completely original work and certainly not something to enter in a writing contest.
Brenna
February 17th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
The Mad Hatter,
You’re right on some things and wrong on others.
Yes, the laws we’re talking about are US laws, because Patrick works in the US policy-making scene.
Unfortunately for some of us (the headaches of it!), we work in a worldwide market. Personally, I am a US author but have one UK publisher and a former Canadian publisher, in my backlist of a dozen or so. And I have been contacted by readers from Pakistan, Germany, Portugal, and so forth. That always complicates the game.
To truly understand the implications for the situation, I would have to find out what the laws are for BOTH the country of the original book Arien wrote and the German laws (if different) and further whether both countries are Berne.
Why? Because of the following. If this young woman tried the same thing with an American book, she would find herself dealing with US Copyright Law, via the Berne. According to the Copyright Circ 38 at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf, Germany is a Berne country and SHOULD require respect of US Copyright Law when she’s quoting from a US Book. In fact, she should be required to respect the copyright laws of ANY Berne nation. It’s a messy system, I admit, but it’s not impossible to navigate.
But, from a purely American standpoint (hey…play with what you know), what she did was deplorable. For that matter, from a writer’s seat, what she did was deplorable. Someone asked, and that’s my opinion of it.
Now, what are you COMPLETELY wrong about? That there is implicit permission for people to use your work as they see fit. Now, am I going to begrudge people writing fan fic in my world? As long as they aren’t being offensive with it or trying to make money from it…play. I’m not unreasonable about it, but cross the line, and I will say something. That’s how it works.
Brenna
February 17th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Justin,
You don’t realize that you killed your own argument. It is in violation of US copyright. No ifs, ands. or buts about it. But where you lost it entirely was where you admitted the Japanese creators give their PERMISSION for the fan fic. If US creators give permission, fan fic is fine here, too. With permission of the rights owner, it’s legal…period.
And it does happen, from time to time, even in the US. In one gaming book I have in the works, the permission to create scenarios for non-commercial use with the gaming specs I create is clearly stated. Not available yet…but stated, when the book becomes available.
Brenna
February 17th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
With fanfic I’m not so much addressing the legal issue (which I would love to at length) but the implied criticism I see of it. For example in Brenna’s comment, she writes “In many ways, they seem to view collage how I view fan fic. It’s fun to bring it out and discuss it with your friends, but if you enter it in a contest and it’s recognized as fan fic, I fully expect you to be booted for it. Writing contests typically require original works.”
This view that writing in another universe is somehow inferior is what I was addressing. Sure, lots of fanfic is bad. But that doesn’t make it somehow less of a creative act. Look, for instance, at Grendel (John Gardner) or Wicked (Gregory Maguire). Both are stories told in someone else’s universe which explore the characters in new ways. Would they not have a place in a writing contest? Are they not original? What’s the difference?
I think this attitude is most common in people with JW’s opinion that there exists an “undeniable right of the individual artist or author to protect their works from being used in a repugnant manner.”
Where does this right stem from? I’m a big believer in attribution, but I hardly think authorial moral rights are “undeniable.” From an American perspective, they’re fairly incompatible with the First Amendment right to free speech, which I would argue is a much more important right for a society. I love seeing artists works used in new and interesting ways.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
It would be nice if a copyright lawyer chimed in here. As a musician, I can tell you that the rules are not nearly as codified as “under four seconds is ok”. The rule of thumb is, “Is the original identifiable?” If a single note were truly distinctive - say a James Brown “Yeah” - you could be sued for using that note. As a verbal parallel, if you used the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to mean “really awesome” in a non-parody situation, you could be in legal jeopardy (especially since the copyright holder is Disney, famous for its litigiousness.)
February 18th, 2010 at 2:07 am
@Brenna Lyons
You misunderstand my argument (though I’m not sure I’d label what I was presenting an “argument”, to begin with). I was pointing out the contrast in cultures - that is, mindsets. In the US and others, you’d have to be out of your mind to sell for profit a shallow derivative work that you lack legally-binding consent from the copyright holder for. In Japan (at least for this pair of industries), it’s assumed that the authors/publishers are okay with this without ever asking, as this is the rule, not the very rare exception. For the purpose of clarity, let me reiterate: usually they do not seek/receive legal consent from the copyright holders.
Phrased alternately, here everybody cares about their copyright; creators rarely give permission for commercial ventures without some kind of royalty payments, and publishers even less often. In Japan, commercial use of copyright without royalties is a daily occurrence; the stuff is sold on the shelves of stores right next to the original material, and very few creators/publishers care.
The contrast is less “stark” than it is “blinding”.
February 19th, 2010 at 4:09 am
I am an author (Military Secret, Monument Press 1993, ISBN 0-930383-41-9) and screenwriter (dialog, House of Boys, Deluxe Productions, Luxembourg 2010). And I live in Germany where this beneficiary of nepotism indulged herself in copyright theft. Her lack of morals came as no surprise given her upbringing in a showbiz family. In showbiz, people like Quentin Tarrantino are quoted bragging “I steal from everybody.” And submitting any work to anyone with clout requires a “standard” waiver exonnerating them so fully that you basically have to say “Please buy this but if you prefer go on and steal it from me.” If it is 100% great maybe they will buy, but if they have a couple of client writers looking for a hot idea why not just take it from the weaker species, the “unknown” writer? Attorneys who can take on studios are most likely representing someone else under the studio’s umbrella, thus facing conflict of interest in repping an unknown - not to mention they will ask for a couple thousand up front before even looking into the case.
Example 1, I called my mom from a payphone to say I was fine in Hollywood in 1984 but police responding to a murder surrounded the phone booth drowning me out. I wrote it up in a movie script read by Cathryn Wyler at Columbia Pictures. She passed on the script but “talked it over with colleagues.” One colleague, Mary Ann Page, shows up in an interview in Syd Fields “How to Sell Your Screenplay” as having moved from Columbia to Raystar Productions and working on “The Secret of my Success”. You can see this scene today at imdb.com throughout the first six seconds of the movie trailer, Michael J. Fox calls his mom from a payphone to say he’s fine and is drowned out by a bunch of cops responding to a crime. Okay, they switched it from LA to NYC, and from a serious film to a comedy.
Example 2, I wrote a script on a group of WW2 soldiers fighting the macabre battle at Remagen Bridge and pitched this copyrighted work to Hollywood boutique agent Jon Klane who said “World War Two is DOA in Hollywood.” Sixteen months later Pearl Harbor came out and Klane sold a “pitch” (no script) to New Line Cinema for his two client writers to create, for 750,000 dollars. It was about a group of soldiers sent to fight the Germans at “a very important bridge”. Gee, where did he come into that? I could explain more detail but those not in denial will get my point. There are the haves and the have nots, and our job is to consume what they produce - not to pretend to the throne.
February 19th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
I’m a “real” composer and ASCAP member who’s licensed music, so I’ve obviously got a stake in the upholding of copyright law, but I also create mashups for my own enjoyment as well as listen to mashups created by others. If there was a mechanism, such as the one you suggest, for making sure that the authors of the original work got a fair share of any profits made from the mashup (many of which could be considered parodies, in my opinion) I would gladly patronize it. There is no way to do that in the case of the Miss Hegemann. By plagiarising, she basically claimed that others’ work was her own, when all she can really take credit for is the arrangement. Girl Talk never claims that he is Busta Rhymes, Outkast, or Foreigner, or that their works are his own. He only claims that the peculiar combination of those artists elements would not have happened without him, which is true.
The whole point of mashups is letting people know which songs you used, so you can crow about your eclectic tastes, or the sharpness of your ear in plucking choice samples and placing them alongside each other. The joy in listening to mashups is when you know the original songs! “I never thought that lyric would go with that music!” is an awesome feeling when it’s done right. If the DJ doing the mashup claimed that he just recorded the whole mashup in a studio with a live band, THAT would be equivalent to literary plagiarism, and THAT is ridiculous.
There are people outside of the “choir” you could preach to who would listen, but this sort of disingenuous comparison is going against what I hope you want, which is to convince people who aren’t already obeying copyright law into doing so.
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:12 am
My two cents worth-
I’ve no problem with Miss Hegemann claiming to be the “arranger,” the same as I don’t mind my songs being recorded by others in unique arrangements. The problem is that an “arranger” is not a “composer” or “creator”, and should not be considered so. For me, I don’t mind if an “arranger” makes money from their new and original arrangement of my music (although I would take issue with uses in direct contradiction to my intended use, an example of which is cited above as the use of Arien’s book to support Nazism), but, I do want to be compensated and credited as the writer in accordance with current copyright standards.
I understand that current mechanisms are not in existence in print issues, but as music mashups are the analogy you use, perhaps that is the answer to this whole issue (as first put forth above by Simon Friehofner and again referred to by Scrape): establish a statutory licensing rate for print as they do for music, with creators having the right to negotiate higher or lower rates to their satisfaction. I don’t know about you, but most of the creators I know are struggling to survive in the current economic climate, and many creative endeavors are being cancelled if not severely curtailed as a result.
Back when MC Hammer first plagiarized Rick James’ “Superfreak”, it was obvious to me that Mr. James’ had spent a lot of money (let alone time) in the production of the original version. For him to not be able to recoup some of his investment while someone reaped huge financial rewards from that same investment goes against every fiber of my being. If Hammer had reproduced (as in from scratch) the hook, I’m not sure that it would have been as easily recognizable or of comparable quality, which means that he made money from someone else’s efforts. While that is fine in the case of an employee/employer relationship, no such relationship existed.
I’m searching for an analogy that would make sense to someone outside of the “choir”, but until someone is directly affected by such theft, they rarely understand it. Perhaps if someone came by your home and borrowed your car (without your permission mind you) in order to make money by using your car as a taxi without compensating you I would come close to capturing the essence of it. Although you’ve never met this person, and you alone have worked and labored to pay the price of that vehicle, they now claim they have the right to use it, simply because you parked it in a public place. Worse still would be if they actually sold your vehicle in order to reap the profits and/or let each of their friends take it out for a drive as well.
My overriding concerns in this whole issue are fairness and economic survival. The intentional use and misuse of others’ works for financial gain at the expense of the originator is unfair, and should be illegal. Not just the theft of my lyrics and melodies, but the theft of the things that I have invested hard-earned cash in, such as studio time, studio musicians, marketing and promotion, etc, etc, etc.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:17 pm
[...] colleague noted that our blog entry on an author who plagiarized others’ work and then defended it as a generational issue was quoted in a Sunday New York Times piece by Randy [...]