If I Copy Myself, Is It Still Plagiarism?
There must be something in the air, because all of a sudden I'm stumbling over talk of plagiarism and copyright all over the place. I linked to a couple of things the other night, but the subject just keeps growing.
Eddie Campbell elaborated a bit more on his previous post about Lichtenstein and plagiarism, and that's certainly worth reading. In more recent comments to that previous post since I initially linked to it, Neil Gaiman recommends Richard Posner's recent book, The Little Book of Plagiarism and points to a review in the Los Angeles Times (although, if for no other reason than to prove that I can do my own Googling, here's The New York Times's review, which is a bit more standoffish). By the way, Gaiman notes that Posner presided over the appeal of his lawsuit against Todd McFarlane. You can read the explanation, the resolution, or the resolution of the appeal. If you're really interested, you can read Posner’s actual decision on the judge's own Website.
A bit above Neil's response, another commenter recommended an essay by Jonathan Lethem on plagiarism and appropriation in the February Harper's. Unfortunately, it's awfully long and I'm writing this awfully late, so I've just had a chance to skim it. I'll write more about it later if it warrants it. But if you want more before then, Dirk Deppey, in Wednesday's Journalista post, passes on a link to the Open Source radio show, which featured an interview with Jonathan
What am I doing? I've got to go to bed.
[Edited above to correct an error in which I said exactly the opposite of what I meant. I really should've gone to bed earlier.]
posted by Doug @ 3:12 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Apropos of the title you gave your post, John Fogarty famously got accused of plagiarizing himself -- CCR's label claimed that Fogarty's solo hit "The Old Man Down the Road" infringed upon the CCR track "Run Through the Jungle." Happily, Fogarty won.
That Posner opinion is fun to read. For some reason, Posner's summation of how you can tell Medieval Spawn is a distinct and copyrightable character -- "A Spawn who talks medieval and has a knight's costume would infringe Medieval Spawn, and if he doesn't talk medieval and doesn't look like a knight then he would infringe Spawn." -- makes me laugh every time I read it. It's so straightforward, it makes you think any idiot with half a brain can understand copyright law (Posner's prose has a way of doing that).
Real good post. So good, I think I may post it on my own blog and predate it so it will look like you plagiarized me. Thanks!
Jason: So the answer is yes, if I allow Saul Zaentz to own my copyright.
Chuck: But don't forget, I can backdate my own post so that I really wrote it a couple of days ago.
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