T.S. Eliot once famously wrote, or said "Good writers borrow, great writers steal"
We see this every single day, in the world of tv, and movies, and the media at large. How many times have we seen "A Christmas Carol" remade, or a TV character being placed into the story line of "It's a wonderful life" ?
I would even go so far as to say that there is not and perhaps has not been a truly original thought in the history of humanity, for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. We see themes, ideas, concepts cropping up, taking on different forms, using different examples to express the same ideas that have been expressed by others.
When it comes to the idea of oppression, the big deal is now the LGBT community, before that it was blacks, before that Irish Catholic, before that Indiginous Americans.
Yet, it never stops.
And it never will.
So, why the flying-fuck-in-hell does it matter who said what first? And why does one example of repeating someone else's words exemplify plaigirism, and another case does not?
Should we abolish the Star Spangled Banner? The pledge of allegiance? The Constitution? Because any time any one of us speaks those words, we are plaigirizing the original authors.
Where does it end?
Since when did words, in a given combination, start to have a copyright to them?
How do you copyright ideas, when there are simply too many words in the english language to prevent us from plagiarizing something?
END THIS NOW! IT"S BEEN MONTHS, FOLKS! YOU CAN NOT PUT A COPYRIGHT ON LANGUAGE!
**ALL WORDS USED WITHIN ARE THE PROPERTY OF PLACEBOSTUDMAN! FEE FOR USE, $1Billion per word.
(see how rediculous this is?)
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Yeah, good luck with that
That'll show you!
Uh, well, then I guess I should remove my Death Cult post then, eh? Or for that matter every single post you've ever read? Because every word I've ever used, you've probably used at some time in your life before me...and every word you used has been said by someone else, since the very beginnings of spoken and written language.
who gets the money? Some 10,000 year old caveman I suspect
just my 2 cents...or $2,500 as the case may be LOL
Rated for sage advice that will be ignored.
Sometimes a guy's just gotta blow off steam, no matter how burned he may get by the blowback, ya know?
We see this every single day, in the world of tv, and movies, and the media at large. How many times have we seen "A Christmas Carol" remade, or a TV character being placed into the story line of "It's a wonderful life" ?
I would even go so far as to say that there is not and perhaps has not been a truly original thought in the history of humanity, for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. We see themes, ideas, concepts cropping up, taking on different forms, using different examples to express the same ideas that have been expressed by others.
When it comes to the idea of oppression, the big deal is now the LGBT community, before that it was blacks, before that Irish Catholic, before that Indiginous Americans.
Yet, it never stops.
And it never will.
So, why the flying-fuck-in-hell does it matter who said what first? And why does one example of repeating someone else's words exemplify plaigirism, and another case does not?
Should we abolish the Star Spangled Banner? The pledge of allegiance? The Constitution? Because any time any one of us speaks those words, we are plaigirizing the original authors.
Where does it end?
Since when did words, in a given combination, start to have a copyright to them?
How do you copyright ideas, when there are simply too many words in the english language to prevent us from plagiarizing something?
END THIS NOW! IT"S BEEN MONTHS, FOLKS! YOU CAN NOT PUT A COPYRIGHT ON LANGUAGE!
**ALL WORDS USED WITHIN ARE THE PROPERTY OF PLACEBOSTUDMAN! FEE FOR USE, $1Billion per word.
(see how rediculous this is?)
I'n pretty sure "Much ado about nothing" is Shakespeare, but I dont think he'll be suing any time soon
Bonnie-
The fact that we apply ownership to words and ideas is simply a matter of our corporatist, capitalist predatory nature to monetize everything. I find the whole thing rather rediculous. I guess I'm just not that attached to my art to believe that anything I've ever written is original
your point? They're just words...you've said them before, as have I, and you will say them again, as will I...they're just words...
Bonnie, laws are (hu)man-stuff, the only thing that makes them 'right' is because 'we say so'. As was mentioned on another post, there are places in the world where the concept of 'intellectual copy right' is considered peculiar.
And plagiarism - 'they' lost me the moment they started telling me that I couldn't hard-copy quote myself on material I authored without plagiarizing myself ;).
Yeah, how DO you plagiarize yourself?? That one could make a head explode
Bonnie-
I guess it's just a matter of what people value. If people value words so much as to sue over the use of them, then ALL forms of stealing, adapting, improving on should come with a price. Does Steve Jobs pay the Alexander Graham Bell estate every time Apple comes up with a new gadget? Nope....and people seem to laugh at the idea, because they don't realize, and don't care that, without Bell, there would be no Steve Jobs or Apple, so Jobs owes Bell $$$$ on that philosophy
But, who owns language? Who gets the money, every time I type a word or speak a word? Some guy or group of guys 10,000+ years ago? And how much money do we owe them over the course of hundreds of billions of people speaking spoken language during all that time?
How do you apply ownership to what is, essentially, energy?
As I tried to say to Bonnie....who invented language, and how much does humanity owe him/them over the course of tens of thousands of years and billions of people?
If you were a writer, or some type of professional artist I dare say you would think differently, but you are not, and will likely never be. Having ideas and work that might be deemed desirable to be claimed by others as their own should not be a prerequisite for understanding the basics of plagiarism, just as one should not need to be a victim of crime to understand that it is wrong to commit a crime. Is the concept too farfetched and abstract for you? When you attended school how did your concept of plagiarism fly with your teachers?
When I was in school, I was too busy trying to figure out WHAT I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say it to care whether someone had said it before or put their personal stamp of ownership on it. I simply do not understand how one can put a stamp of ownership on energy that is language
sorry, my head is spinning too much trying to figure all this stuff out to notice when someone is joking or being serious. Either my thoughts are going over everyone else's head, or their thoughts are going over mine....
WHO OWNS LANGUAGE AND HOW MUCH DOES HUMANITY OWE THEM??
When someone who rejects plagairism can answer that, then we have an argument
Yes, you're right, of course...call me a masochist, I still feel the need to figure out people's motivations for thinking and believing the way they do....
It comes down to imagination being the key to everything that we've ever created.
Cars...originally imaginary objects...existing only in someone's head.
Bringing said things into existence generates cash for someone.
Cash is also imaginary. It is an idea that represents the exchange of imaginary time/energy.
The things cash buys...like cars...originally imaginary...except for things that were not created...
Like food....but then again the idea of harvesting food en mass, then transporting them in imaginary trucks, to sit in imaginary food stores...to be bought with imaginary credit cards...you get the idea.
All these ideas...moving around and existing because someone implemented them.
And the folks who get paid? Those who either invented them or capitalized on the invention.
And capitalisim as well, is imaginary, of course.
The idea here (and steal this if you will) is that the entire system from beginning to end is the transfer of said energy..imaginary energy...and the end state of wealth or poverty.
But the value we attach to our ideas...profitable or not..is also imaginary.
And if we imagine it to have importance or uniqueness, then it is important to honor that imagining.
Because as we all know, fucking with people's imaginary things can get you killed.
Just ask anyone who's drawn a cartoon of Muhammed.
That's why people feel passionatly about their ideas. Ideas can either save or destroy the world...(nukes)....or they can just make you feel good...(hey let's smoke that weird weed!)
In the final analysis...if enough people imagine that what other people imagine is the property of the imagineer....then it is real enough to take seriously....
Unless, like John Lennon and his commie friends...we imagine a different world.
I guess I just live in a different world, where I aknowledge that everything is imaginary, and that, on a quantum level, nothing exists, so what are we exchanging? We're exchanging nothing, or something imaginary for something imaginary because it's all invented and nothing, not even the sub atomic particles we are made of really has any meaning unless we apply meaning to it. Money is paper. Paper is wood and cloth, wood and cloth are cellular structures that have as much space between the particles as the stars have between them (as Spock once poointed out I believe). So, the whole concept of ownership, of possession is kind of irrelevant if nothing exists
Its so upsetting because too many people put too much value on things that are, really, imaginary, or are, at the very least, little more than energy, with no psysical substance. When we sell something, all we're really selling is paper with ink on it...that's it...we are the ones who apply meaning to the patterns of ink that we place on the page, which don't really exist (as per my answer to Andy re quantum particle physics)
Just wait til they find out how irrelevant Stephen Hawking really is in the big picture of things?? Hell, Hawking has started to make people question Einstein...so we got a LONG way to go
There's some kind of cosmic irony in that... and no it matters not a whit what Wiki has in it's TOS/U. Just more words that sound good.
"sigh"..
Studman *I* understand (and agree with you) what you're driving at with the 'who owns language/words' thing, but it's unanswerable and thus unpalatable. Andy has in a sideways manner hit on the root of this whole problem - capitalism would cease to exist without copy rights ;). And Gods forbid the capital of capitalism ever come to such a pass...
I guess it's just a matter of giving credit where credit is due. If we're going to be TRUE capitalists, then we need to give everyone their due benefit from what they invented...Which, in the case I mentioned above, means, not only do we give cavemen hundreds of gazillions of dollars for inventing language thousands of years ago, let's give Alexander Graham Bell royalties for inventing the phone every time Steve Jobs invents a new gadget.
If they can make you pay copyright in music, they should do it in technology, and if patents do exist, they should not have an expiration date, so that the original inventor receives royalties until the end of time (or Capitalism)
Anytthing else is NOT true Capitalism, and the Capitalist Whores have no room to talk IMHO
Irrelevant, schmevelent...la la la...happy day. xoxoxox
Whatever toxic-cosmic gases you're huffing tonight, I want some!! LOL
Isn't E=MC2 basic matter/energy conversion?
The issue I have is that we've yet to come up with a universal definition of what constitutes plagairism. Far as I'm concerned, every time we sing the National Anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance, somebody should get paid, because that is plagairism
Here's the thing....the Webster's dictionary defines plagairism as "Misappropriation of the works of another", that means, as far as I'm concerned, every written and spoken language, every word, every letter is plagairized from someone...back for 10's of thousands of years....where and when (why and how for that matter) do we make exceptions or rules about what is or isn't plagairism? We can't...it either ALL is, or none of it is..and if it all is, there are a hell of a lot of cavemen waiting for their royalty checks for inventing language!!!
LOL When you said "the fabric of our lives", my first thought was cotton, then I junped to polyester, and when you combine polyester and cotton in mymind, you lead to Leviticus, and we know where that leads LOL
Yes, I'm sick and twisted....LOL
Gimme a break.
I know information wants to be free, etc. But .....
A little common sense would go a long way.
Not cool.
Don't toy with those tortured souls.
Not cool.
To your question: WHO OWNS LANGUAGE AND HOW MUCH DOES HUMANITY OWE THEM??
The answer is that language per se is in the public domain. And so is any written piece of language, after a certain number of years. And so is any invention, after a certain number of years. Once in the public domain, things can be used freely, because no one owns them any longer.
Until that point, they are protected by patent and copyright law. During that period of protection, questions of plagiarism can be settled in or out of court, because they are a legal matter. After that period, they become merely an ethical matter.
At their best, these laws protect young or vulnerable artists, and give them recourse to bring down bigger and more powerful interests when they steal. I say, at their best, because of course the laws can be corrupted. Any argument you make about corruption, I will likely agree with you.
I deeply believe in laws that will protect our Joni Mitchells, our J.K.Rowlings, our Isaac Asimovs, so that their ownership has to be recognized by huge corporate interests that could, at the beginning of these people's careers, steal everything and walk away. If anything keeps these corporate interests remotely honest, it is the fear of being found out, and gutted by the full force of the law.
Our Joni Mitchells and J.K.Rowlings and Isaac Asimovs will provide far less enrichment to our lives, if they have to keep their day jobs, because they can't own their work.
That said linux vs Windows. who gives better service?
(Bear in mind I'm typing this on a windows machine that I keep tuned by using Ubuntu and Google.) (The windows came with the machine, otherwise I'd just use the Ubuntu.)
I'd say that the words of a poem or an essay inter-react and blur as well, and it's that which gives each work a flavour - an author, if you like.
I don't see how a separate case can be made, really. In the end, someone laboured to assemble the elements in just such a way. It's not the elements, it's the way they're assembled, isn't it.
You are strong advocate of child abuse and I understand your intensity on the issue due to your own experience. Folks that are verbally abused can also suffer some of the same consequences as those that are physically abused. Related health issues are not uncommon among those that are verbally abused and I have no question that you are aware of this.
Had this been an issue based on plagiarism itself and had been discussed in a rational and adult like manner, one which I am guilty of not doing with my own quick and non thought out responses, perhaps we'd better understand and recognize that all views are not the same. And all of that is ok.
Bonnie, I would like to speak to you alone here. For some reason when I first arrived on OS every effort was made by you in emails to let me know who the liars and cheats were on OS and it wasn't this one person alone that you had spoken of. There were many and sadly some have supported you here. This was prior to the incident that is continually being beaten here. An email from you specifically stated that when the plagiarism posts began to arise in here on OS that it was not about plagiarism alone that the blogger was being called on. From your emails to me you preceded to let me know he as a liar, a cheat and well known for being those things across OS. What was my response to you? That your concerns were not mine. That I was capable of making my own decisions without your help. Yet, for whatever the reason, you continued to try to convince me
Please consider what you are doing. Consider the fact that your counteracting all that you stand for in your quest to obliterate the physical abuser offline and apply verbal abuse to this very same quest. Be the person you stand for offline. Your cause is strong and well warranted Bonnie. Why would you continually do something that has the same potential to physically harm someone else here that coincides with the very abuse you are working so hard to fight against offline. It saddens me to think that those we feel are standing up for the rights of the abused are, in essence, contributing to a likened form of the same here.
Why not do what you do best and continue to fight for the rights of the abused be it physical or verbal. It's a cause that is needed to be addressed in a strong fashion and one that you have taken to you heart to do. Can you not do the same for others? I truly think you can.
Done.
I have stayed out of this whole plagiarism thing because, in my opinion, both sides have been unpleasant and shrill and the issue has been confused. This post--respectfully, Stud--just adds to the confusion.
It's not about words or who owns words in what order. It's not about who owns "Sale Ends Saturday." It's about work.
I am a professional writer. I've been a professional writer all my adult life. I work my ass off at my writing, every day. I can't do anything else.
If you want to share my work with others, I'm okay with that--truly. I believe that, in the Internet Age, new rules apply to art and business and everything. I might even want you to rebroadcast my work so more people are exposed to it. As long as you tell people you got it from me, pass it along.
If you steal my work and say it's your own, fuck you. Period. I'm not stealing the ditches you dig or the widget you sell or whatever the fuck you do. Do not steal my work.
It's not about words. There's a big goddamn dictionary, and you can use all of 'em, however you want. Sometimes, we'll have the same ideas and our actual words will be the same. (True story: once I wrote a song with two of the same lines as a Neil Young song. I'd never heard it, because it hadn't been released--or written, as far as I know--when I wrote my song. Does that make Neil Young a plagiarist? Hardly.)
Just don't steal my work.
I'd like to agree or disagree with you, but I have no idea what you're trying to say.
However, you say it so emphatically! ...So there's that...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/21mash.html
Kudos to Andy Heizeler, Divorce Bard, and Frank Indiana for clearly articulating the VALUE of the non-physical things one creates. Stud, it's true no one owns words, but people do own the combination of words in different and spectacular ways. Sometimes I'll read a passage in a book that's so gorgeously put together, or conveys a message in a way that I never would have thought of, I think, "God, I wish I had written that!" The fact is I DIDN'T write it. For me to go around using it as my own is pure and simple theft.
See what you think about these videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKVCov-XFXw
Is this plagiarism? The video clearly takes Picasso's work and distorts it into a new view of the subject. I would argue that it is not stealing because it clearly is cited as Picasso's work. But what a clever way of re-seeing it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drJL-pRTko&feature=related
Here's where things get tricky. I love this video, but at the end I have to question the artist's integrity somewhat. My students and I talked at length about the intellectual property issues here. Ortiz credits Duran Duran et. al. for the music, but claims that everything else is his ("All Elements by Marcello R. Ortiz"). Here's my big question. Being an art history minor from way back and an art whore currently, I recognized the backgrounds used in the film. My students, however, did not. One girl in three classes recognized the Dali, three kids overall knew the Van Gogh, and one boy knew the Escher was "that guy who does the illusions" but couldn't come up with the name. The rest of the 75 or so students thought the backgrounds were made by Ortiz, and his claim in the so-called Credits reinforced that. Now, I realize that these works of art have been in the public domain for a long time, and that as educated people we should be able to recognize them. But what about the people who eschew art, who don't take Art Appreciation in high school (if high schools even choose to afford art teachers anymore)? They'll go through life seeing those images, probably, at other points and think, "Oh, that's by that video guy, Ortiz!" Simply crediting the artists would have allowed for that communal knowledge to continue through coming generations.
I know I'm getting a bit dramatic here, but how hard is is to cite sources? Not hard at all.
I have no clue what the OS issue is about, but this issue in the outside world is very real and important.
Great way to get my brain spazzing this morning!
[1] Richard Stallman, founding the free software movement back in 1983 or so, had put a great deal of thought into this problem. The General Public License that he and Eben Moglen came up with used the copyright laws themselves to guarantee perpetual freedom for any software distributed under that license. And over the past decade or so, people in other fields have adapted the GPL to preserve the same freedoms in other fields of activity: writing, music, and so on.
[2] The critical threshold, in these discussions, has to do with tangibility and/or uniqueness, I think. The effective unit of human communication is not the isolated word, but the sentence, or paragraph, oration, sermon, novel. No single word is unique (a word can't have a meaning until it occurs more than once), and therefore no one can assert any proprietary rights over a single word. A novel or editorial is either a unique sequence of words, or a duplicate; if it's unique, its originator has a copyright, and if it's a duplicate, then it's a plagiarism.
But I have a feeling you meant to raise a more fundamental question than the legal one. Not a practical one, but a philosophical one.
Several WEEKS...yes, folks, WEEKS ago, Scanner took some words from the Public Domain source, wikipedia, which damn near every student and writer I know of has plagairized at one point or another. Now, if Wikipedia wants to take legal action against Scanner, and the other I suspect MILLIONS of people who plagairize from their site, that is THEIR business. It is no one else's business where someone gets their information, unless it is yours.
Maybe I'm the only one who considers the entire internet, essentially public domain, because I can't see how it's possible for anyone to make sure that no one of the millions of people who visit their site will steal their information.
essentially, stop defending a 3rd party FOR THEM, on their behalf....Just like I don't like it when people get offended for a 3rd party...same principle...if someone attacks you, defend yourself, if someone attacks someone else, stay out of it unless you're asked to get involved,n or the attak affects you.
And, in this case, yes, the attack on Scanner did affect me, because I see the same people attacking different people for the same reason, and giving other people a pass.
You wanna know the truth, I plagairize every damn post here. I use Google Images. There isn't a photo on this blog that I took myself. Therefore, I suppose, according to Bonnie and others, I should be jailed or fined....
and if someone comes after me, I will remove the images, and/or pay a fine. IF the photographer asks...otherwise, it's no one's business but mine and the photographer.
Period
End of story
People that post here and other blog spots are not doing it for money, they do it for fun. But I do know there are some writers on here that are practicing.
I don't think it's the words or ideas that are being protected. I think it's the work that's being protected. I heard it can take months to write a novel. Imagine taking a novel to an editor that took 3 months to write, he tells you it's crap and sends you on your way, a few months later you pick up a book from the best seller list and it's your story, word for word.
You can call theft anything you want, but it's still theft.
Sorry Stud, for hijacking your post.