Check Your Views On Plagiarism Again
This is not a small and simple post on a chapter of plagiarism 101 lesson that you missed out. Although the whole concept was first set to thought in my mind by Internet plagiarism, it turns out that plagiarism is an essential element of every human life. One of the building blocks of the human and society development. This post will challenge your perspectives on originality and creativity but will also force you to think over whether if every original and creative work of yours is nothing but a result of plagiarism.
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Firstly, What Is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism can be defined in simple terms as copying an another artist's work of art or his ideas and using it in our own work or passing it off as our own, in its entirety. (Please note that here I use 'art' to define a broad range of art forms and every work of creation, like writing, dancing, painting, poetry, theatre, design, innovations...and everything else that is tagged under art!). For example, assume you published your novel and I extract a couple of pages from it and paste it on my blog, then I am plagiarizing your content. How plagiarism differs from piracy, according to me is that, piracy is ripping off and distributing the piece of work in its entirety and on a much grander size. For example, let's say the same novel that you wrote is now being downloaded from torrents, word to word, as an e-book. Whereas plagiarism could be extracting few ideas from the original and then using it for my own work. Like stealing a tune from a song and creating my own song using the same tune in it.
The Anti-Plagiarism Concepts
Most artists wouldn't be very pleased if their work was copied, used or sold illegally and nor would the spectator be very happy if he realised that the art he considered a work of genius was directly copied from somewhere else. So not only were laws made for protecting the original work of the artists from plagiarists, anti-plagiarism concepts like originality, creativity and innovation gradually emerged in the spectators' minds when judging and feeling a work of art. How originality, creativity and innovation differ is that, originality is the ability to produce something original or to posses the quality of being original. Whereas creativity is the use of unusual imagination and bending common point of views and perceptions to create a work of art that is completely different or unusual or to connect different pieces of the same art is a way that no one ever thought of before. Whereas innovation consists of using originality and creativity to transform already existing ideas into something that is better and is of greater use to the users. Creativity is generally related with art and innovation with products and their designs.
I'm Talking About Really Broad Plagiarism Here, Almost Touching The Abstract
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Let's take this blog post that your reading now, as an example. The reason why I write this post is because I have "learnt" a language that was created by someone else. I have separated the post in different paragraphs, which too I learnt from "observing" other writers' work. There is nothing creative about the way I have designed the post either. I have used the template "pre-presented" to me by blogger. Blogging itself can be an idea "inspired by" novels and books which themselves could be "inspired from" the cave writings of the early Stone Age man. The early Stone Age man too was inspired by nature and he "recreated" the various aspects about nature and other humans, that caught his interest, on cave walls. And I could go on and on and on with tracing every single human action to an external source. But take a close look at the words in double quotes in this paragraph. Words like- learnt, observing, pre-presented, inspired from, inspired by, recreated...what are they? They are nothing but tools and methods of plagiarism.
Every single piece of art that you have seen and every single piece of music that you hear has been inspired and knowingly or unknowingly copied from thousands of different sources like your emotions, imaginations, life experiences, other art works, observing other artists, nature and so on. These emotions, imaginations, experiences too were based on external stimulus that you received your whole life. Every dance move you see too is copied or improvised. Every food recipe has its origin from your ancestors' food dishes. Everything is built from an external source without its permission or acknowledgement. In a slightly abstract way, isn't that what plagiarism is?
Originalists Vs Creatives
You are mistaken if you think that your own work is something original or creative. Every single work of art that exists today has been copied or in a rude choice of words has been plagiarized from an external source that you have no right over. The 'Originalits' plagiarize the external sources and create something so original that the world has never seen before. Whereas the 'Creatives' plagiarize different sources and connect the different aspects stolen from, each source, in an unusual and different way. Steve Jobs is considered one of the most creative and innovative leader in the field of technology but he too shares the exact same point of view on creativity.
"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things."
- Steve Jobs
Imagination, emotions, personality, instincts, views and opinions are considered to be the most unique, purest and un-plagiarized. But I am sorry to break to you that even the most purest, unique and dearest parts of your mind and personality have resulted because of the external influences and stimulus around you. You and every single of the minutest thing about you, is the by-product of the chain of external influences and stimulus you were exposed to.
Mark Twain on Plagiarism and Originality
"Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify...It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that."
- Mark Twain
Yet, Copyright Laws Are Necessary
It feels anti-climatic to talk about the essential need of copyright laws after presenting such an detailed explanation above about how originality and creativity are nothing but derivatives of plagiarism. But the truth is that, as a creator, even though I know the source of every work consists of stealing from a million external sources, I do not want my work to be stolen, reproduced by someone or pirated for free. Doesn't matter if my work is just a collection of words or just tunes I played on my guitar, I cannot afford it being plagiarized. The reason for which is that irrespective of everything else, I need to make money from my work. I need money to survive. I need money for the hard work I put in. Many argue that a true creator just wants exposure for his work instead of money, but I guess that is difficult to assimilate. If you won't make money from your work, you won't be able to have your daily bread to eat. Even if we assume we live in a hypothetical world without any money system in it, easy accessibility to plagiarism could mean increased duplicity and reduced creativity and originality, which would be even worse.
It Is The Detail That Separates
It Is The Detail That Separates
If there were no copyrights and laws to prevent plagiarism and privacy, then the majority of the geniuses' work would be copied. Someone would write a good novel and the whole world would have an access to copy it word by word and reproduce it. As a creator, I wouldn't want to be in the above position. Nor would you want someone ripping off the name, profit juice and hard work off the work you produced.
Even with copyright laws, you are still using the same concept of rectangular books, the same paging, the same method and style of displaying words and the same language being used since centuries now. But now the difference is that, the way the words are chosen, the style of writing and the ideas and plots expressed vary from person to person and that is much more reasonable.
A comparatively more recent and one which you can much easily relate to example would be the Apple Vs Samsung battle. In short, Apple won a legal battle against Samsung and Samsung had to pay heavily because Apple managed to prove that Samsungs phones had copied over or stolen some features of the Iphone patented by the Apple Corporation and used it on their own recent phone models. Now Apple wasn't the one who created cell phones in the first place (two minutes of research on Google shows that Motorola was the first company to create an hand-held phone back in 1973!) Anyways moving back to the topic, so yeah, Apple wasn't the one who created cell phones in the first place. The design of the Iphone was built by improvising and adding features to the first mobile phone. Now Apple did not own any rights to the original design of mobile phones. But no one sued Apple. The first guy who created a movie, couldn't sue others who eventually started making movies. Nor can the first website owner sue the rest of the Internet for stealing his idea. And the reason for which happens to be that
By details, I mean those minute and fine, micro-level characters and designs that anything possesses. Allocate some space of mind and time to my thought above, because it is one of the deepest insights I have had about life recently and let me know what you think about it and my other views about plagiarism from the post.
Even with copyright laws, you are still using the same concept of rectangular books, the same paging, the same method and style of displaying words and the same language being used since centuries now. But now the difference is that, the way the words are chosen, the style of writing and the ideas and plots expressed vary from person to person and that is much more reasonable.
A comparatively more recent and one which you can much easily relate to example would be the Apple Vs Samsung battle. In short, Apple won a legal battle against Samsung and Samsung had to pay heavily because Apple managed to prove that Samsungs phones had copied over or stolen some features of the Iphone patented by the Apple Corporation and used it on their own recent phone models. Now Apple wasn't the one who created cell phones in the first place (two minutes of research on Google shows that Motorola was the first company to create an hand-held phone back in 1973!) Anyways moving back to the topic, so yeah, Apple wasn't the one who created cell phones in the first place. The design of the Iphone was built by improvising and adding features to the first mobile phone. Now Apple did not own any rights to the original design of mobile phones. But no one sued Apple. The first guy who created a movie, couldn't sue others who eventually started making movies. Nor can the first website owner sue the rest of the Internet for stealing his idea. And the reason for which happens to be that
On a grander scale of things everything is the same. Every human is same and every piece of art is same. It is the detail that separates one from another.
-Myself (Ego Bloating...)
By details, I mean those minute and fine, micro-level characters and designs that anything possesses. Allocate some space of mind and time to my thought above, because it is one of the deepest insights I have had about life recently and let me know what you think about it and my other views about plagiarism from the post.