Re: [h2o-discuss] Plagiarism?

[Eric Eldred <eldred@mediaone.net>]

"Tuyet A. Ngoc Tran" wrote:
> 
> I can only respond to one aspect of this discussion
> insofar as the comment "artists plagiarizing their own
> works" which presented a peculiar oxymoron, to say the
> least. I can't write authoritatively on artworks but,
> I can respond as a composer and multimedia artist.
> Countless composers over several centuries dating back
> to Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart,
> Beethoven, to Sergei Prokofieff,Edward Elgar,J.
> Sibelius to American composers Aaron Copland, Roy
> Harris, Steve Reich, and most prominently, John Adams
> to name just a few examples. If you were to have a
> first-hand reading and analysis of most of these
> composers' famous works over time, inevitably there is
> a consistent similarity of a few musical ideas and/or
> style that would link to individual composer's
> previous works.
>...

My provocative comments were not designed to provide
a definitive answer to the plagiarism question.  In
fact, I couldn't agree more with Tuyet.

> I sincerely hope that no one contemplates on promoting
> the plagirism notion beyond this forum. It is not
> helpful to many of us who are starting out as
> contemporary classical music composers. This notion
> can become another societal deterrent to natural
> process of creativity due to some misconceptions
> spearheaded by the powers-that-be. That would be
> unfortunate, indeed.

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be have already
taken this to court.  I now remember that a Creedence
Clearwater musician was charged with copyright
infringement.  He had written a song which was sold
to someone else--that corporation later sued him
for writing a song that was similar to the first.
I don't have access to legal research, but I do
believe that the first copyright owner won.

Of course, this is not plagiarism, but copyright
infringement that is in question.  But it does
point to the general confusion between the two,
and the need to keep them separate.

Another case (again, not plagiarism per se) is
that of Petr Taborsky.  Seth Shulman ("Owning
the Future," Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999,
ISBN 0-395-84175-5--a work that should be required
reading for discussants in this group) details
how Taborsky was convicted of stealing his own
research.  The University of South Florida had
an arrangement for patents with a private
corporation financing research; this graduate
student had his own ideas about solving the
problem but wasn't allowed to "own" his own
professional ideas.  In fact, he served time
on a chain gang in Florida for the offense
of taking home his own lab notebooks to read.

I'll try to get the discussion back on track.
I think the university and scholarly communities
already have enough ways to protect against
plagiarism, without taking scholars to court
for copyright infringement.

So I'll say again that we are talking here about
control of intellectual property.  Whether or
not the control leads to financial gain can
often be as irrelevant as whether or not it
makes sense to say the copyright infringement was
an act of plagiarism.

And I'll remind the discussers that in the
May 20th session, several professors pointed
out that often the question of who owned 
information hinged on whether or not the
university resources were used to produce
the creative effort.  A book that was written
on sabbatical in Santorini might not use
those resources and so if published on the
Internet might not fall under any contracts
with the University.  

On the other hand, an undergraduate who 
makes heavy use of university computer 
equipment to produce a BASIC interpreter
that he does not share with the university
community, but instead plans to copyright
and sell at a profit elsewhere, may fall
under rules set by the university for
use of its property--the university might
claim some ownership rights (billg--are
you reading this--what really happened
when you left Harvard?)

-- 
"Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
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