Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Lethem...1st time
I'm going to be completely honest and I just skimmed this article. He pretty much says plagiarism is everywhere and it's a natural part of life. Everyone does it not just students. Artists, musicians, athletes. Other people's ideas are floating around everywhere and if other people like them, the just pick them up. A good example of a musician plagiarizing would be Kid Rock in his song All Summer Long http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_QSFtoMOEQ. The background music he uses is from the song Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MRu8N2K0NY Go listen. Then he more obviously took lines from the chorus of Lynard Skynard's classic Sweet Home Alabama (There is no Youtube link for this song if you don't know it then you're sheltered). Is this plagiarism? I personally think the end result of this completely random combination came out awesome. It's a very catchy song. I think Lethem is advocating plagiarism. I feel like everything is technically plagiarism anyway, how could you not advocate it. One of my professors did a whole lesson on what plagiarism is and what you can and cannot do. I raised my hand and asked "So what ISN'T plagiarism?" It didn't necessarily go over well but that's a different story for a different blog.
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I don't think Lethem is necessarily advocating plagiarism, because to me plagiarism has this negative connotation of passing someone else's work off as your own to profit from it. I think Lethem just is trying to get people to acknowledge that everyone is influenced by everything and we shouldn't be too quick to judge artists that do borrow from someone else. The sharing of ideas, like covering/remixing songs, can create cool new versions of ideas which is something to celebrate. But the artists doing the remixing shouldn't just pass someone else's song off as their own original work without adding their own touch to it. To me the ecstasy of influence Lethem is talking about is the idea of everyone borrowing ideas and then making them their own.
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