IJ Reilly said:
Have you ever been plagiarized? I have. Trust me, it's difficult to find any good in it, if it happens to you.
I have -- today, actually! A fellow teacher was describing a unit plan to a local journalist, and he passed off several of "his" handouts and lessons as "his" own even though they were mine. Yet my reaction is really ... meh.
I've also had portions of poems I've published appropriated and used by others ... but my attitude remains ... meh.
Part of it, I think, is that once I've published something (in a mag or to a friend -- once I've let it go), I feel like it's really not mine anymore. I'm choosing to give it to others for a reason. In part I'm saying "Once I've let it go, how could I claim it's mine?" while also saying "intellectual property doesn't
exist if I'm not forced to give the doc. away -- and did I ever own this poem, anyway?" Yes, my tongue is planted partially firmly in the cheek of my instinct. And yes there are plenty of situations where one is compelled to give away proprietary work, and that changes the rules of the game so long as we're capitalists.
Which is why I understand why you, or others, wouldn't appreciate being plagiarized, especially if there are ... fiduciary consequences. Or if you don't like others taking credit for your hard work.
For the record, I do condemn
her plagiarism -- stealing other people's crap work and passing it off as your own crap work is wrong in at least two ways. Three if you count the perpetuation of crap. Four if you want 17 year olds to learn how to plagiarize
properly.
But in condeming her plagiarism, I maintain that plagiarism simultaneously doesn't exist and is absolutely necessary. I never would have learned to write a poem if I hadn't ripped off Wallace Stevens a thousand times (and published some of those poems). Did I plagiarize Stevens? Not exactly. But I stole the way he structured texts, the way he structured lines, the way he worked images with and against sound, the way he used color ...
Such that: To write is to steal and I'm a proud thief.
And, such that: In plagiarizing this other writer, the 17 year old (who I condemn!) was engaging in
imitation -- the way most good writers learn to write (writers, just like everybody else, must be dependent before they can be independent).