Are literary works of art always original? It seems that it is possible to believe that this is not the case. For example, is Nabokov's Lolita about the same Lolita as Heinz von Lichberg wrote about before hand? Bob Dylan is also known for borrowing from other art forms for his songwriting. This is true of most art forms. Is it considered plagiarism? The author posits that all forms of art today would not exist (especially considering cartoons) if “borrowing” wasn’t involved. We go on to be told that these cartoons, The Simpsons for example, would not be in existence if the creators did not borrow from The Honeymooners.
The author talks about something called public commons, where something is owned by everyone. This would be considered something like the air we breathe, or the roads we drive on. He also says that as copyright is concerned, there should be freedom to expand upon ideas to create new art. As said above, cartoons from earlier television shows or novels or such.
The idea of public commons also related to the concept of unknown public knowledge. The idea that the knowledge exists in some form among people collectively but that it is currently not shared. This leads to questions about whether originality is possible and the prospects of surveying public knowledge.
ReplyDeleteCaitlyn: Is he arguing that this is a new phenomenon or always the case? I mean: are artworks suddenly unoriginal, or have people always borrowed in this way?
ReplyDeleteAlso, what do you think? Is he right? If so, does this change how you think about expression and creativity?
Take the public commons. Would this be positive situation? Perhaps collective knowledge is better and more powerful than individual knowledge?
As ideal as it would be to allow literary ideas to fall into public domain, people need to be rewarded for their contributions to society, and while imitation is the finest form of flattery, it doesn't pay the bills.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with you--recycling ideas is creativity at its finest, and there should be a good method for doing that without plagiarism.
I do not believe that all literary works of art are original. Some writers pride themselves in recreating the style and word usage of specific authors. But the articles we read today make me wonder if satirical authors are looked at differently today than they used to be, based on topics like public commons and plagiarism. Even in works where authors use items brought about by others, they are trying to bring originality into the genre; they are doing it for some reason. This makes me want to go read public commons licenses to find out what is considered as such.
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