Keith Stanger sent me this link this evening:
From Salon.com, “Plagiarism: The next generation.” Here’s a quote from the beginning:
Recent plagiarism accusations against the 17-year-old author of a German novel feel like déjà vu all over again, with one key distinction: Helene Hegemann, who wrote the best-selling tale of drugging and clubbing, “Axolotl Roadkill,” is defending the practice, telling one German newspaper, “I myself don’t feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me.”
That fine line between “remixing” and “stealing,” I suppose….
Wow. Very interesting! When we first began to discuss the whole idea of plagiarism, I had no idea that so many writers ‘borrowed’so much stuff and found it to be ok. When you think about it, though, there are so many works in print and there are only so many plots, there are bound to be repetitions, and piling onto old plots.
Definitely food for thought!
Intertextual art…
Heggeman’s afraid of the copyright police– didn’t mention her borrowing from the beginning so not it is considered stealing. These lines are ridiculously drawn. Ayyaya shame shame but I understand that she is only 17. Plus, her parents are avante garde.
Drugs, alcohol, gambling, anarchy are deeply embedded in avante garde literature and art.
Hmm… Dostoyevsky.
It’s difficult to make a judgement here, since we have to pretty much base it on Miller’s presentation of the situation… unless you read German, which I don’t. But assuming that Miller’s representation is fair, I think the biggest problem is simply that Hegg didn’t say from the beginning that she had borrowed excerpts from Airen. It is near impossible to write a piece of fiction about drug culture in a completely original way (though I do think the original/authentic is a nice way to think about it). But actually copying excerpts is definately wrong w/o citing ur source. Making allusions to other works would be understandable… I mean, how do you write a “drug culture” story w/o making allusions, even inadvertantly, to works from people like Denis Johnson, Huber Selby or Irvine Welsh. Even celebrated works like Ulysses are full of allusions to other works. But there’s a big difference between alluding to something and outright copying. Personally, being that she is 17, I put more blame on her publisher than her. But it’s definately difficult for me to judge her for it, since the details seem a little sketchy in both of the articles. I quite enjoy remixes… and I think it’s a valuable activity for all writers to play with. But if you’re going to publish a remix, you should certainly make it clear.
I do agree with you, Dave, we do only have a piece of the information-so making a judgement call is dependent on what we believe to be true. But, it would seem if there is a lawsuit (maybe other cultures aren’t so lawsuit happy as we are) that the main liability would fall to the publisher.
All this possibly could have been prevented if she would have attributed something in the beginning. I agree with Dave, it’s hard to make a judgement call based on Miller’s view point, Until some laws are made more clear and a definite position is taken I think we will hear tales of woe like this for a while. Here is a way for more jobs…cyber police. lol