The link is to a short article about a 17 author in Germany who shot to fame with her debut novel. The twist? It was recently uncovered that she had copied, verbatim, passages from writings by other authors without giving them credit.
"Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for not being more open about her sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new. 'There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,' said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke."
Even though copyright law was not discussed in the article, I thought the author's sentiments towards "mixing" literature were analogous to the rationales offered for allowing musicians (like Girl Talk) to create musical mash-ups--that mixing new and old material is simply accepted practice in our current generation. But I wonder if mixing literature (not just general ideas but exact sentences) can be compared to mixing music. I feel that while a tune will most likely sound like the original recording no matter how it's augmented, different words can be chosen to express the same idea in a piece of writing. Perhaps if this were couched in copyright fair use terms and especially in considering the "transformation" factor, it would seem (to me) that fair use would probably hold up better for creating musical mash-ups than for mixing literature (with verbatim language).
1 comment:
I can't wait for the first mash-up TV station. All mash-ups all day. Old and new series, episodes, music videos, newscasts,movies(preferably those that have yet to be released), reality show clips, etc. all mashed-up together into a gimmicky, though hardly novel, whole. It wouldn't be that hard would it???? Imagine the tired overused plots of most sitcoms. Simply cut and paste different characters from different series to fill the roles (mom(i.e. marge simpson/peg bundy/roseanne), , crazy neighbor(i.e. Kramer/cleveland/any of the neighbors from three's company), sexpot daughter/co-worker, etc.). Maybe we'll win an Emmy. Maybe we'll get sued. I wonder if actors will end up like the disenfranchised musicians described yesterday in class. Will cheap mash ups of network tv and movies become the ubiquitous iceberg lettuce we're left with?
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