I guess it's okay to plagiarize...

[radbooks]

You can still win awards for it and everything... even when the judges know the material was plagiarized!!  I read today in the NY Times that a 17 year old girl from Germany, who has been widely praised for her work, was discovered to have plagiarized much of her recent book.  Here is part of her response:

Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for

Comments

[peredhellover]

Yeah, that really is low, isn’t it? In this day and age it seems that young authors (and the general public) sadly have little conception as to what constitutes original writing and what does not.

[radbooks]

It's just the attitude of the people that are so annoying. 'I'll just take whatever I want and say it's mine'. It's unbelievable and there don't seem to be any real consequences - at least not yet.

[dawtheminstrel]

Good lord. The writer's arrogance is almost as annoying as her stealing.

[radbooks]

I know! And there doesn't seem to be any real consequences for what she's done, so what's to stop others from doing the same?

[radbooks]

I do remember that lady who plagiarized for that book... it's all so sad because, I think, it ends up hurting new authors trying to break into the business because it makes them more suspect. I don't know if that's true, but I would think that publishers would be more wary about them wondering if their work was real. I remember a few years ago when someone wrote an 'autobiography' that turned out to be all a lie and it had been one of Oprah's book club books so there was a big stink about it.

It is true that there is 'nothing new under the sun' and so we all take from everywhere in a sense, but I think that most adults realize that doesn't mean that we plagiarize but that we take things from here and there and mix it together and come up with something new and completely our own.

[lady_branwyn]

Plagiarism is OK? Not in my book. :D
I wonder how that literary critic would feel if someone borrowed one of his essays without giving him credit?

[radbooks]

I'm sure the critic would have a fit if it happened to him!! Here I'm trying to teach my 4th and 5th graders about the evils of plagiarism and now stuff like this happens... at least they'll know it's wrong. They'll do what they want when they get in middle and high school, but at least they'll know what's right or wrong. :)

[rakshathedemon]

Utterly tacky; especially since the girl wasn't kicked out of the contest after her plagiarism was discovered.

While it is true, to a certain extent, that few things are completely original, it's one thing to recycle a plot or a literary theme or present a classic character in an updated way (say if someone uses the plot of Othello and sets it in 1980's Hollywood with the Othello character as a famous director or actor) and another thing entirely to lift a whole page of someone else's work and change a word or two.