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| Creating Hands, Sarah Myers |
THE
ETHICS OF PLAGIARISM
The
history of human creative effort is that of humanity itself; and any
discussion of the matter of authorship, originality and plagiarism
must understand that we are not looking at a mere two hundred year
question of copyright and commercial uses. It is fortunate, with so
much time to account for, that the three major drives of the creative
human, sharing his work with a larger public, are the same now as
they always have been. At this moment I am not discussing the
elemental drive to create, or the basic desire of man to provide for
his own individual needs and that of his family. I am speaking of
those goals which induce him to share what he has made with a larger
group of people not directly tied to him by personal interest.
The
three incentives are these - money/wealth, name/recognition, and the
attempt to build for a higher purpose. Not rightly placed in that
order, from an ethical standpoint, but in our familiarity. To each
one of these drives could be appended an image: the starving composer
dashing off a great piece of music to buy food for the table; the
artist, finishing his work and signing it proudly with his name; a
craftsman anonymously carving angels on a cathedral with the
conviction that he is bringing glory to God and that heaven will
reward him. Whether or not any of these pictures is good or bad, sad
or happy, is not the question; what they represent is an eternal
reality.
We
are so familiar with the first drive, that of obtaining money or
wealth, that it is on this basis that most of copyright and legal
rights of authorship are based. This leads to great disproportion in
understanding the creative world - but cannot completely be decried
in the sense that it was an effort to prevent the starving composer
(for instance) from starving. And most members of the First World
are very clear that if the inventor, or artist, or author, made
something to bring himself a living, to steal his ability to make
that living - by plagiarizing or stealing his work or his credit for
the work - is a crime. Copyright laws were enacted for just this
reason. It is on this basis, and no other, that any current legal
argument over creative rights are based.
But
this leaves out - and in our current age, tends to deny or denigrate
- the other two great incentives that make people build a culture
with all the skill at their command. And gross advantage is being
taken of this "overlooking". "Because," say the
plagiarists, "if the creator couldn't get any money out of his
creation, his creation belongs to those who can!" And the
credit, the name/recognition, the control of the work, goes to those
who have an idea for cashing out on it. This is not only unethical -
it is a sordid, stinking wrong. Because there are still those two
other motives, in their own way, perhaps, better and certainly more
remaining motives, for sharing one's work with others.
The
second is that of name/recognition. By this, I do not for a moment
mean celebrity. Celebrity is actually a position of very temporary
power in a basically hostile environment, it is artificial and has
nothing to do with creativity. I am talking of something quite
different. I am speaking of a very general but lasting form of human
gratitude, being distinctly attached to a name and to a man. It is
our thankfulness to Galileo for his new conception of the world; to
Da Vinci for his paintings, to the Wright brothers for the conquest
of the air, to Beethoven for the Ninth Symphony, to Rumi for his
poems. We not only know the name, we take care to preserve and
revere the name. Many, many creators have worked for this memory,
for this gratitude, and some almost solely for this, with little or
no monetary reward accompanying. In fact, this due of name and
recognition is often the only reward worth the exhausting effort of
original creation. This is something almost impossible to explain to
the non-creative: both the unusual amount of mental travail that
goes into original creation, and the fact that your name being on it
- and remaining on it, because of men acknowledging the benefit you
have given them - can be a thorough reward for the effort. Good
indeed that it's so - considering that we have no other way to now
pay Homer for his ballads, or even the Wrights for giving us wings.
And the fact remains that Galileo's physical reward for his work was
imprisonment; Mozart died without enough money to provide for a
proper tomb, although he had just written one of the greatest
requiems in history for an importunate nobleman; the Wright brothers'
main patent had only to do with ways to flex the airplane's wings, a
development that was quickly outmoded; and there is a rumour that the
painting of the Mona Lisa remained with Leonardo because it was
refused by the client who commissioned it.
To
take this reward of name and recognition away from the creator can be
more devastating than merely taking away whatever monetary result he
might obtain from his work. Few true originators can easily bear the
idea of being a Cyrano - the poet who allows his best poems to be
ascribed to someone else. It is usually only in the face of
existential difficulty, maintaining your own life or that of those
you love, that you could easily stomach seeing another individual's
name across your original work. But because the current
infrastructure is based solely on monetary outcome, and laid out by
non-creators, this instinct is often looked down upon as a ridiculous
possessiveness. Why, they say, cling to anything that cannot bring
you money?
There
is the third drive - that of building something for a higher purpose.
It is because of this that anonymity is often accepted among
creators. The greater structure of benefit and usefulness is enough
reward for its authors. This was not so common in ancient times as
it was, for instance, in the Middle Ages, when men working on church
commissions often hoped for reward from God; it has been common also
in the East. But it is by no means solely restricted to the service
of religion. Men simply working to benefit humanity by building some
large mental, social or physical structure have also laid aside their
claims to wealth or direct recognition. They feel they are labouring
to design a better, more fit and more inspiring world, and that this
result is all that matters . Some have worked for the glory even of
oppressive regimes or comparatively worthless infrastructures, but it
is to be hoped that this was under the deception that they were, in
fact, building something of usefulness and benefit for all. In any
case, this one drive, in its most unadulterated form, is much more of
a factor now than it was two hundred or three hundred years ago -
perhaps than it has been since the Medieval Era - and we must look at
its effects in its contemporary form.
Some
of our best creators and inventors in the current age are working on
beneficial structures, and for greater ease and reach (as well as in
the goodness of their motives) are laying aside financial reward and
recognition of authorship. Into their new structure for the world
they are pouring content - instructional, functional, educational,
inspirational - a great sweeping cataract of mental, creative, and
even physical material. But it is going into their new structure,
to build and to fill it. It is absolutely necessary to recognize
that, although all this material is being contributed for an
altruistic purpose, it is being contributed for a purpose. It is not
creative work launched absent-mindedly into the void, without
expectation of return or result. And no creator should be expected
to thus give. Definite results are being expected from this flood of
effort, just as a cathedral and the glory of the Catholic church was
expected from the craftsmen labouring on a stained-glass window.
This is far from attributing underhanded motives to these
originators; there is no use in sitting out in the middle of a field
making bricks without any purpose for the effort. For everyone's
benefit, those bricks must go into constructing a weather-proof
house, or a library, or a bridge, or a dam-wall. The bricks need not
be signed; and if the result is good enough, payment may come not in
the form of money but in the form of being able to use a library or
bridge or being protected by a dam. And to the best minds, being
able to see that the village is now protected from floodwater or is
provided with a library, is a satisfactory reward for the effort.
This
too, however, has been misunderstood and taken advantage of. Since
so many top creators are working "for free" and without
attribution, there are individuals and institutions who choose to
ignore that the originators are busily building a larger structure
with their work. Instead, these plagiarizing entities reason from
the new flood of anonymous creative activity that all creative labour
should now be without monetary reward or recognition of authorship,
that it can be relegated to any use and used for any advantage to
those who grab it. They even go so far as to claim that the
material is worthless until
it is stolen. Under this excuse parts, or even whole bodies of
creative work, are taken without remuneration to the originators,
without correct attribution, and without respect to the maker's
original intent. The creations are used to build different, and much
less beneficial structures, to bring credibility or popularity to
other names, to amass wealth to the appropriators. This indeed is
theft.
So
what is plagiarism? What is theft? At the very least:
If
the original work was created by its author to bring him money, it is
a crime to preempt his ability to effectively use it so - a crime to
take it over in order to bring wealth to someone else who did not
originate it.
If
the original creation was made by its author to bring him a name and
recognition, it is plagiarism to take away that type of credit and
lay it on someone else who did not originate the work.
If
the original work was created by its author to build up some greater
structure, it is plagiarism to take it and subvert its use to some
other goal.
As
narrow and restricted as these definitions are, they would cut
nine-tenths of current idea-fraud; an area where there is at present
no recourse and very little understanding or formulation. Respect
must be given to those who create to gain the friendship and goodwill
of humanity, to create a name. Value must be acknowledged in the
work of those who give their efforts to build and benefit their kind.
In such an era as we are entering now, it is not legal or
governmental protection that is asked for. It is a culture and an
accepted code that will give the creator liberty and the assurance to
create; to share what he has among his fellow men, freely, readily,
and with joy, for the reward that is his chosen due.
