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RE: Nothing is Original - Plagiarism is not steemits greatest enemy
I internally struggle with this. I understand that the stories I tell seem uniquely mine, but after decades of reading, have I been influenced by my favorite authors, musicians, and philosophers? Copying and pasting (unless allowed by the original author) is frustrating to those of us generating original content if it earns big payoffs, outside of that it really does not bother me. Guess I am inconsistent.
I don't know if you watched the documentary but in part 3 or 4 he talks about how we are all inconsistent with this. We feel the need to protect our "intellectual property" for fear of losing to somebody else, yet everything we create has somewhere been created before. The documentary shows a lot of cases where people were sued over subconsciously using material that they were influenced by growing up... And they won the case! This is where the laws have been taken too far. It's a fascinating documentary I really hope people will watch it.
I have my YouTube going now, I am sure I will get to it soon. I vividly remember the George Harrison My Sweet Lord/He's So Fine case (George lost) and I think to many of us it was obvious that George subconsciously took the song. How does that compare to the Led Zeppelin (who have been found to liberally borrow multiple times) v. Spirit (Randy California's estate in reality) concerning their borrowing from a Spirit song for Stairway to Heaven. It sounded the same, but maybe it was just different enough that the jury was not convinced.
I suppose I am just vehemently agreeing with you. :)
Well what Led Zeppellin did was different to many cases. They claimed the music to be their own by making no reference to the originals. The documentary is not biased it goes over examples of blatant plagiarism as well as remixes and unconscious influences. Interestingly Led Zeppelin were plagiarised many times since but they never sued anybody.
I think they did not sue because it would have opened up the whole can of worms about their "borrowing." I grew up in a musical household and was well aware of who Robert Johnson was and what he played. When I heard The Lemon Song I was stunned. I knew it was Travellin' Riverside Blues lyrically. Yet there was no credit. Good thing Robert was dead. But you are right, lots of 80s groups stole from Zep, thereby indirectly stealing from the old blues guys. BTW, I do like LZ, so I am not attacking them.
No, I'm attacking nobody. Just encouraging people to rethink the idea. I can't decide what anybody considers abuse. I just wanted to offer the view of the grey area, because when people think it's black and white well we end up calling everything under the sun plagiarism/abuse.