Teen Remixes The Works Of Others Into Best Selling Novel... And Critics Love It
from the collaborative-writing dept
Here's a story that will get traditionalists up in arms about "stealing" and "laziness," but they'll all be missing the point. We've see for decades how remix culture works in music. The ability to take the works of someone else, mix them up with others, change them around and create something new and powerful, is a wonderful expression of culture, that shows how artistic culture is often about shared experiences and sharing works of art. But what about in the literary world?There has been some exploration of this concept in the past, such as when author Jonathan Lethem wrote a very eloquent defense of plagiarism that was entirely plagiarized. Separately, we've discussed how many (especially younger people) who have grown up on things like Wikipedia often point out that they don't view it as plagiarism so much as collaborative writing. And they have a point (even if there's one patent lawyer in particular who links back to that article every few weeks to mock Techdirt). There will always be those who don't recognize how this is, in fact, collaboration and does create new and unique pieces of artwork and culture -- but they're the same sorts of people who have decried every new artform from the Waltz ("The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced... we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion") to romance novels and plays ("The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge") to comic books ("All child drug addicts, and all children drawn into the narcotics traffic as messengers, with whom we have had contact, were inveterate comic-book readers This kind of thing is not good mental nourishment for children!").
But the good news is that this form of collaborative creation is gaining a bit of acceptance. Duane alerts us to the story of a 17-year-old German woman whose critically acclaimed book has been found to have large chunks plagiarized from other sources. A few years back, when a similar situation arose in the US, the author Kaavya Viswanathan, was shunned -- even if some of us thought that was ridiculous and unfair. In this case, however, the author, Helene Hegemann, readily admits that she was "remixing" other works into her book -- and the critics still love it. Her book was nominated for the $20,000 prize of the Leipzig Book Fair even though the judges already knew about the plagiarism.
And, really, what's the problem here? Some might claim that it's unfair to the original authors whose work she used -- but the author of the largest segments, named Airen, is getting a ton of attention for Airen's own book, which received little actual attention when originally published. In fact, Amazon now notes that "customers who bought" Hegemann's book also ended up buying Airen's book. In the same way that remixes and mashups often drive people to buy the original music, it seems like remixed/mashedup books can do the same. It may be a big cultural leap for those who think there is "a way things must be done," but it seems that the younger generation has other ideas.
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Filed Under: airen, books, collaboration, copyright, helen hegemann, plagiarism, remix, writing
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By definition a critic wouldn't agree/like with it.
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Meh.
Get over your damn selves, people.
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If this author had been completely upfront about her "remixing" from the get-go, I'd support that; but, the fact that it had to be discovered after the fact by some blogger, and followed up with a cop-out "my generation" type statement leads me to believe that the author's motives had nothing to do with any sort of innovative approach in the construction of her novel, but rather she just didn't feel like doing the kind of work that she was all too willing to take credit for up until the moment she got caught.
I'd just like to see someone do a re-mixed novel, who's willing to say "Yeah, it's mongrel art--so what?" before she gets caught out for copying, rather than afterward.
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Apparently, the text of the book makes it fairly clear that it was "about remixing" from the start, and the author probably wasn't trying to "get away" with plagiarism. Of course, I don't like the failure to properly attribute sources, but I wonder whether it was deliberate to draw more attention to the book (e.g. from this blog post).
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Copyright Is Copyright
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Re:
I'd give you a dictionary definition, but I'm too out of it at the moment. maybe someone else will make up for my lack of awesome...
Not that it's terribly important.
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I am, however, completely opposed to plagiarism. (Plagiarism, for those who need a refresher, is the act of passing someone else's work off as your own.) That's what copyright law was originally about, before it was tainted by people trying to prop-up their business models.
If you copy works from others, and don't attribute them properly, that's plagiarism. And there is no excuse for it. I don't see anything wrong with making a copy of a book you like and giving it to someone, just as I have no problem with people quoting passages liberally. Copying without attribution is another thing entirely. It's just wrong.
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Re: Copyright Is Copyright
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You know, this really does kind of bother me, the way you take everyone who disagrees with any artistic development and throw them all in the same box.
Not everyone who sees artistic decline is an ignorant schoolmarm with a social agenda. Some of them are like that, certainly. But then, there are some people who really do just like to fill up their hard drives with infringing material and never buy anything.
If it's unfair to characterize every techdirt reader as a freetard, and I think it is, it is equally unfair to characterize every cultural critic who sees decline as a schoolmarm.
Say what you will about, say, Spengler, he certainly wasn't a schoolmarm.
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Fatal Waltz
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remixes
- this is a novel she "wrote." It was printed. On paper. It was not a free performance.
- She got a lot of money and kudos for writing the novel. She got paid.
- She never mentioned where this non-original material was from... leaving readers to guess which parts were "Borrowed" and which were actually written
Compare to:
- when a remix song uses samples, it is generally very obvious the sample is not created by the artist. Often the original source is obvious to the audience, which is what makes it useful as an homage.
- when a remix song is sold, the original sources are credited or paid or both.
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remixes
- this is a novel she "wrote." It was printed. On paper. It was not a free performance.
- She got a lot of money and kudos for writing the novel. She got paid.
- She never mentioned where this non-original material was from... leaving readers to guess which parts were "Borrowed" and which were actually written
Compare to:
- when a remix song uses samples, it is generally very obvious the sample is not created by the artist. Often the original source is obvious to the audience, which is what makes it useful as an homage.
- when a remix song is sold, the original sources are credited or paid or both.
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Re: remixes
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Re: Copyright Is Copyright
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Definition: critic
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webw
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This.
Ah, people who respect authors are now "traditionalists". Good to know.
And yes, she is a lazy little plagiarist who only fessed up once caught and no, that's not "missing the point".
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Uh, no
The first one is just sort of irritating, but not that big of a deal. The second part is the worst, and it's the same reason I refuse to read any of Cassandra Claire's work. Remix culture is fine with me, but when you lift passages and put your own name on them, you're passing that work off as your own. That's not even a matter of copyright -- even if strict copyright didn't exist, that would be illegal. So, no, regardless of how much talent it took to "remix" those passages, I'm not really down with it. Next time she should put in a "Works Cited" page, just like mixtape makers do when they have tracklists.
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Two issues here
The second is whether or not it makes sense to put all kinds of economic et al barriers to the creation of remixes. I interpret Mike's support to the support of the latter not the support of use without attribution.
I personally believe that the speed at which culture and technology transforms will be directly related to the friction involved in the ability to reuse/leverage/build on/whatever others' work. So our decisions about copyright, etc. must take that impact into consideration.
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Re: remixes
Actually, that's very often not the case. Many musical remixes change and distort sampled pieces so much that they are unrecognizable... and they still get sued.
- when a remix song is sold, the original sources are credited or paid or both.
That was *not* the case originally -- and still not the case quite often. It's only become more standard after a series of lawsuits.
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Re:
That's one way to interpret it. My sense -- and I admit this could be wrong -- is that part of the point of her doing it this way was that waiting for people to find the plagiarism was part of the *point* of the book's experience.
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Re:
Sure there are. Who said otherwise? But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about people who insist that what many people consider to be art "can't" be art, because they don't like it.
And, yes, I find that attitude to be ignorant. Art is what people feel is art.
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Re:
How do you define "respect"? In this case, this author got another author a tremendous amount of publicity and sales. That seems quite respectful to me, while you seem to think it was disrespectful.
And yes, she is a lazy little plagiarist who only fessed up once caught and no, that's not "missing the point".
Yes, it is. Very, very much. By a wide margin. But, if it makes you feel morally superior to pretend that other's artwork doesn't count, more power to you.
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Re: Re:
But it's hard to rule out AC's interpretation too, and if it were in fact the case that she was just trying to cut corners and get published, well, that's pretty hard to respect. I wouldn't say it should be illegal (obviously the raw facts of what happened would be the same, and it would still be a transformative work) but I also wouldn't think very highly of her.
However, the fact that the judges of the book prize are supportive of her makes me think the positive interpretation is more likely. Ultimately I think I'd have to read both books to decide.
From article #2:
Not only did she borrow humorous collocations like “Techno-Plastizität" (techno plasticity) or "Vaselintitten" (Vaseline tits), she lifted whole lines and scene setups.
The first part is obviously okay and in fact really awesome - if it weren't, there would be no such thing as "coining a term" anymore. It's the lines and scenes where I have my doubts - though in this case, the benefit of said doubt goes to her I think.
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Main Entry: pla·gia·rize
Function: verb
Derfined: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own - : to commit literary theft
This girl needs to learn to paraphrase.
Let me write a 40 page Econ paper and lift 15 pages from another author and call it "collaborative writing" with a shit eating grin.
Seriously, give me a break Mike.
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Re:
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Re:
Sure, and you'll never get an academic job ever.
But this wasn't an academic paper. It was a literary book, a work of art, where cutting & pasting was part of the point.
How did you miss that?
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How did you miss that?"
The context in which the plagiarism was performed doesn't negate the fact that it was (still) plagiarism.
Remixing song adds additional musical layers over the original work - often to the point where it's almost subliminal. Reworking someone's painting adds additional aesthetic compliments - often to the point where it's almost subliminal or unnoticeable.
There's nothing mysterious (or artistic) about cutting & pasting.
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I want to believe that this author grew up in an environment where the idea of 'plagiaraism' from reusing other people's work was an idea that simply DID NOT EXIST. Wouldn't that be cool? The extinguishment of a rotten meme; maybe we can watch it happen.
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Re:
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Thanks !!!
Thanks for letting me know it isn't plagiarism - just a new art form.
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No one said otherwise. I was simply asking you to extend intellectual courtesy to the people that you disagree with.
People accuse you of 'justifying freeloaders' all of the time. I am sure that you think these accusations are bullshit. I certainly do. Your positions are usually much too nuanced to be characterized with a simplistic slogan. So are the positions of some of the people you disagree with.
"We're talking about people who insist that what many people consider to be art "can't" be art, because they don't like it."
But has anyone actually said that? Usually people have a reason for saying that something isn't art. Often these are bad reasons: 'it corrupts youth', 'it's in poor taste', 'it gives you herpes', and so on. But sometimes critics give more thoughtful reasons than these. I am certain, for example, that Adorno would have hated remixing. But reading his reasons for hating it would probably be quite interesting and informative, even if they were ultimately found to be mistaken.
"And, yes, I find that attitude to be ignorant. Art is what people feel is art."
Which people? All of them? What if they disagree with each other? Are they all right?
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Re:
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Re: Research Plagiarism
lux wrote:
Isn’t there a saying somewhere that if your paper copies from one source, it’s “plagiarism”, but if it copies from many sources, then that’s “research”?
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Re: Thanks !!!
Public domain.
It is rather dickish that you wouldn't give credit where credit is do. Thankfully, this being the internet, credit is usually a search away.
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Re:
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It's good to know that young writers no longer have to copy the style of other writers, they can simply copy their actual work.
I may be an old and in the way, but I was taught to find my own voice and be original and don't ever, ever copy someone else's work. At one time that was an unforgivable sin.
It's one thing to be influenced or inspired by someone else, it's quite another to steal their stuff. And let's make no mistake about it, it is theft. It doesn't matter whether it is legal or not, it is ethically wrong.
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Re:
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This difference we call art.
The book features got exactly what they love right now: young, female, uninhibited.
If the critics weren't afraid to lose face after their highest praise, they'd bash her into the ground. Somehow, it's all the internet's fault now.
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RE: Remix Culture
We've see for decades how remix culture works in music. The ability to take the works of someone else, mix them up with others, change them around and create something discordant and execrable.
There. NOW it's accurate.
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Re-mixing as "powerful" cultural statement?
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Most of human behavior is remix of behavior of others
More importantly, all culture must be a "remix" or "mashup" (a form of imitation) of the behavior of other human beings. Social learning theory (See Dr. Bandura and Dr. Mischel's descriptions in the social science literature) tells us that most of what we know and learn comes from our observations of the behavior of others. Watch how children learn from parents and peers. Our behavior is a remix of the behaviors of many different people whom we have observed over the years. We speak the languages that we do because of the languages we listened to and observed when growing up. Religious beliefs and behaviors are almost always learned by observation of one's parents. The point is that all culture is socially transmitted and is a remix of the many behaviors of others. What determines whether some remixes are copyright infringement and others are not? Remixes of the ideas expressed by others (laws)? It is interesting that the Catholic church never figured out how to copyright aspects of their religious art (the cross, communion, the bible). Could it be that they want more people rather than fewer people to share and "remix" their culture with others?
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Making Copies: OK For Some...Not So Much For Others...Cognitive Dissonance!
Abe lovingly built the most ingenious log cabin home. Bill thought it looked and functioned so well he lovingly built an identical duplicate. Abe thought that was grand!
Bill lovingly built a hand-crafted light aircraft. Abe thought it looked and functioned so well he lovingly built an identical duplicate. Bill sued for patent infringement!
Both Abe and Bill bought land. Both Abe and Bill bought materials to construct their homes. Both Abe and Bill bought materials to construct their aircraft.
Why do silly humans behave this way?
Why can't everyone just leave everyone else alone!
Starving The Monkeys Continually And Forevermore,
John and Dagny Galt
Atlas Shrugged, Owners Manual For The Universe!(tm)
.
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"The average artist borrows, the great artist steals."
When I copy , I do it so badly that people think I am original.
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Re: Copyright Is Copyright
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Re:
Sure, and if all she did was cut and paste, you might sorta have a point. But she didn't. So you don't.
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Re: Thanks !!!
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090116/0348223430.shtml
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Re: RE: Remix Culture
You clearly are paying attention to the wrong remixers. Spread your horizons a bit.
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Re:
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Collaboration
Copyrights exist for a reason. They are not evil, but they can be abused. Anyone submitting something to me that is plagiarized is writing the last thing, from them, that I will ever read.
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Re: Uh, no
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Re: Collaboration
What's missing in the book story above?
That's where your analogy breaks down entirely and shows you're talking about an entirely different situation.
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Re:
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This work doesn't deserve to be maligned purely because of this girl's hubris, but to act like there isn't any problem with this situation is to promote a world in which we don't have to worry about attribution. I know Mike is a businessman and not too concerned with art, but I would think even he would understand the impact this would have on future artists' motivation to create.
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Re:
This is just copying and pasting text. Nothing has been changed in the process. In this way, it is more like sampling, where the new context that the work has been placed in is (hopefully) transformative, but the work itself is still intact.
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Re: Re-mixing as "powerful" cultural statement?
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Re:
I'm curious, who did this particular act harm? Who is worse off because of this action? Whose motivation to create is lessened?
I can't seem to find an answer to any of those questions.
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Re: Re-mixing as "powerful" cultural statement?
That's your opinion. But historically, almost all new forms of culture were built on earlier ones. See the wonderful chapter 6 in James Boyle's book "The Public Domain" which explains how pretty much all of soul music came about due to Ray Charles' creative remix of another work.
What do you re-mix down the road when there are more re-mixes than actual original creative works?
What does it matter if there's more of one than the other? There are plenty of incentives to create new works no matter what. You act as if there's some sort of limit. There is not.
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Re: Re: Re-mixing as "powerful" cultural statement?
False premise alert!!! Seriously, who claimed that "every artist" would want to be Girl Talk? That makes no sense.
Yes, some critics laud this young author and Girl Talk for their work, but to promote their methods as the new model for creativity is foolish
False premise alert!!! No one claimed that these models are "the new model for creativity." We just said they're *one way* that people are expressing creativity these days. Nothing in that excludes other ways.
ut if this becomes the artistic norm, that value will be lost, and I fear we won't be left with much else.
False premise *and* totally unsubstantiated claim alert!!!
Please. No one said this is becoming the "norm" and it's ridiculous to believe that suddenly everyone does this and no one does other types of creations.
Please.
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Re:
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Re: Copyright Is Copyright
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