My mom sent me this piece from the New York Times about Helene Hegemann, a 17-year-old German novelist who lifted portions of someone else's work, and defended the practice by saying that young people mix -- or mash together -- music, so why not words, too?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html?emc=eta1
I was, at first, horrified. But after reading the piece, a tiny part of me felt that maybe this girl had a point -- not a point about it being okay to lift someone else's work, but a point about a culture of young people who have been raised in the information age. Everything is instantly accessible -- and instantly mutable -- and it stands to reason that in this environment, words may not end up being as sacred as they once were. Which, now that I write that, seems even more horrifying than it did at first glance.
3 comments:
Well, I guess I can see the why a young person might think this is acceptable when they see it being done with music all of the time. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that every high school uses some type of filter to check for plagarism in papers so all young people should know stealing writings it wrong.
when you're 17 it seems like such a thrill to steal.
there was a similar case in Malaysia, an eighteen year old published a book of short stories- then it transpired that she's stolen 1 story from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
omg, so the young girl things "mashed up" is OK in terms of writing? oh no. (big sigh) Yeah, too much info and melding and blending and mashing and forgetting about sources and how to source things. egads.
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