Mixing, Not Stealing

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.