I don’t think anybody who knows me would accuse me of deliberate - TopicsExpress



          

I don’t think anybody who knows me would accuse me of deliberate plagiarism, said Jane Goodall. I am not impartial here. I loved her first book, and even some of her later works. She is an interesting person, who was willing to pose interesting questions, and then think of interesting ways to answer such questions. I will admit that I was unaware of any plagiarism scandal regarding her most recent book. I never would have read it anyway. In any event, this controversy raises an interesting question of its own: Is plagiarism really bad? I know that as a published author, and a staunch believer in property rights, the answer to this question should be axiomatic. But, I dont think that it is. There is no question that it is sometimes bad. Sometimes, it is nothing more than outright theft. Bad, bad, bad! But, from Shakespeare to Heller, great writers have stolen plot-lines and passages from lesser writers to make great works of art. I think that it should be acknowledged that sometimes some intellectual property should be shared freely, since intellectual creativity is not always a commodity which can be bought and sold in a market. How can this be done? That is, how can exceptions to the No Plagiarism rule be regulated so that the original creators of that property are appropriately acknowledged and compensated? I have no idea.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 16:33:11 +0000

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