tooth soup

photo credit: Dawn Endico

You may have

read about the 17-year-old German author who recently admitted to pulling large chunks of unedited text from another author’s book. Helenne Hegemann’s book, entitled Axolotl Roadkill, in addition to being a bestseller, has also been nominated for a distinguished prize (Google Translated from German to English). This wouldn’t be such a big deal but, in addition to apologising for her lack of transparency, Hegemann has offered a sting in her statement that “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” Her feeling is that in growing up in an Internet culture, her generation is one that considers information a free and labile thing. Attribution is rarely considered for, say, a meme or a humorous office email.

Obviously her publisher is pleading ignorance and will be looking to settle with the unnamed blogger, but this case establishes some interesting boundaries. If we look at the scientific paper publishing sector, attribution must be given for a piece of data. A citation is inserted, the author is notified, and everyone is happy. But if Hegemann had gone down this path, would a publishing house have allowed her to pull “about a page” of material from another author, even if permission was given and a citation inserted?  What if it were a paragraph? What if it were an entire chapter? To whom go the spoils of prizes? Are readers informed right there on the page the following section is pulled from another author? Or are there just thanks in the ‘liner-notes’?

To try and clean up some of these questions by analogy, I tried to do some research into what I imagined was the relatively well-regulated practise of sampling and remixing in the music industry (and by research, I mean hitting up the wiki article on sampling and going through all the external links). My hazy recollection of talking with a muso a while back was that it was generally a time-limited thing; anything shorter than ten seconds or so was fair game. Turns out that my memory was (as always) completely wrong, with the recent court ruling of Bridgeport Music Inc. vs. Dimension Films stating that any unlicensed sampling would be considered copyright infringement. In fact, as recently as 2008, Kraftwerk successfully brought to court the case that sampling even one single drumbeat was enough for an infringement to occur. Sheesh! I would have thought those guys were old cool enough to think someone sampling their work was a good thing?

So if the music world is closing its doors on sampling even the tiniest note without permission, where does that leave us with literature? Will future Internet-generation authors embrace the idea of remixing the words they find in their endless travels through the tubes, or will the litigation of big names scare them off? If an author finds a random blog, decides to yoink some words, and no-one ever finds out, has she committed a crime? For me it seems to come down to the near-impossible to discern line between cryptomnesia (a practise that even Nabokov was famously accused of suffering from) and the wilful plagiarism of another writer’s words. While Hegemann’s case is definitely that of the latter, with the developing information overload of the newer generations becoming greater and greater I don’t think it’s unreasonable to predict that there will be some sticky cases of overlap between the two. In the meantime, I think it’s safe to assume that plagiarism of any kind will continue to be something frowned upon by readers and publishers alike.

A great tool for people who do want their work to be used by all is the creative commons license. And thankfully for young Aussie writers that are looking for a safe place to experiment in remixing words, there is the Remix My Lit project and their production of Through the Clock’s Workings. TtCW is a fully remixable anthology of short stories where readers are encouraged to send in their attempts at producing new angles on the stories contained therein. Check it out if you want to see what good can come of creative commons licensing.

Comments, thoughts? Leave ‘em below!

Further reading:

Slate–The shady one-man corporation that’s destroying hip-hop

NYTimes–Author, 17, Say’s It’s ‘Mixing’, Not Plagiarism

thelocal.de–Young literary star Hegemann counters plagiarism claim

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