Most of the time, there aren’t even any consequences. A good chunk of everything on the internet is anonymous, so if you steal something, nobody even knows who to contact. When that guy stole my dinosaur, he could have very easily told me to blow and there would have been little I could do. It’s not like I had the image copyrighted or anything. The only proof I had that I was the one who created it was the original file, but hell, even that could be copied. Give me an image and I can copy it myself.
Then there are the gray areas. Is it still plagiarism if you take something of someone else’s and remake it as your own? For instance, the case of Shepherd Fairey’s Hope poster:
Fairey used the picture on the left as a basis for the poster on the right, but is it plagiarism? This is where the line get’s blurry. Fairey’s lawyer argued that, because Obama is a public figure, the image was fair use. The AP and Shepard Fairey settled out of court in January 2011, so we’ll never know how a court would have decided. Not everything is cut and dry.
There’s so much data on the internet it’s difficult to even find plagiarism in the first place. In my dinosaur example, it was just chance that I stumbled on my image being used by someone else. There could be people out there right now using my words and images, and I would have no way of knowing. There’s no effective way to police it. The internet mostly relies on the honor system. We take each other at our word that we wrote or drew or sang whatever product it is that we’re claiming is ours. But for every honest person out there, there are just as many, if not more, who are willing and ready to steal creativity and call it their own.
It’s a shame that there’s so much intellectual property theft on the internet, but really, it’s inevitable. It only takes a second to steal someone else’s hard work, whether it be words, images or anything else, and we rely on each other not to be dicks about it. When you frame it that way, it seems like a lousy system that’s just destined to fail.
But what’s the solution? I’m not sure there even is one. I guess we’ll all just have to be a bit more honorable. So, listen to Smokey the Plagiarism Bear when he says only YOU can prevent plagiarism! I’m not sure how the shovel comes into it, but use your best judgment. I’m counting on you.
Article Appeared @ http://fishofgold.net/2012/10/10/the-inevitability-of-plagiarism-in-the-age-of-the-interwebzorz/