Open Source Culture

The best article I have ever read comes from Jonathan Lethem in the Feb 2007 edition of Harpers magazine. In it he describes how most art is derived from some other piece or form of artwork. He challenges the idea of plagiarism by plagiarizing others in the normal way that most writers and artists do, without knowledge of it. He gives some great examples. My favorite is jazz music. Jazz, for a large part, was born of mixing phrases and ideas either taken from other musicians or derived from other artworks. This brilliant amalgamation of ideas creates a new take on what is already good. Lethem also mentions T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland as an example. Eliot derived his masterpiece from the work of other artists and writers that he was influenced by. He gave a modern "shout out" to artists that deserved it. Shout out, a phrase that requires mention of DJ culture and hip-hop music. Once again, artists are finding and championing works that matter and should be heard. Back to jazz, some musicians were charged with using ideas that weren't theirs. Composer Dizzy Gillespie said, "You can't steal a gift." The thinking behind this is that you share and trade ideas with fellow artists. If someone has a better take on your idea then more power to them, but they better come back to you with some originality.
This ideology of sharing ideas plays into how we approach intellectual property. The very idea of open source speech and ideas would have just simply been radio and writing as earlier as the 60's. Lawyers took over and suddenly ideas were worth more than the court cases that proceeded them. A crippling anxiety of what you can use stifled artwork. Now, thankfully, people are realizing that ideas should be shared, especially in third world countries where they are needed. We now have the technology to give people good and altruistic advice and organizations such as the WTO are making it harder for them to receive it.
This came to mind after the plagiarism debate of Barack Obama using lines from his friend Deval Patrick. I think that it was definitely a form of plagiarism. I also feel that the use of someone else's ideas is much more prevalent than we think and would like to know. If you carefully dissect most texts you will find some use of words, intentional or non-intentional, that have been used elsewhere. But this is not a book or a law review. This is a movement and Barack Obama's rhetoric and ideas definitely come from many places and he decides on which ones are the best. I think that most ideas are derivative of something, credited or not. If he pulled long texts from others and dubiously used them as his own I would be outraged. Instead he was influenced by someone who, he knew, would not mind using his words and ideas. To me that is not as much plagiarism as it is a nod to someone you respect. These are phrases and ideas. When someone is happy you used their idea, quoted or not, then those false claims of ownership don't matter. Thanks for the Harpers buddy.