Week 3

After reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Something Borrowed" I began thinking more of my ideas of what I thought plagiarism was. Plagiarism to me is taking someone's words and using them as your own. It is true that Bryony Lavery did take some of the ideas and words both Gladwell and Dorothy Lewis had either said or had written. But these ideas were not in the same context as they were in real life. Sure they were still their ideas, but the artistic idea behind the words was for a greater cause.

The meaning for the play was to show the process of the victims of serial killers' actions to become "unfrozen" or to go back to somewhat of a daily routine. The show ended up being a great hit and the audiences loved the idea, even if some of the things were copying the words and lives of actual people. Gladwell says in the third page that he, "felt that [his ideas] had become part of a some grander cause". I'm not saying that Lavery shouldn't have asked for permission to use experiences from their lives, but how was she supposed to know?

Towards the end of the article, Gladwell asked her why she didn't give credit to him or Lewis. She responded with: "I thought it was OK to us it... It never occurred to me to ask you. I thought it was news". Because she had found all of her information from articles and books, and didn't think she needed to cite them because the information was already available to the entire world. Many things are available to the world and have not been considered plagiarism, so why is this?

I found the section where he talked about music very interesting. Artists have taken pieces of music from past songs to add to their creative idea, and in the end it turns out to be amazing. These are things that make me question my ideas of plagiarism. If someone takes another persons idea and molds it to their own creative idea, isn't that just sharing a cool idea and making it better? When Gladwell started talking about the patents on drugs I was in total agreement. When a new drug is made it is patented so that the creator can get a small fortune off the product for a few years before the rest of the public can get their hands on it and reform it in to something better. If this is ok then why do some people get so hurt when an artist borrows the ideas they found in other articles about one person?

Even though Lavery did take some of the words and life experiences of real people to make her play better, I don't think that she should have gotten the nasty glare from the society. Everyone takes ideas from others. Its just another way to spread creativity around and make it in to something better. Lives don't have to be ruined because someone liked another's idea and used it in their own creative process. The Beastie Boys are still doing well and making music, why can't Lavery still write her plays in the same creative way that she has in the past?