Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Rant: This blog is 1,000 percent mine
My blog is, of course, devoted to design and design news, but there is something just KILLING me right now so here is a two-minute rant about plagiarism.
A Harvard sophomore, Kaavya Viswanathan, was caught plagiarizing another writer's work after a fan tipped off Megan McCafferty that VERY similar passages were found Viswanathan's book. All morning I can't keep myself off the blogs, waiting to hear people crucify this obnoxious little brat, but for some reason no one seems to care, or I might be just too attached to this news story based on my history as a failed novelist myself (I am only 22, I could have plagiarized a trilogy by now if I had Ms. Viswanathan's ethics.)
Little Ms. Harvard's Own only admits to accidentally 'channeling' McCafferty's work and promises in future editions to credit McCafferty at the beginning of the book, and to remove similar passages; I'm sorry but this makes me scream, this is somewhere along the lines of taking Glasser's I -HEART- NY, changing it to I-HEART-MIZZOU and taking the credit, the $500,000 book deal, and the OPTIONED MOVIE RIGHTS for this creation. Maybe I'm just too entrenched in journalism culture, but how can Harvard NOT kick her out of school for this; I don't care if it wasn't related to classwork, this chick is the creative-writing twin to Jayson Blair.
How does this relate to design? I guess it doesn't really, but it did remind me of last week in class when Jan pointed out the similarities between Vanity Fair's April cover and Irving Berlin's 1940's photograph titled "Ballet Society"
Here are the two images:
An article at Huffingtonpost.com goes into detail about the similarities, and the history of Annie Leibovitz's own copyright battles.
I was upset by the similarities only because I think Leibovitz could do better. She's an award winning photographer who inspired hundreds of other camera-happy people to take up a camera and capture some emotional, or innovative shot. She could have done better, could have maybe tried a little harder to make this photo 'her own' style, because the way it is now, Irving Berlin takes the credit for the greatness of this shot.
Althought the photographs are similar, I cannot place this in the same category as Harvard's chick-lit plagiarism. Leibovitz said she was 'inspired' by the photograph, and I think that's what she did: take an image and translate it into today's culture, as well as labeling it to the 'green' cause that was represented.
A Harvard sophomore, Kaavya Viswanathan, was caught plagiarizing another writer's work after a fan tipped off Megan McCafferty that VERY similar passages were found Viswanathan's book. All morning I can't keep myself off the blogs, waiting to hear people crucify this obnoxious little brat, but for some reason no one seems to care, or I might be just too attached to this news story based on my history as a failed novelist myself (I am only 22, I could have plagiarized a trilogy by now if I had Ms. Viswanathan's ethics.)
Little Ms. Harvard's Own only admits to accidentally 'channeling' McCafferty's work and promises in future editions to credit McCafferty at the beginning of the book, and to remove similar passages; I'm sorry but this makes me scream, this is somewhere along the lines of taking Glasser's I -HEART- NY, changing it to I-HEART-MIZZOU and taking the credit, the $500,000 book deal, and the OPTIONED MOVIE RIGHTS for this creation. Maybe I'm just too entrenched in journalism culture, but how can Harvard NOT kick her out of school for this; I don't care if it wasn't related to classwork, this chick is the creative-writing twin to Jayson Blair.
How does this relate to design? I guess it doesn't really, but it did remind me of last week in class when Jan pointed out the similarities between Vanity Fair's April cover and Irving Berlin's 1940's photograph titled "Ballet Society"
Here are the two images:
An article at Huffingtonpost.com goes into detail about the similarities, and the history of Annie Leibovitz's own copyright battles.
I was upset by the similarities only because I think Leibovitz could do better. She's an award winning photographer who inspired hundreds of other camera-happy people to take up a camera and capture some emotional, or innovative shot. She could have done better, could have maybe tried a little harder to make this photo 'her own' style, because the way it is now, Irving Berlin takes the credit for the greatness of this shot.
Althought the photographs are similar, I cannot place this in the same category as Harvard's chick-lit plagiarism. Leibovitz said she was 'inspired' by the photograph, and I think that's what she did: take an image and translate it into today's culture, as well as labeling it to the 'green' cause that was represented.
// posted by teresasanserif @ 8:44 AM 
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Now the publishers are saying it may have been the 'packagers' who plagurized. Packagers are, as gawker describes them, people who are paid a lot of money to 'help' writers finish their works by deadline.
Oooh, here's something you should do: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/contest/steal_this_book_and_that_book_and_that_book.php
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