The work allegedly plagiarised? An article I published in 2006, titled, Plagiarism and intellectual loot. It’s a piece that rejects the idea of “intellectual property,” arguing instead that in a society organised with human happiness as an objective, copyright infringement laws and similar restrictions would not hinder the distribution and recombination of ideas.
It’s interesting—and amusing in some respects—to get fired for plagiarising a piece championing plagiarism, but it gets better. I plagiarised the whole piece myself, nearly word for word. McDonald didn’t plagiarise me. He plagiarised from the same book I did: Days of War, Nights of Love, published in 2000 by CrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective, a book that actually encourages others to plagiarise from it.1
So, based on allegations by a faculty member at Texas Tech University, who had obviously come across my website, the editorial board of The Daily Toreador promptly fired McDonald, publicly accusing him of plagiarising me and of “compromising the integrity of the paper and the academic institution it serves.”
A reporter is said to undermine a newspaper’s credibility in failing to honestly acknowledge sources, but, however predictable, publicly chastising and firing a volunteer writer from a student newspaper for plagiarising an opinion piece championing plagiarism seems a little tactless to me. Clearly there’s a little more to the story.
Not only was McDonald’s public firing tactless but it was also based on incorrect information. Neither The Daily Toreador’s Editor, Michelle Casady, nor anybody else, ever got in touch with me before making the decision to fire McDonald and publicly humiliate him by failing to explain the full story. The public statement that McDonald plagiarised me is simply incorrect. Furthermore, not only has the editorial board mislead their readers to the full extent of this story but they’ve subsequently denied McDonald the chance to explain his side of the story to their readers.
By incorrectly accusing McDonald of plagiarising me and by accusing McDonald of compromising the integrity of the paper without rejoinder, I think the editorial board does a disservice to both McDonald and their readers. At the very least they should retract the accusation that McDonald plagiarised me and offer McDonald the chance to give their readers a more nuanced side to the story.
They even went to the length of arguing that plagiarism is a “serious offense in any forum” and “a very serious problem within our society” and “in no way, shape or form should … ever be tolerated.” Not even, it seems, when you’re making a point about plagiarism itself.
Copyright and plagiarism are ideas that deserve full and frank discussion in our societies and a view as blinkered as the one above does nothing to further an adult discussion on the topic.
External links:
- DT columnist fired for plagiarism | 5 February, 2008
- Fired for Plagiarizing Plagiarism | 12 February, 2008
- Days of War, Nights of Love on CrimthInc.
- Days of War, Nights of Love on Wikipedia
- Days of War, Nights of Love copyleft statement: English language (and all applications thereof) used without permission from its inventors, writers, and copywriters. No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced and transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, especially including photocopying if it is done at the expense of some unsuspecting corporation. Other recommended methods include broadcasting reading over pirate radio, reprinting tracts in unwary newspapers, and just signing your own name to this and publishing it as your own work. Any claim relating to copyright infringement, advocation of illegal activities, defamation of character, incitement to riot, treason, etc. should be addressed directly to your Congressperson as a military rather than civil issue. —Days of War, Nights of Love, page 4 [↩]
A full and frank discussion is a good idea. Discussing a controversial topic never hurt anybody.
I’m personally unconvinced by pro-plagiarism arguments, because I think they often mischaracterize plagiarists as free thinkers who value ideas more than the “brand names” by which those ideas are presented.
From what I’ve seen, those who plagiarize most often–and by these, I mean advertising executives, commercial television producers and the like–do so because they have no regard for ideas or for intellectuals. To them, an idea is merely something to provide “content” to which commercial ads, their real message, can be attached. The person who created the idea is beneath their contempt in a world where personal worth is judged on the sole basis of financial success.
Even if you believe that nobody ever has an original though or an innovative idea, attribution of sources not only pays them due respect, but provides metadata which may help the reader determine how reliable your ideas are.
Finally, those who argue that all ideas are based to some extent on ideas created by others miss the point: Plagiarism isn’t the act of merely basing one’s ideas on another’s. Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s ideas, word for word, as though they were your own.
If you’re truly unable to generate an original thought, then at least save yourself some trouble and embarrassment–paraphrase.