What does "Original" mean?
Some of the readings assigned to us this week have brought up several emotions for me. For one, I am very intrigued by the approach of the article "Of Icebergs and Ownership: A Common-Sense Approach to Intellectual Property", which seems to focus a lot on the legality of copyright and how to use other sources.
To start, I was very much preplexed when I read this statement:
Disciplinary ideas about intellectual property tend to be more expansive than legal definitions. Discussions about rhetorical purpose and context necessarily engage students in a consoderation what they are borrowing and why, and what effect it will have on their potential audiences, which usually include the original authors upon whose work they have drawn. (Wharton)
I have many places where I want to insert my questions, the first place is what or who are "original authors"? When considering these expansive copyright laws and the legality and everything else it involves, I have seen nothing that expands on the concept of what can be defined as "original".
This strikes me because most "original" ideas are very derivative! Take the example of a very famous movie (and now a disney channel original movie with its own franchise) High School Musical. I am sure that most of us are familiar enough with the plot to know why this came into my mind, but for those who don't know, it is basically Romeo and Juliet brought to the high school setting with the forbidden romance between an academically oriented teenage girl.
Another exapmle that strikes me is the Lion King. Again, it is derivative of Hamlet and now, it is one of disney's "signature" films. The point of these examples is that I often ask myself as to how these movies, that have stromg influences from the works of William Shakespeare have acquired the title of "original". Is it the difference in setting? Circumstances, maybe?
To bring this back to the academic context, I would also like to bring up the fact that most academic articles and publications have come to being through sharing of ideas. To my knowledge, I have not seen very many articles that have similar trains of thought/similar influences. How is a phenomenon like that seen through the legal lens? How are all of these similarities seen in the legal perspective? Are they considered original?
To start answering these questions, I think it would help all of us to try to understand what the term "original" means in terms of legal definition, creative definition and every other definition that is required to understand intellectual property and the laws that revolve around it. Knowing this essential definition might help to understand what "intellectual property" is and the ways to get around it.
Note, I am well aware that the article states that "Ideas alone have never fallen within the subject matter of federal copyright law" (Wharton), but, what does "idea" mean in that context? Without the definition of what is original, the concept of an idea can be just as vague. Ideas can mean two things hre, the can mean things like concepts, forms, structures, tropes and more, and they can also mean something like the two examples above, integrating fully published and recognized works into the creation of an "original". Doesn't a published work have an idea that drives it? What of that is copied? Copying something like the Lion King as something like an "idea" would surely result in legal isues because of things like patents. In this instance, how can you define originality?
in short, where are copyright laws headed in terms of govrning the sharing of information, creative influence and knowledge? If our works and ideas are being supervised to the extent that they are now, how can you be original? What is the legal definition of an original idea? How can you be original in these circumstances?
That is the question I have for the author of this article and to everyone reading this post.
Thank you for reading!
Disciplinary ideas about intellectual property tend to be more expansive than legal definitions. Discussions about rhetorical purpose and context necessarily engage students in a consoderation what they are borrowing and why, and what effect it will have on their potential audiences, which usually include the original authors upon whose work they have drawn. (Wharton)
I have many places where I want to insert my questions, the first place is what or who are "original authors"? When considering these expansive copyright laws and the legality and everything else it involves, I have seen nothing that expands on the concept of what can be defined as "original".
To bring this back to the academic context, I would also like to bring up the fact that most academic articles and publications have come to being through sharing of ideas. To my knowledge, I have not seen very many articles that have similar trains of thought/similar influences. How is a phenomenon like that seen through the legal lens? How are all of these similarities seen in the legal perspective? Are they considered original?
To start answering these questions, I think it would help all of us to try to understand what the term "original" means in terms of legal definition, creative definition and every other definition that is required to understand intellectual property and the laws that revolve around it. Knowing this essential definition might help to understand what "intellectual property" is and the ways to get around it.
in short, where are copyright laws headed in terms of govrning the sharing of information, creative influence and knowledge? If our works and ideas are being supervised to the extent that they are now, how can you be original? What is the legal definition of an original idea? How can you be original in these circumstances?
That is the question I have for the author of this article and to everyone reading this post.
Thank you for reading!
Thanks for this thoughtful post, Reshma. To answer your question in an overly simplified way, I would say it means nothing. To make it more nuanced, I would say that "original" denotes something for which its precedent cannot be authoritatively determined. Within academia, we both love and hate origins. We insist that student work be original, but we also know that this is a very narrow view of originality - it mostly means that it hasn't been lazily stolen for a website or a classmate. Within a legal context, originality is more specific. Shakespeare is open source because his corpus was produced well before copyright. If, on the other hand, I wrote a bestselling novel about Martians, in which the main character was born with special powers and went to Margworts to learn from Mumbledore, I would get sued, and lose. If I wrote this for a class, however, I'd like to think I'd get an A:)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great question! As a poet, I can testify that originality is probably one of the most important and mulled over concepts I stress over. The reason for this is, we all have our favorite authors, poets, scholars, teachers, artists, etc. We all draw from them and aspire to be like them. So, when I read a great poem that does something unique, I want to imitate that with my own content. All artists do this. To relate this to the classroom, all students do this, as well. One of the hardest things I struggle with is trying to ingrain in my students a sense of confidence to ditch the academic voice in their heads when writing and use their own tone and language. The instinct is to sound like the other people doing the thing you're doing with success. That's why it's understandable that students try to imitate the tone of the sources they're reading. So, even their tone is unoriginal.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the question, I think it's impossible to refrain from borrowing techniques and ideas from already established connoisseurs in our fields. However, the twist we put on it is where the originality comes from. That's the remix, right? So, if I want to imitate Elizabeth Bishop or someone else, I'm not being totally unoriginal if I'm using my own tone, language, and content. Similarly, students can be original once they ditch the expectation that they need to sound exactly like those who came before them and start remixing their sources to help them with their own originality.
I completely agree with Jessica Today, being "original" seems to mean developing a unique perspective that adds to the academic conversation taking place within a field. I don't think one can be entirely original because it seems everyone takes ideas from something; therefore, it is impossible to produce a completely novel idea that hasn't been thought. I mean even Shakespeare used a fair amount of preexisting ideas in his writing.
ReplyDeleteI feel like copyright laws have over-complicated the notion of what constitutes an original idea and who may or may not reproduce that idea. Considering that most "original" ideas derive from preexisting ideas, it seems like there are a lot of grey areas. For example, how much information can one take from a preexisting idea/published source without it violating copyright laws? Obviously, remixing the Harry Potter series as a sci-fi with near identical character names would be a latent violation, but what if one wanted to use aspects that resemble minor parts in the series? I mean, one could argue that Rowling's used some aspects from Tolkien's LOTR. The Harry Potter series is undoubtedly a unique story, but is it original? I would say no.
I really like Jessica's comment above about poetry because it's quite a common thing in poetry to "borrow" (or, more accurately, draw inspiration) from others. Many poems are labeled with something like "After ____." I like this notion because it does a few things: first of all, the word "after," taken literally, indicates that this new poem is written AFTER a previous poem--here, it doesn't claim to be "original" in the sense that it is the origin of a certain style or pattern. "After" and a name also directly identifies the source of inspiration: if you include "After Ocean Vuong," for example, in your poem, the poem immediately identifies its source of inspiration as Ocean Vuong. At the same time, though, including an "After" in your poem does not diminish the worth of your poem (or, for that matter, the original poem). This is a point I think we should highlight in our pedagogical contexts. If we think of our writing as having an "After," we can begin to ethically identify our sources of inspiration, acknowledge that our ideas are not "original" in form, and also posit that these ideas may nonetheless be worthy of attention.
ReplyDeleteAs Jessica, Ryan, and Adam have noted, originality is a hazy concept when it comes to writing poetry and creative writing in general. When we write, we inevitably take from other writers. This can be through inspiration, imitation, or perhaps even unconscious borrowing of techniques. (Really, almost all of our language usage comes from those who manipulated language before.) Additionally, I don't think writers are hiding this. In fact, they constantly acknowledge how their writing comes from others' works--I can't think of many famous writers whose tip for new writers isn't, "Read more!" This recommendation doesn't necessarily say, "Take from other writers!" but it does imply to me that we should use other works as a way to bolster our own creative ideas. I believe this myself: my creative writing class, like most, uses outside readings as a way to show students writing techniques they can try out and by which they can be inspired; at times, my assignments involves literally taking something from other writers. Of course, as Reshma notes, there's a spectrum to how outside writing affects our own. My assignments might involve actually taking, but other writers might simply use reading as a form of inspiration. Nonetheless, I imagine even "inspiration" puts question marks around our originality. But of course, everything I've said has already been said before in one way or another: Mark Twain famously argued against plagiarism, and is (perhaps apocryphally) credited with the quote, "There is no such thing as a new idea."
ReplyDeleteI think just as we are as people its impossible to be 100% original just as a basis of how we gain knowledge. The fact that we start from a very young age in school reading and using what we read to form ideas means that we will always be shaped by what we've taken in regardless of how hard we may try not to be. I don't think that's a bad thing either - I mean, it also means we won't have to make the same mistakes in creative works that our ancestors did. No one can argue that the novel has had a ROUGH history of development and there were some literary works that are just not fun at all to read. Isn't it better that we can take those ideas of what does not work and build off of that history and just not do any of that again?
ReplyDeleteAs for where the laws are going - I feel less optimistically about that. YouTube's claiming system getting worse and worse and the death of net neutrality make me side eye what is going to happen on the internet in terms of content creation and who can get seen versus who gets crushed by a corporation. I don't think that ever ends well for the little people.
Reshma, I love your passion for this topic! As I was reading your post I was struck by this idea of originality and whether such a thing exists. My answer is no. The reason I say no is because all texts, ideas, thoughts, and rhetoric have become intertextual, which means strands of the once original text, idea, thought, rhetoric have become intertwined with what is created today. Thinking back to your example of High School Musical and The Lion King (I honestly had no idea that was representative of Hamlet) these stories are seen differently because, on the surface, they appear to be their own creation. However, the subtle connections remain, which have allowed for these types of creations to be viewed as their own because it is not obviously stated. I think this is what Wharton was referring to about the murky waters phenomenon. If we as educators do not explain these implications to our students they will fail to understand the complex relationship between technological use and intellectual property.
ReplyDeleteReshma:
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post with a cool and thought provoking question. I agree with you and Alex that trying to define "original" is extremely difficult and is unlikely to generate a comprehensive definition. Hence, the reason we are discussing it!
You mentioned Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet as examples of original content, then mimicked or appropriated by High School Musical and The Lion King respectively. I think it is definitely true that content we typically think of as "original" can and is often if not always appropriated. While I am not a Shakespearean scholar (or even a big reader of his work) nor am I a historian I would say it is highly likely that Shakespeare appropriated certain aspects of his own work. I think it is safe to say without doing substantive research that Romeo and Juliet was not the first tale of star-crossed love gone wrong, nor was Hamlet the first tale of a throne unrightfully usurped. Of course these plays are ultimately more nuanced than this but these are the very very general plots. In terms of the first, if we think back to Greek theater, both Medea and Antigone contain (among many other things) themes of ill-fated love gone wrong.
If themes such as these are so ubiquitous is it fair to say that thematic originality is not and should not be expected? The Lion King example in particular (I am more familiar with it than High School Musical) seems though to appropriate more than a mere theme. The story follows fairly closely the story of Hamlet. But again, the theft of power within a family and within hierarchical structure and an ensuing war is surely not something Shakespeare invented. There must be numerous examples throughout history that illustrate this theme. Is it fair to say that works exploring this theme are not original, not necessarily because they mimic Shakespeare but because they mimic history? But then, is anything original?
Hi Reshma! Very thought provoking questions! Originality is such a weird concept to me. To me, to be original means that the thing in question is radically different than what had ever been created before. However, it almost seems like there is nothing that hasn't been thought of before. Even the definition that I just thought of has probably been thought of before. Maybe even in the exact same words! When we think of how many people are on this plant and how many people have walked on this plant before us, that is a lot of thoughts, a lot of ideas, and maybe not a lot of "originality?" I even made it a point to not look at any of the previous comments before me because I bet if I look up, people are going to be thinking the same, if not very similar concepts as I am. So when I say that nothing is original, that is not to say that new ideas and concepts are not coming out. I think when we look at the legality of it, the people that we think of as being "original" are the ones that were published first.
ReplyDeleteI'm really enjoying this discussion around "originality" - I think part of what we need to do is let go of some of the pressure we put on ourselves and our students to be original in all of our writing. Reshma's point about academic articles - that they are often (ok, always) a product of shared ideas, reminds me of intertextuality. We have so many influences that we are not even aware of all of them. Jesse Stommel's article Theorizing Google Docs suggests that one way to deal with these murky ideas around ownership and originality is to collaborate even more, in a way that encourages a release of ownership. I like the idea of having our students collaborate on writing projects, and I imagine it will help students to focus more on the process than the product. I just wonder if some of us (including our students) will remain unwilling to give up this "property" that we've come to value so highly in academic circles.
ReplyDeleteThanks Reshma, now I have “Stick to the Status Quo” stuck in my head (🎶don’t mess with the quo no noooo🎶). I think originality can still have references, as for the most part in literary academia we come up with our ideas from other sources. For instance, when I did my capstone, I came up with my “original” idea from analyzing Marianne Moores work through the lens of Worringer’s theory of the “Urge to Abstraction”. In some ways orginality has roots in referenced material, otherwise how could we account for where these ideas come from? There has to be a need or a problem that calls our ideas into formation. Just like a hypertext, innovations come from a network of things that came before it, and these things (ideas, concepts, products, projects, inventions, etc.) can be tracked.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Reshma! I find the concept of what original thought is within the context of creation and technological advances fascinating. To your point, is there such thing as originality when it comes to ideas? Each generation builds off of the cultural and technological advancements of the generations that came before. Many social scientists look at this scenario as a positive: with a greater sum of collective knowledge at their disposal, the next generation of humans are able to make, at least medical and technological, advances at an ever increasing rate. Thus, innovation grows at an exponential rate. Freely sharing knowledge allows this scenario to be the case. Yet, all this accelerating advancement is a product of somebody else's work.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest hurdle to the free flowing sharing of knowledge for the sake of human advancement, for me, is capitalism. I don't find the notion of the "inventor" profiting from an innovation or the work that went into its creation inherently evil. Yet, the privatization of intellectual property seems to play a huge role in the pursuit of human advancement. To withhold knowledge from others in the name of the bottom line, knowledge that could help cure disease, expand cultural and artistic expression, allow for easier communication around the world, seems like a sad reality that we must all share in. As an analogy, imagine a teacher not teaching their students with technology that could enhance their learning experience or making it more efficient, because school administrators see it as a waste of resources... oh... right.