QCQ for How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law____________________________________________
Quotation (with page number or parag number or time stamp if video/audio)
“Copyright is, in my view, an essential solution to a particular economic problem. It may seem like a paradox, but we would get less speech without copyright” (158).
Comment (250-500 words)
Upon reading this, the connection between Lessig’s thoughts and the thoughts of the previous author we read that wrote about citations and credit is extremely clear. Now that we live in a largely digital world, the fact of the matter is that people’s ideas and words can be stolen and reproduced on various platforms without anyone knowing. Perhaps the writer, in this scenario, doesn’t even know that they’re plagiarizing. Due to the sheer vastness of the internet, it’s impossible for them to tell that someone else produced the same, very distinct thought (with no intention of others taking credit for it). This can eventually become a problem for many reasons. Something that Lessig wrote that resonated with me, though, is that this could result in a lack of creativity and new thoughts. If no one is penalized for copying others, the idea of coming up with new, maybe even better thoughts goes out of the window. If someone has already said something in a certain way, there’s no reason to elaborate or add to it if you’re allowed to write their words off as your own. I can see this becoming a real issue in society. We talk about social media being a catalyst for huge change in the world. Change is driven by independent and creative thinkers, though. If what I previously wrote becomes reality, change will not happen often.
Question
To what extent does plagiarism matter? If we are still doing proper citations and always quoting, for example, we encounter the same problem (lack of independent thought). This concept goes way deeper than just copyright, then.
