Response to <The myth of originality and the joy of copying>
In his writing, Shaughnessy is expressing his rather radical looking ideas about copyright, originality, plagiarism, and ownership. He asserts that there is no such thing as something that is purely original and creative; that every little created thing is a derivative version of a classic, tradition or other themes and shapes already prevalent in the existing culture. He also insists that copyright is an idea that was created in order to produce profit in a society of a capitalist ideology and that copyright which has been made in this manner is often absurd, and prevents free and active interaction of ideas; thus inhibiting more creation.
I agree to most of the basic lines of his idea about copying and copyright, and that the idea of copyright is not something that is holy but it was created in order to make profit in the capitalist society. However, even though I agree with him so, I thought that just reading this short piece of writing of his, one may be apt to confuse the idea of "copying" with "blatant plagiarism".(which he clearly differentiates in his writing by using this specific term)
I do think that there is no such thing as a "purely original" creation in the human civilization. Every theme, idea, shape, plot, and archetypes has been derived from a classic or an ancient sculpture. However, even though these consisting factors may have its root from somewhere else, I thought that the creator's(it may be an artist, writer, etc.) act of how to combine these in which specific way in what specific historical and culture background to convey what kind of specific ideas is where actually "originality" comes from. Reading only this short essay may make people to think, "if there is no originality in the world, then are all paintings and novels a same thing?". However, it is not accurate to say so. Shakespeare has borrowed plots from classics and myths, but it does not make Shakespeare's work to be the same thing with the classics; because he has used these classic works as materials and combined them in specific and delicate ways to create his work and it has succeeded to made its own specific effects. Delicate appropriation such as where to put the period or selecting a specific adjective from many to express beauty produces differences and viewers feel that difference, and I think this is where actually "originality" comes from. Millions of love poems may all sing about love, but their form, selection of words, and the moods it creates makes them different from each other. If this "difference" is too minute or insignificant, I think that's when the viewers feel the work is plagiarism of other work. Of course the boundary between this is very vague, and still a controversial problem and needs to be talked of more. Nevertheless, I think it is very dangerous to say that all soap operas, cartoons, or poems are the same thing for the reason that they are actually all have derived from the same idea or topic. Newton has received his idea of principle of gravity from the "active principle" of alchemy tradition, but his founding of principle of gravity is something very original. He has used already existing ideas and applied it to another field of life to create something different and this is what creativity is. Shaughnessy's essay does not make this point clear in this specific writing, and may not call it "original creation" for he puts great emphasis on the idea of "copying the original". However, from the point that he differentiates "copying" with "blatant plagiarism" I think I could infer that he shares similar idea with the definition of positive creation. And I think, when one succeeds in creating special, striking effects by using already existing tradition as sources, that's where "creativity" lies.
