unconscious plagiarism
Saturday, December 13, 2008 (12:36 PM)
when i was told about the impending lawsuit against coldplay from guitar master joe satriani, i was like wtf?
after listening to coldplay's viva la vida and satch's if i could fly, i couldn't help but notice the similarity between these two songs. even for an untrained ear, the similarity is so stark, you'd wonder if one was the cover of the other. nah... just kidding.
i'm a mini coldplay fan and i don't listen to satch at all. however, i am not going to defend coldplay by saying that it's not the same or that the world has so many other songs that sound the same. but look at the mandarin pop market. you can handle over 80% of the songs with a C Am F G progression.
when i heard of this issue, what immediately came to mind was an article i read off carol's assignment some 1-2 years ago. that article was written by mark twain and the topic?
unconscious plagiarism
and it works like this. you read so much of someone's works that your thinking begin to formulate the same way and after some time, you don't really recall what exactly you've read. but when you begin to write on the topic, you unknowingly plagiarise the content thinking you came up with it yourself. and this very content has already been residing in your mind after having read it off that person's works.
mark twain did it and he wrote a letter of apology explaining the circumstances of his unconscious plagiarism to the original author.
i believe it works the same way in music too. sometimes i hum something that sounds nice and think i came up with it. but later, found it actually came from some song i've heard.
so all you honours students out there, prepare a letter of explanation on unconscious plagiarism and you can freely plagiarise next semester. if you get caught, just submit this letter. =)
just don't quote me. it's ok if you claim this idea as your own.