Slate writer Paul Collins has an entertaining piece on Google's book search being used to identify plagiarism in major literary works (link here). The technology is the same as that now being used by schools to identify student plagiarism in homework class papers. But it raises a more serious question--when is copyright violated? One sentence? One paragraph? One page? A chapter?

Maybe the whole concept of copyright as a legal issue with damages assessed is impossible to determine and should be abandoned.

I fantasize about this. Would anyone publish? Of course, newspapers delivered to my door or sold at a stand on the way to work is a service and I would willingly pay for it. Everything else would soon be available on the internet, supported by advertising. You want it in hard copy? Fire up your printer and you get it instantly.

There is a downside. Not everyone has a computer or access to the internet--but that is changing. The real downside for me is the wasting away of newspapers, starving for revenue and increasingly abandoning content. The New York Times has the right idea--make people pay for online access to what is a truly superior product. It is still cheaper than the hard copy.

Music and films are different--maybe. Companies are already selling downloads but are having a hard time preventing free file sharing. Still, they are making potloads of money. When we see performers gross earnings decline, it may to be time to worry. But they always have the lucrative alternative of live performances.

When we see performers gross earnings decline, it may to be time to worry.

Why? When we see consumer surplus decline it may be time to worry.

BTW, has anyone attempted to measure performers' gross earnings? (And why gross?)

But they always have the lucrative alternative of live performances.

Why would live performances not be included in performer earnings by default and definition?

John, I think it may be helpful to clarify some differences between plagiarism and copyright.

Plagiarism is falsehood, misattribution.

Copyright is a suspension of the public's liberty to develop its own (public) works.

Plagiarism is copying even a single letter or bit from from another author and claiming that it was actually authored by oneself. It is not whether the crime is detectable, but whether the perpetrator is knowing or contemptuous of it.

Ethically, I, and perhaps a few others, contend that the copying of another author's published work is fine. The crime only occurs when you take pains to deny or distort the truth of your authorship.

Careless omission of a few references among many can be forgivable, but if one is specifically presenting work as 100% original and yet there is verbatim coincidence (to such an extent that it would otherwise provide evidence of morphic resonance), then plagiarism has occurred.

Plagiarism is not copying of another's style, ideas, or methods, primarily because everyone is considered to unavoidably copy ideas from each other and from public works - typically inadvertently. Originality is judged by the audience, unless, of course, the author claims otherwise (in a research paper say), in which case they will be judged more stringently.

Incidentally, in case it isn't obvious, plagiarism still occurs even if the source work is in the public domain or is copyleft.

And even if copyright was abolished tomorrow, the crime of plagiarism should not disappear, not should its most flagrant perpetrators cease being prosecuted.

The truth of authorship is, as all truths are, inalienable.

And because of this, whilst ghost writers may prostitute their authorship, they cannot actually contract it away.

Crosbie: "crime of plagiarism"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism says "plagiarism has no standing as a criminal offense in the common law"

It is true: plagiarism is against the law. That doesn't mean that there is no penalty. Sanctions against plagiarism are enforced through private contract and social pressure. If you are a professional writer or teacher, and you plagiarize you can lose your job. Even worse, whoever you are, you can lose your reputation. The case of Kaavya Viswanathan is a good example. The public humiliation she suffered is undoubtably a much greater punishment than would be given in any court of law. In my view the main argument against this kind of "socially enforced" law isn't that the punishments are not sufficiently harsh. It is that they are too harsh.

Mike, I was using 'crime' in the moral sense. ;-)

Bear in mind that in my book, copyright infringement is not a crime, whereas plagiarism is.

Before you consider who is out of touch with reality here...

The book of law governing the art we have today is coated in layers of dust centuries thick. And yet, those centuries are but a few snowflakes on the glacier that is mankind's art. And mankind has seen umpteen ice ages...

The book I'm referring to is the one that must necessarily be written in advance, rather than in arrears, of the future it is to observe - the inescapable logic of the instantaneous diffusion we already see forming around us.

Copyright, as Canute, cannot.