Is Plagiarism In Literature Just Sampling?

ardent99 writes "According to the NY Times today, Helene Hegemann's first book has been moving up the best-seller list in Germany and is a finalist for a major book prize. While originally this was notable because Hegemann is only 17 and this is her first book, and so earned praise as a prodigy, what's interesting now about this story is that she has been caught plagiarizing many passages in the book. Amazingly, she has not denied it, but instead claims there is nothing wrong with it. She claims that she is part of a new generation that has grown up with mixing and sampling in all media, including music and art, and this is legitimate in modern culture. Have we entered a new era where plagiarism is not just tolerated, but seen as normal? Is this the ultimate in cynicism, or is it simply a brash attempt to get away with something now that she's been caught? Is her claim to legitimacy compromised by the fact that she only admitted it after it was discovered by someone else? And finally, if 'sampling' is not acceptable in literature, is this reason to rethink the legitimacy of musical sampling?"

No.

[pwnies]

The difference between bands like Girl Talk who sample music to create new pieces, and someone copying someone else's words into a paper they're writing, is that Girl Talk doesn't claim to have made the samples. One of the aspects of why plagiarism is seen as wrong is because you're taking credit for someone else's work. When you're sampling music, you're crediting them.

Re:She must not have taken high school classes yet

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, she quit school at 14 years old. There's still no excuse for the deed, her father being a literature professor after all (the reason why she got book deal in the first place..).

Re:No.

[reverseengineer]

In the United States, since 1991, the date of Grand Upright Music, Ltd v. Warner Bros. Records Inc., [wikipedia.org] music samples need to be cleared by the copyright holder. That's what seems to be the real distinction here- you cannot consider literary plagarism to be analogous to music sampling because in fact legal music sampling is nothing like plagarism- works are cited, permission is requested and granted and often a considerable sum of money or share of future earnings takes place.

Re:From the article...

[kill-1]

AFAIK, she didn't copy whole pages verbatim. In the box at the bottom of
this page [faz.net], you can find a comparison of the original and her text (in German, of course).

Happens in Research Too

[iOdin]

In terms of research literature, this happens too. In fact, it may be even worse if you think about it. I publish at least 3-4 papers each year in various different conferences and maybe a Journal or two. Go figure... even if it is my work, if I am not careful, then I may be liable for "self-plagiarism", from which they can retract publications and even my doctoral degree if the University deems it a serious offense. And we are not talking here about copy-paste to a whole paper section, even taking a sentence or two from one of your previous publications is debatable. I personally think this policy is ridiculous as it forces me to reword everything, even the obvious, no matter how much overlap there may be between the current paper and one I just sent in through the pipeline a month ago.