Follow the past masters, but not too closely －名人を真似ろ、ただしそっくり過ぎるのはダメ－

1 - It is the best of creative times, it is the worst of creative times

So much great work has been written in the past that we have run out of new ideas, and writers are forced to shamelessly borrow from successful works of the past.

For evidence of this you need only look at the increasing number of lawsuits for plagiarism in the music world recently.  American band Spirit unsuccessfully sued Led Zeppelin over the similarity of parts of the famous hit “Stairway to Heaven” to their own song, “Taurus”.  Ed Sheeran is facing two separate lawsuits over plagiarism.  The most recent one claims that he copied large sections of Marvin Gaye’s hit, “Let’s get it on” in his own hit, “Thinking out loud”.

2 - Someone must have slandered Jimmy P., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was sued

Jimmy Page, the guitarist in the band Led Zeppelin successfully defended the band from the charges of plagiarism in an American court.  But even though he won, the band will still have to pay their own 600,000 dollars in legal fees.

It has always been difficult for musicians and writers to make money from their work.  It used to be record companies and publishers that kept most of the profits.  Now that they are also having difficulties, it is the lawyers who smell the chance for a profit.

3 - Successful writers are all alike.  Every unsuccessful writer is unsuccessful in their own way

Although Led Zeppelin won their lawsuit, it is interesting to note the reason that they won.  It was not because the jury decided the tracks were not alike.  It was because the similar parts are also like sections of lots of other songs.  Led Zeppelin successfully argued that they were not copying a single track, but were following a long copied tradition.  Perhaps Ed Sheeran will make the same argument.

If so many successful creative works become popular by closely following long copied patterns, perhaps to find something truly original you should look at unsuccessful works and unknown writers instead.  You would never find me borrowing sentences from famous creative works of the past!

Vocabulary:

shamelessly – without embarrassment or shame

a lawsuit – a legal dispute taken to a court to be decided

plagiarism – The illegal copying of another person’s work

to sue – to take legal action against; to bring to court

to slander – to say unfair or untrue things that damage someone’s reputation

a jury – a group of citizens who decide if someone is guilty or innocent in a trial

 

1 – Title adapted from the opening lines of Charles Dickens’ “A tale of two cities”

2 – Title adapted from the opening lines of Franz Kafka’s “The trial”

3 – Title adapted from the opening lines of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”