Some words, some songs, some phrases are in the public domain...

[kentuck]

If you want to record "Oh, Susanna", go ahead. It is in the public domain. If you want to say, "Ask not what your country can do for you...", go ahead, it is in the public domain. If you want to say, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself", it is in the public domain. If you want to say, "I have a dream", it is not plagiarism, it is considered part of our public domain. Deceit and lies will get you nowhere. It will make you a loser.

[Ravy]

1. But kentuck,

and I think you know I generally like and agree with your posts... to use the exact same quotes with the "just words" in between them, out of ALL the famous quotes that could have been used to make his point.. he should have attributed them.

It should not be that big of a deal, unless he continues it. Out of "all" the speeches Obama has given, to forget to attribute a passage to his friend is understandable.

What will hurt is that *if* the media finds a pattern to it they will probably be relentless about it, because plagiarism is a huge crime in their business.

IMHO, Obama's apology/correction is in order. Denial will keep this going.

[Sadie5]

2. What I see is:

Obama can do no wrong and Hillary can do no right.

[kentuck]

3. Surely you jest.

This is grabbing for straws. The desperation is obvious. It will accomplish nothing positive. Denial? Is that just a river? Or did I plagiarize someone with that question?

[Ravy]

4. Things don't even have to be true to hurt a candidate.

This particular issue, although minor, is arguably true, and the media has picked up on it. That is what *might* make it important.

Grasping at straws might be accurate, but it appears that they actually grabbed one here.

[Hart2008]

5. It's not plagiarism if the other author gives permission, or if they both had the same speech writer

I didn't get the plagiarism attack in '88 when Dukakis used it against Biden. (In one of many standard stump speeches, Biden forgot to give attribution to Kinnock, which he normally did.) So What?

We all repeat things that we heard before.

It doesn't make us all plagiarists.

Politicians are in a different business from academics or journalists.

Some people can use the same words better than other speakers.

For example, Bob Dylan was a great song writer but a sub-par performer. Think about the following songs that Dylan wrote:
All Around the Watchtower-A big hit for Jimi Hendrix
Blowin' in the Wind-A big hit for Peter, Paul, and Mary
Mr. Tambourine Man-A big hit for the Byrds
Knockin' of Heavens Door-Recorded by many, but a big hit for Guns N Roses and Warren Zevon

(I may be missing one here.)

JFK didn't really write "Profiles in Courage". He paid someone to ghost write it for him.

So was JFK then a plagiarist as well, or does the original authors consent make it different?

Some people need to get a life here.

One word comes to mind: DESPERATION

[Ravy]

8. Permission is not an element in some definitions of plagiarizm.

Obama should apologize/attribute the remarks and move on.

[Hart2008]

14. So all candidates should give public credit to their speech writers or be labeled plagiarists?

This is a tempest in teapot.

The country has serious issues to discuss.

Where Obama's speech writer got the ideas for the speech is silly indeed.

:crazy::silly:

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. I said virtually the same thing in a post over a week ago --

that the "just talk" was a thoughtless meme - was "I have a dream" just talk?

So, did Obama plagarize me?

We had the same response to a bullshit meme - that he was all talk and nothing more. Moreover, he has a close friend with whom he probably discussed this very issue - is it surprising they would have the same response?

To be in agreement with someone is not plagarizing.

When the entire republican party took up the phrase 'evil empire', were they plagarizing Reagan? Did they have to attribute the phrase to Reagan? Or did they simply agree with him?

The plagarization meme is bullshit.

[Ravy]

9. This wasn't a phrase, it was an entire section of the speech..

using the same quotes and same text.

The voters will decide if it is bullshit or not. I think that depends on if there is more of it for the media to report on.

[Cogito ergo doleo]

10. And did Reagan lift "Evil Empire" from Star Wars?

He had a Star Wars fixation. But according to copyright law, short phrases such as "make my day," or "beam me up," are not protected, unless it's a slogan used for selling products which falls under trademark law.

Copyright law does protect the way ideas are expressed, and if you get permission from the author to use such expressions, then you are authorized to use the expressions. In this case, the phrases in question were written by the same man for Obama, so the meme, as you say, is bullshit.

And for the record:

"There is an exception to the principle that you cannot copy the unique expression of a fact or idea. If there is a limited number of ways to express the fact or idea, you are permitted to copy the expression. This is known as the merger doctrine and means that the idea and the expression are merged or inseparable..."

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter8/8-a.html

[Redbear]

7. You can plagiarize things from the public domain.

Many a student has copied an old poem from a book and turned it in as his own only to get an F and stern lecture.

There are two separate sins:

1. Stealing another's work.
2. Presenting a work as your own when it is not.

Sen. Obama certainly didn't do number one, but there is certainly an argument that he is guilty of the second sin.

It's a mistake they will learn from. Better to make a mistake like that now rather than October.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

11. Actually...

"I have a dream" is not in the public domain. The speech is copyrighted by the estate of Dr. King.

However, you can repeat the phrase "I have a dream" under the "Fair Use" doctrine.

And there's the rub. What Obama did is not plagiarism because virtually everything he said is either in the public domain and or allowable as Fair Use.

As to the rest of it, there's a rhetorical trick known as the argument ad absurdum where one takes an opponent's argument and stretches it to its illogical extreme as a way to discredit it. It's similar to the "slippery slope" argument.

The original argument by the Clintons was that Obama was just all words and pretty speeches.

Obama's point is that words are important (not at all an original thought). He simply took the Clintons argument and stretched it to the extreme in a way that would be resonant with liberal and Democratic voters. Using the shibboleths of liberal politics, Obama drove his point home and did so quite effectively. The fact that somebody else used the same rhetorical trick is not surprising and its not plagiarism.

The fact is that the Clinton's stepped in the bear trap by making the original criticism, and I think they've stepped in it again by making this ridiculous accusation.

[kentuck]

12. I agree.

I think this may hurt the Hillary campaign. Last poll I saw, she was slightly ahead. I suspect she may now lose by a small margin. This smells like desperation and is just a wee bit too obvious to fool people. Also, it was obvious he was not stating the words as his own, but as someone else's words to prove a point that words were not cheap - they were not "just words". They meant something. But in the context that he said them, it was obvious to me that he was attributing them to their original owners.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

13. Listening to a Hillary supporter on Ed Schultz just now...

She claimed to be an English professor (sure) and she said that Obama should have said, "As I was saying the other day with my friend Patrick Deval ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta" The fact that she herself can't even finish her own sentence shows how profoundly idiotic her statement was. There is a sweep and poetry to a good speech, and the notion that the speaker should have to interrupt that cadence every few sentences for a "verbal footnote" is beyond stupid.

Had Barak been writing this down (like Hillary did in "It Takes A Village") it would be an entirely different matter to not give full documentation to an original source. But this is a campaign stump speech -- the point is to get people fired up -- and not a research paper.

[Hart2008]

15. Exactly! n/t

[Vinca]

16. As this pertains to the Clinton campaign: it doesn't count. nt

[LadyVT]

17. Of course it would count if it happened (link)

From The Fact Hub:

Bad Oppo Alert! Obama Campaign Hunts For Plagiarism, Comes Up Empty

In response to Sen. Obama clearly lifting a major portion of his speech from Gov. Deval Patrick without attribution, the Obama campaign has produced a "research document" accusing Hillary of using "freely borrowed rhetoric from Obama."

Sen. Obama's examples include:

1. Hillary saying she wanted to "bring the country together."
2. Hillary saying she wanted to "turn the page" on George Bush and Dick Cheney.
3. Hillary's deliberate rejoinder to Obama's riff on "yes we can." (A phrase that was coined by the United Farm Workers, who have endorsed Hillary.)
2/18/2008 12:18:37 PM #

(these are obviously not incidents of plagiarisim)