One of the supposed justifications for the intellectual monopoly called copyright is that it drives creativity and culture. In the last few weeks alone we have had multiple demonstrations of why the opposite is true: copyright destroys culture, and not by accident, but wilfully. For example, the MTVNews.com site, along with its sister site CMT.com, …
Let’s say you write a novel. It’s really really good. But no one reads it because no one ever hears about it.
Later, I stumble upon your novel and recognize how great it is. Then I republish it verbatim, except with my name as the author. I am much better at business and marketing than you, so it goes viral. I receive millions in sales, am tapped to produce a movie version, and win a Pulitzer for it.
Is that fair? Or should you have some rights in all of this since it was your copy?
And
Copyright only protects the Mouse’s bottom line, and strangleholds creativity.
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That’s plagiarism.
You can have plagiarism law distinct from copyright.
That way, the original author will always be mentioned as a source in the derivative works and it is highly unlikely they will receive no attention should your derivative work become popular.
In this example I would have committed both crimes.
It’s copyright infringement for me to republish and profit from your work without your consent (while that work is not in the public domain).
It’s plagiarism for me to pass that work off as my own.
So it was a bad example.
Copyright has nothing to do with plagiarism. It is literally about the mechanical work of producing copies, which used to be expensive.