A thought crossed my mind today about Plagiarism.
Suppose a Russian author stole my best book.
Then, he gave it to Reddit.Com to eviscerate.
Then the trolls eviscerated it,
Making it incomprehensibly different
To my masterwork.
Would he have really stolen my idea
If it’s totally different?
Sure, there might be zombies
Underground tunnels and people living inside of Subway stations
But, truthfully, nothing is the same.
Is it truly plagiarism
Or is it high art?
Michelangelo sculpted sculptures
Of the Greek molds and casts
Making reproductions at first
Which were in similitude with their
Original art.
With a novel, you cannot do this.
Rather, elements or ideas get borrowed from one author
To another, and then get shared
Passing down ideas from one person to the next.
It’s a lot like sculpting.
Yet, I have a hunch someone scalped my one manuscript
And wrote a few famous novels.
I’ve looked at them,
Seeing them all over the place.
They are not my stories.
Just some of my ideas
Which I ought not own.
Surely, I write myths about Robin Hood
And Beowulf, stories which are shared.
I write stories about Iranian myths
I’ve never seen my words in print.
It’s always someone else’s story
Which borrowed my ideas
To make theirs.
How they get it?
Who knows… but it’s not my story.
Where we confront problems
Is when I cannot publish my story
Because of them.
When I cannot have my words in print
And be read, because they plagiarized me.
All I care about are my words,
And my stories.
I copy Robin Hood and Medea
I copy some elements of Vampires and Werewolfs.
And I make my own stories with them.
It’s called High Art…
My story is not in Russia,
It is not in their Subway Stations,
It has really nothing to do with a famous author
I was enlightened to today.
My story is not in a Maze,
My story is not about men shrinking
To have lots of money…
Though each of these
Have borrowed something of mine…
Should it be copyrighted?
Maybe they came about independently
Because maybe archetypes exist.
Maybe notions produce art.
Or, maybe someone copied my manuscripts
And went to Reddit.com
And changed them.
Regardless, it’s not my story.
I’m flattered someone would make their own
So long as it’s not Capitol City
Or my Freelander Civilization;
So long as the themes are not American
And the love story is about Marc and Erin.
Surely, I don’t care about a wood carved bear
Because my story has nothing to do with a maze,
Though it is a metaphor about hell.
I did think about shrinking men who wanted to enrich themselves
With shrinking, namely, that’s why they have Galaxy Rings
In Fairyland.
But, it’s not my story.
Stories need shared,
And that’s why I love Japan
With tons of Gundam Animes
All by different producers.
Just, the guy who made Gundams should make some money
On it too. That’s all I’m saying;
People ought to read a work if it’s quality.
But, they don’t. And a Copyright system
Isn’t going to fix that.
Really, human corruption has been around for a long time
And intellectual property is airy.
An invention of a log splitter,
If the man who was the genius behind it
Didn’t get paid,
But some other thief did
I call that corruption.
If both men got paid,
But one made a Ford
And the other a Chevy,
And the other a Honda
And the other a KIA
I call that capitalism.
So long as men can eat from their labors
Which they do under the sun.
Just don’t steal my Ethos
And we’ll be fine.
Don’t steal my Pathos
And we’ll be fine.
Don’t steal my Logos
And we’ll be fine.
Let Kairos be damned
It’s Because of him
I’m poor.
B. K. Neifert 