I keep seeing connections that pop up in my different classes at GMU.  The most recent, and relative, one has to do with content ownership and distributing media to the masses.

In my Northern Renaissance art history class we discussed the invention of the printing press and how it enabled artistic content to reach large masses of people outside of where the artist lived. It was with the invention of the printing press that plagiarism became much more apparent. Before the printing press artists often copied other artists, or at least copied aspects of certain styles. Back then it wasn’t considered stealing, it was a way for the community of artists to learn from one another and build off of what the previous generation of artists had left behind. Things changed quite a bit when artists were able to create a printing plate that thousands of copies could be made from. The plate, made from copper, would eventually wear down enough that you couldn’t get any more clear copies from it and some were just thrown away. This gave artists the opportunity to steal plates, re-etch some of the worn down lines and make thousands of copies of another artists work. Plagiarism seems to have had a correlation with an invention that allows artistic content to be broadly distributed, handled by many, and that profits the distributing artist, not necessarily the creating artist.

The printing press has a lot in common with the inventions that led to music recording. The printing press and music recording techniques found a way to take an artists creativity and turn it into a commodity. When music started to be recorded, a lot more people could listen to an artists song. Being able to record music made it easier for that music to travel in different circles, and reach a different audience, as opposed to a single musician only being able to reach those he was in close proximity to. Without a way for an artist to have their music rapidly spread throughout a wide population, plagiarism was hard to pinpoint. I don’t think these inventions cause plagiarism, but it makes it more lucrative for plagiarizers and it makes it easier to find those who copy other peoples content.

My thoughts aren’t 100% formed on this subject yet, I think there is more to plagiarism and the correlation with mass media inventions, I am just having a hard time connecting it all right now. More processing and rolling thoughts around in my head is in order

In the meantime, here I am sitting in a Korean bakery, called “Tous les Jours”, that serves traditional French pastries, listening to Asian rap coming through the speakers.