Caution..Thoughts under construction

Have you ever wondered why it is that every time a book, music, song or a movie is successful people begin coming out of the woodwork screaming plagiarism and other asinine accusations? The only conclusion I have ever come up with is two-fold. One, they actually, truthfully felt they were ripped off and by God someone was going to pay. Two, their piece of work was a piece of crap, they needed to buy new tires for their car and by God someone was going to pay

Look at what author Dan Brown went through with his book, The Da Vinci Code, multiple suits by the authors of a book that was only similar in very small details, for example, it had a cover and pages just like Brown’s. Of course, that is an absurd comment and meant to be. However, that is about how absurd the accusations were against brown and the court ruled justly and was correct in their findings.

I can sit here and list many songs and artists that have had the same bovine excrement thrown at them by some money grubbing or fame-seeking person and all because they were not as good or did not have the same idea. Along the same frame of thought we have successful plagiarism cases where the court ruled that yes, the song was totally ripped off, “Bailiff, take the man outside and hang him”. No, not really, but I am sure the author, artist or songwriter who was the victim had wished the judge would have said those exact words. I can think of three successful cases regarding songs off the top of my head, but if I listed them I would have to research the songs, the verdict and the information, so, because I am simply too lazy to do that I will only say that yep, it happened, three times that I recall.

It has to be extremely difficult for a songwriter to sit in court and testify under oath about another song they have been accused of ripping off in some way or another. With all the variations on songs and music, floating around the industry it would be difficult to say with any certainty that you had never heard that title or mix before and you were not influenced by something you heard and did not inadvertently included into your piece.

Dan Brown was yet again in the news with a ruling by a Supreme Court once more on his side and shooting the opposition down for the last time. I am sure that Mr. Brown now feels vindicated and can move ahead with his next novel with total satisfaction that he is not a plagiarist, just a wealthy and successful author, which is as it should be.

I followed the trial, which took place in England and found it very interesting. We were treated to what goes on behind the scenes when a writer researches and works on a book and it becomes as successful as The Da Vinci Code. The referencing I go into involves Wikipedia and I am done. “Whew! What a day I had honey, I had to go to Wikipedia and research the word, “automobile”, it’s Miller Time, where’s that six-pack I brought home? Seeing the listing of the vast library of books, manuscripts and articles Brown supplied the court as his reference material made me tired just reading it. If I had to go through every one of those items on the list I would have tossed the whole thing out the window, grabbed my six-pack. “Work enough for one day, what’s on television and who drank all of that six-pack I brought home?”