Some might say that there is neither rhyme nor reason to the rule of plagiarism when the great Bard himself was a creative "borrower." No one tries to plagiarize Shakespeare because – among other reasons – getting caught is a foregone conclusion. But occasionally an intemperate, hot-blooded youth will think a little borrowing and re-mixing is simply fair play
Tag: Shakespeare
Most famous playwright ever. Allegedly stole all his ideas from the Italians. Not the sonnets, though.
Shakespeare Veritas
Can one desire too much of a good thing? Since I received command to do this business I have not slept one wink. If you asked it of me, I could a tale unfold . . .
5 Books That Changed the World
Every child knows the story of the star-crossed Romeo & Juliet, has heard Hamlet's midnight lament to his father's ghost, and shivered as the witches pronounce poor Macbeth's doom.
Double Falsehood Not False After All
New evidence has come to light that the 18th century play Double Falsehood — whose author famously claimed (to mixed reviews) that it was based on Shakespeare’s missing play Cardenio — actually is derived from Shakespeare’s lost work. Rumors abound that the play will be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company when the Swan Theatre in Stratford reopens. One mystery remains — what did Lewis Theobold do with the three copies of Cardenio he claimed to possess? For the full story see Mark Brown’s article in the Guardian.
I am a commercial litigator and intellectual property lawyer in Orange County. Although my practice encompasses a wide variety of business disputes, I have a particular fondness for, and am prone to wax philosophical on, the subjects of copyright and trademark infringement in music, literature, art, and film.
When Is Re-Mixing Copyright Infringement?
Several years ago, Jonathan Lethem wrote a brilliant article defending the use of "borrowing" by writers in their pursuit of new creation, arguing that creation itself necessarily calls upon the inchoate melange of what one has read over one's life as an unconscious source of style, language, allegory, sentence structure, plot, and pacing, and that -- in a sense -- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery