Xstacy.

I had to read and reread this article. It touched on so many facets concerning plagiarism, it was difficult for me with my ADD to stay on track. Furthermore, Letham uses countless authors of various sorts that I am incredibly fans of, as examples for his paper. I had absolutely no idea that William Burroughs and Bob Dylan sampled so much of their work from other authors/musicians. I hate hate hate plagiarism, but like Lethem says, "if this is plagiarism, give us more." Really, I feel like societies that don't protect intellectual property guidelines are just asking for mediocrity. I hate to say it, but almost noone wants to work hard for something if they will get no credit for it. That is just the way it is. If I wanted to compose a song, but as soon as I published it, someone could steal it and claim it as their own, I don't know if I would want to work as diligently on my music. There is nothing more heartbreaking than feeling cheated when it comes to your creativity. I've had people steal ideas of mine and claim them as their own. It freaking sucks. BUT, after reading this article, I could see a lot of Lethem's points. In a perfect/Utopian society we wouldn't need these rules. When we share information and technology, it helps our society grow. I found that quotation by Donne at the beginning of the article to be pretty profound. If we functioned harmoniously together where we shared information and didn't try to forbid the using of ideas and technology, then we would all be adding to this wonderful epic that is mankind and its output.
I wanted to add that I never knew the fundamental ideas of Surrealists until I read this article. That's pretty silly since Bunuel and Dali are two of my favorite artists. This article provides a lot of food for thought when it comes to the realm of sharing/plagiarizing/sampling. Whatever it really is.