Very good article, Inigo. Let’s call it what it is - plagiarism. I think there is plenty of ‘content’ that is fair game on social media, but the act of taking your succinct prose and then not crediting you is theft, plain and simple.
Thanks, Mel! You know what’s so funny? I wasn’t being coy by not calling it that, My ADHD brain literally forgot the word plagiarism existed 😭 But you’re absolutely right and writers end up suffering a lot because of it.
Ha ha! Well I wouldn’t have known! I thought it was all part of your argument, because the people who appropriated your words won’t have thought of it as plagiarism at all. People take and use images without credit all the time (I myself appropriated an image today but I considered it fair game - an image from the movie 28 Years Later) and artists or photographers continually fight to get recognised as the original content creator. We would think literary texts or posts would be safe from that, due to good schooling - but sadly that’s not the case.
I sometimes think of the artist Seal who (and I’m paraphrasing 😂) said it didn’t matter what his lyrics were - as the listener either gets the gist or makes their own lyrics up to his tune, and he’s cool with that. I for one can never remember lyrics but get the gist, however if I was to quote someone in a text/post - I do my research and go to find the source material. (By rights, I should go off and find the actual Seal quote, but I know from past experience, it’s a bit of a bugger to find! I read it in the inlay card of his album Seal, too many years ago. More than one click away 😉)
One of the things I removed from the first draft was a sort of unwritten guidelines of online etiquette. I took it out because it would take a lot of thought to actually put the unspoken rules in my head into a set of commandments and I wanted to get this piece out as quickly as possible. When you said, "image from the movie" I immediately said, "yeah, fair game".
One of the times times I said its permissible to rip images was: "the only time I ever screenshot and post something without specific credit is if its already viral. If something has 20,000+ likes already—however I choose to repost it ain’t gonna touch the sides."
I am absolutely the same as a musician and as a casual listener haha I'm rubbish at remembering lyrics. The great thing about substack is you can literally just download an image of a quote and it has the name of the writer and the substack embedded, its such a neat feature. But for everything else, we have to do a little leg work haha
I wholeheartedly agree about naming this. As someone who is always careful to include the artist’s, photographer’s, writer’s, name on anything I repost, I can feel your feelings in this article. It’s very important, what you’re saying, and it’s also extremely moving because you wrote exquisitely. If I was ever to consider not naming my source (bc of inconvenience) in the future, now I _never_ would.
Fantastic piece. I'd just like to mention that if I wasn't currently in a famine freelance situation waiting on the next contract and buried in debt, I'd upgrade to paid just because voices that articulate things I vibe with so heavily who aren't people I ALREADY KNOW IN SOME CAPACITY on this platform are really fucking rare.
And thank you for continuing to share as much free writing as you do, because you're one of a coterie of people I've found on this platform that I look at and say "no, writing should definitely be their day job."
Brother, I’d never say no to a paid subscriber but know that your comments and insight are truly enough, i appreciate them every single time and this last sentence is extremely affirming, thank you for your support, man!!
As the welcome sudden inspirational quoter of IG lately on my reel feed, the amazing entertaining mic worker Randy "Macho Man" Savage (Poffo, his last name was Poffo. His middle name was Mario! Randall Mario Poffo.) said. "THE CREAM RISES TO THE TOP" (While holding a tiny little coffee creamer.)
Honestly in his promos he said some wild shit that's... Almost existentialist when you strip it of context.
this is a great article that really does well touching on how the death of the author is very much accelerated the death of the internet and Anti-blackness in a way because if it wasn't doing that we'd lose our connection to history. And the worst thing to do is to lose connections to the original and if we don't credit we lose our debt to those we stand on the shoulders of so yeah i agree with you, Inigo. To Stop the Inevitable heat death that is the death of the internet, we must start by crediting the author to save and respect the author first.
This is why I appreciate the restacking feature here on SubStack. You effortlessly quote the original author.
It's fascinating what you bring up. First off I totally understand your frustration, among other things because that piece you wrote on The Wild Robot is such a brilliant analysis of things that seldom get so brilliantly analyzed, so it is a genuine crime for it to not reach the maximum audience it possibly can.
I connect this in part to our general growing disdain for 'content creators' paired with our ever growing hunger for 'content'. You want the sound bite, but you pretend not to care where it came from. You want to take a selfie with a striking thought, but you don't want to bother to chase down and promote the article the thought came from.
In a sense it feels linked to how we're using AI now, and how people who use AI to generate 'content' - whether images or words - try very fervently to defend what they're doing as 'a different but equally valid form of creativity' - 'so what if I didn't write or draw it myself?!?!' But of course the reason AI can create images, or words, is only because it has plagiarized literally every human out there who has done it before. It is not 'a new form of creativity'. It is a new form of plagiarism.
I so thoroughly receive this, not just as a writer, but as someone who shares other people’s thoughts, as well, and who tries really hard to ensure she gives credit where due. When I used to be on those other platforms — particularly Instagram, where you once had to use a different app to repost things you liked — I would go to great pains to ensure I credited the original poster. It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s necessary and right.
It’s kind of how I felt about bootleg movies and music. I am an artist. I don’t want to steal from other artists. I don’t want to take money out of the pockets of the lesser known contributors to that piece of art.
Wonderfully written. This part jumped out:" Neglect is a harm with not much thought at all." GOSH, THAT IS SO GOOD! I'm chewing on the idea that maybe because accessing the internet is free, the ability to consume what comes up on a screen is also seen as free. When rather we should see creation/art online as a museum where you wouldn't go about handling the material outright. Thank you for the opportunity to think - I wholeheartedly understand your frustration with the whole situation and culture.
yes and the way this access has been understood is kind of what has paved the way for ai, that trains itself on writers and artists who have to opt out or have been fed into its algorithm through some loophole and call it progress. we need to re-think some of these ways of being, for sure. thanks for reading, my darling.
The fact that she pulled that directly from your newsletter and posted with zero credit infuriates me. She swiped it from a whole piece of writing with no link in the initial tweet?!? Hell nah. You handled that elegantly AND you are not being dramatic at all.
As a victim of plagiarism on numerous occasions throughout my writing life (one time a woman sent one of my poems to her bf and when he asked where she got it from, she lied and said a Parker Posey movie 😭😂 he ended up googling it and the only thing that came up was me. He reached out to verify and that’s how I found out) the last bit really HIT. 💥💥💥 Thank you for this, Inigo.
I’m a visual artist and one of my pet peeves is seeing folks pluck a piece of art from wherever—pinterest, instagram, google images—and use it to illustrate their writing with absolutely no credit given to the artist. ‘We’ seem to think that anything on our screen is fair game for taking and using however we like. You’ve raised some brilliant questions around the ethics of re-quoting and I’m going to be more mindful of re-stacking snippets of writing in future. A fabulous read.
this is such a fantastic piece! i think there’s so much to be said about how social media encourages quotes and even short phrases from people’s work to be severed from their context, and even their true authors as you point out! your piece is the first i’ve really seen to explore this and do it justice - thank you for writing
I'm almost certain there's a through-thread to trace between the literal size of a novel being replaced by the slim, handheld phone and how that reduction in size is congruent with the shortening of attention spans, or reducing of whole books into (mis)quotes, or highlighting the best clips of films/the glorification of the film's best static shot, and chronic pre-digestion. Perhaps, a topic for different essay!
Always a pleasure to read your insightful words. I appreciate how you question, and give back, and make me look at my own self first, and then my writing -- which is worlds apart from what you offer. But you always make me pause and take the time to read you. I look at this platform differently, but that's because we're both looking for different things from it, but in essence, the same. I want to be read and appreciated as much as the next person, but I also want to make something of it, as well as myself. I'm also willing to sit back and let the long game be played out...however long it will be once you get past a certain age. (Hopefully, this place will last the twenty years I need to fulfill my obligations to myself.)
Thank you for your continued support and insight my friend and the thing about two people who want the same (or similar) things is that, the shape of their wants is always going to be cut by their imaginations–which will always differ. I'm really rooting for you to get closer to your want, day by day, until its easier enough to reach without stretching.
Thank you for your kind words. As long as I have my health (sorta), I’ll be able to make something here. Funny thing is, “the long game” keeps getting shorter for me! 🤷🏼
the "conentification" of art or even the widespread circulation of content without its original context has been swirling around my mind lately. mina le and drew joiner both on youtube recently came out with videos discussing this. they're hardly the first or the last. with content and artwork shared on social media sites, there's this idea that it belongs to all of us and therefore it belongs to no one. the original creator is irrelevant, even if it makes the quote or video snippet become completely out of context. as another writer, i've grown up completely petrified of my writing stolen and plagiarized. my substack exists as a way for me to work through that fear. i'm an only child, so having Things with my name on it for all to see is my normal. full credit is normal, for me. but writers don't only write to be recognized for our ideas, but to start a conversation. and to be removed from the discussion while being quoted, well it just feels like an insult. our words are part of our souls, no? a reflection of where we stand, what we share. for that to be stolen in many ways feels like the last straw. i'm rambling at this point. excellent as always, thank you for continuing to share your words.
Very good article, Inigo. Let’s call it what it is - plagiarism. I think there is plenty of ‘content’ that is fair game on social media, but the act of taking your succinct prose and then not crediting you is theft, plain and simple.
Thanks, Mel! You know what’s so funny? I wasn’t being coy by not calling it that, My ADHD brain literally forgot the word plagiarism existed 😭 But you’re absolutely right and writers end up suffering a lot because of it.
Ha ha! Well I wouldn’t have known! I thought it was all part of your argument, because the people who appropriated your words won’t have thought of it as plagiarism at all. People take and use images without credit all the time (I myself appropriated an image today but I considered it fair game - an image from the movie 28 Years Later) and artists or photographers continually fight to get recognised as the original content creator. We would think literary texts or posts would be safe from that, due to good schooling - but sadly that’s not the case.
I sometimes think of the artist Seal who (and I’m paraphrasing 😂) said it didn’t matter what his lyrics were - as the listener either gets the gist or makes their own lyrics up to his tune, and he’s cool with that. I for one can never remember lyrics but get the gist, however if I was to quote someone in a text/post - I do my research and go to find the source material. (By rights, I should go off and find the actual Seal quote, but I know from past experience, it’s a bit of a bugger to find! I read it in the inlay card of his album Seal, too many years ago. More than one click away 😉)
One of the things I removed from the first draft was a sort of unwritten guidelines of online etiquette. I took it out because it would take a lot of thought to actually put the unspoken rules in my head into a set of commandments and I wanted to get this piece out as quickly as possible. When you said, "image from the movie" I immediately said, "yeah, fair game".
One of the times times I said its permissible to rip images was: "the only time I ever screenshot and post something without specific credit is if its already viral. If something has 20,000+ likes already—however I choose to repost it ain’t gonna touch the sides."
I am absolutely the same as a musician and as a casual listener haha I'm rubbish at remembering lyrics. The great thing about substack is you can literally just download an image of a quote and it has the name of the writer and the substack embedded, its such a neat feature. But for everything else, we have to do a little leg work haha
I wholeheartedly agree about naming this. As someone who is always careful to include the artist’s, photographer’s, writer’s, name on anything I repost, I can feel your feelings in this article. It’s very important, what you’re saying, and it’s also extremely moving because you wrote exquisitely. If I was ever to consider not naming my source (bc of inconvenience) in the future, now I _never_ would.
Fantastic piece. I'd just like to mention that if I wasn't currently in a famine freelance situation waiting on the next contract and buried in debt, I'd upgrade to paid just because voices that articulate things I vibe with so heavily who aren't people I ALREADY KNOW IN SOME CAPACITY on this platform are really fucking rare.
And thank you for continuing to share as much free writing as you do, because you're one of a coterie of people I've found on this platform that I look at and say "no, writing should definitely be their day job."
Brother, I’d never say no to a paid subscriber but know that your comments and insight are truly enough, i appreciate them every single time and this last sentence is extremely affirming, thank you for your support, man!!
As the welcome sudden inspirational quoter of IG lately on my reel feed, the amazing entertaining mic worker Randy "Macho Man" Savage (Poffo, his last name was Poffo. His middle name was Mario! Randall Mario Poffo.) said. "THE CREAM RISES TO THE TOP" (While holding a tiny little coffee creamer.)
Honestly in his promos he said some wild shit that's... Almost existentialist when you strip it of context.
BARZ.
this is a great article that really does well touching on how the death of the author is very much accelerated the death of the internet and Anti-blackness in a way because if it wasn't doing that we'd lose our connection to history. And the worst thing to do is to lose connections to the original and if we don't credit we lose our debt to those we stand on the shoulders of so yeah i agree with you, Inigo. To Stop the Inevitable heat death that is the death of the internet, we must start by crediting the author to save and respect the author first.
SAID WHAT NEEDED TO BE SAID.
🤣 I’m loving the passion
Yeah cause period!!!!! That copypaste tweet got me fucked up.😭 Gyal lucky I don’t got twitter!
This is why I appreciate the restacking feature here on SubStack. You effortlessly quote the original author.
It's fascinating what you bring up. First off I totally understand your frustration, among other things because that piece you wrote on The Wild Robot is such a brilliant analysis of things that seldom get so brilliantly analyzed, so it is a genuine crime for it to not reach the maximum audience it possibly can.
I connect this in part to our general growing disdain for 'content creators' paired with our ever growing hunger for 'content'. You want the sound bite, but you pretend not to care where it came from. You want to take a selfie with a striking thought, but you don't want to bother to chase down and promote the article the thought came from.
In a sense it feels linked to how we're using AI now, and how people who use AI to generate 'content' - whether images or words - try very fervently to defend what they're doing as 'a different but equally valid form of creativity' - 'so what if I didn't write or draw it myself?!?!' But of course the reason AI can create images, or words, is only because it has plagiarized literally every human out there who has done it before. It is not 'a new form of creativity'. It is a new form of plagiarism.
I so thoroughly receive this, not just as a writer, but as someone who shares other people’s thoughts, as well, and who tries really hard to ensure she gives credit where due. When I used to be on those other platforms — particularly Instagram, where you once had to use a different app to repost things you liked — I would go to great pains to ensure I credited the original poster. It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s necessary and right.
It’s kind of how I felt about bootleg movies and music. I am an artist. I don’t want to steal from other artists. I don’t want to take money out of the pockets of the lesser known contributors to that piece of art.
I hope I’m getting it right on here.
Wonderfully written. This part jumped out:" Neglect is a harm with not much thought at all." GOSH, THAT IS SO GOOD! I'm chewing on the idea that maybe because accessing the internet is free, the ability to consume what comes up on a screen is also seen as free. When rather we should see creation/art online as a museum where you wouldn't go about handling the material outright. Thank you for the opportunity to think - I wholeheartedly understand your frustration with the whole situation and culture.
yes and the way this access has been understood is kind of what has paved the way for ai, that trains itself on writers and artists who have to opt out or have been fed into its algorithm through some loophole and call it progress. we need to re-think some of these ways of being, for sure. thanks for reading, my darling.
The fact that she pulled that directly from your newsletter and posted with zero credit infuriates me. She swiped it from a whole piece of writing with no link in the initial tweet?!? Hell nah. You handled that elegantly AND you are not being dramatic at all.
As a victim of plagiarism on numerous occasions throughout my writing life (one time a woman sent one of my poems to her bf and when he asked where she got it from, she lied and said a Parker Posey movie 😭😂 he ended up googling it and the only thing that came up was me. He reached out to verify and that’s how I found out) the last bit really HIT. 💥💥💥 Thank you for this, Inigo.
Your Parker Posey movie plagiarism is a great story at least! Thanks for all your kindness and for reading, darling
I’m a visual artist and one of my pet peeves is seeing folks pluck a piece of art from wherever—pinterest, instagram, google images—and use it to illustrate their writing with absolutely no credit given to the artist. ‘We’ seem to think that anything on our screen is fair game for taking and using however we like. You’ve raised some brilliant questions around the ethics of re-quoting and I’m going to be more mindful of re-stacking snippets of writing in future. A fabulous read.
"‘We’ seem to think that anything on our screen is fair game for taking and using however we like."
This is exactly it and I definitely just want people to think about! Thank you for reading.
Fuck . This was amazing.
this is such a fantastic piece! i think there’s so much to be said about how social media encourages quotes and even short phrases from people’s work to be severed from their context, and even their true authors as you point out! your piece is the first i’ve really seen to explore this and do it justice - thank you for writing
I'm almost certain there's a through-thread to trace between the literal size of a novel being replaced by the slim, handheld phone and how that reduction in size is congruent with the shortening of attention spans, or reducing of whole books into (mis)quotes, or highlighting the best clips of films/the glorification of the film's best static shot, and chronic pre-digestion. Perhaps, a topic for different essay!
thank you for reading, my darling.
PLEASE WRITE THAT ESSAY 🔥
Always a pleasure to read your insightful words. I appreciate how you question, and give back, and make me look at my own self first, and then my writing -- which is worlds apart from what you offer. But you always make me pause and take the time to read you. I look at this platform differently, but that's because we're both looking for different things from it, but in essence, the same. I want to be read and appreciated as much as the next person, but I also want to make something of it, as well as myself. I'm also willing to sit back and let the long game be played out...however long it will be once you get past a certain age. (Hopefully, this place will last the twenty years I need to fulfill my obligations to myself.)
Thank you for your continued support and insight my friend and the thing about two people who want the same (or similar) things is that, the shape of their wants is always going to be cut by their imaginations–which will always differ. I'm really rooting for you to get closer to your want, day by day, until its easier enough to reach without stretching.
Thank you for your kind words. As long as I have my health (sorta), I’ll be able to make something here. Funny thing is, “the long game” keeps getting shorter for me! 🤷🏼
the "conentification" of art or even the widespread circulation of content without its original context has been swirling around my mind lately. mina le and drew joiner both on youtube recently came out with videos discussing this. they're hardly the first or the last. with content and artwork shared on social media sites, there's this idea that it belongs to all of us and therefore it belongs to no one. the original creator is irrelevant, even if it makes the quote or video snippet become completely out of context. as another writer, i've grown up completely petrified of my writing stolen and plagiarized. my substack exists as a way for me to work through that fear. i'm an only child, so having Things with my name on it for all to see is my normal. full credit is normal, for me. but writers don't only write to be recognized for our ideas, but to start a conversation. and to be removed from the discussion while being quoted, well it just feels like an insult. our words are part of our souls, no? a reflection of where we stand, what we share. for that to be stolen in many ways feels like the last straw. i'm rambling at this point. excellent as always, thank you for continuing to share your words.
I’m so glad that you wrote this
No thank you for reading, darling! Especially for looking through the first frantic draft, your notes really helped tie it together 🤎
It came out perfect ♥️
The way I want to smash a cup on the ground and scream ANOTHER every other sentence
L'Chaim!! 😂