Assignment 3 - Remix or Plagiarim?

In 2010, seventeen year old Helene Hegemann captured the hearts and minds of her fellow Germans with her debut novel, Axolotl Roadkill. Hegemann already showed promise at an early age: She debuted her first play, Ariel 15, in Berlin in 2007, and the screenplay she wrote at the age of fourteen was produced, filmed, and shown in European theatres in 2008 (Wikipedia, n.d.). So the fact that her debut novel was nominated and chosen as a finalist for the $20,000 prize at the Leipzig book fair may not come as a great surprise.

What did surprise and shock Hegemann's growing fan base was the allegations of plagiarism that surfaced within weeks of her novel's release. A blogger uncovered numerous passages in Axolotl Roadkill that were almost directly lifted from an earlier obscure novel called Strobo (Kulish, 2010), as well as pieces lifted from the blog of Strobo's author Airen.

Unrepentant, Hegemann defended her book in interview with the Berliner Morgenpost, insisting that the material was not stolen, but was simply not properly acknowledged (The Local, 2010).  In another interview, Hegemann noted  that her generation is used to using and adapting any information they find on the internet for their own creative expression (Paterson, 2010).  As Hegemann said, "There is no such thing as originality anyway, there is just authenticity." (Paterson, 2010)

This case highlighted the deep rift between remix culture and the practices of the older media institutions in their divergent assumptions on intellectual ownership and copyright laws. I used this as a case study to examine the statement "Remix culture is fundamentally at odds with older media institutions and practices" through a series of images hosted on the Prezi platform. Though the assignment requested uploads to Flickr, I found Prezi allowed me more versatility in presenting my thoughts, while adhering to the image requirement.  The file is public and open to copying, and can be viewed here.

References

Kulish, N. (February 11, 2010). Author, 17, says it's 'mixing', not plagiarism. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html

Paterson, T. (February 19, 2010). Publish and be damned: Young writer's ego dramatically punctured. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/publish-and-be-damned-young-writers-ego-dramatically-punctured-1904037.html

The Local (February 9, 2010). Young literary star Hegemann counters plagiarism claim. The Local. Retrieved from http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100209-25143.html

Wikipedia (n.d.). Helene Hegemann. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene_Hegemann