I DIDN'T THINK SO!

Some private emails in support, but nothing from the people who were called on to respond... and over a hundred views of my blog since I posted two weeks ago. Could it be that there is no response because there can be no hard rules on what can and cannot be borrowed? Since all writers borrow on some level, and some even instruct others to take from the established writers there are, where exactly a line can be drawn becomes difficult... and perhaps even arbitrary.

There is a precedent for borrowing in almost every writer that has ever been, if they are honest and we are honest. It is the proven practice of writers going back to the dawn of writing. It is how art works and culture works and society. Then suddenly there were rules and they were copyright rules and they were there to protect the income of the writers who had published. That seems fair. I can see the need for that. But those rules were not there to restrict the free flow of ideas and the free exchange of ideas; they were there to protect the printed works and the printed words.

Then there were lawsuits and lawyers and it falls to them still to pick and pick at the 'small print' to decide if an infringement has occurred and cases are never so clear cut. I am not a lawyer and few writers are, so how is it possible that well-intentioned and honest writers are to be protected when they borrow? And how does the internet serve to bring about 'justice' in these cases when there are no internet police and just the baying of the loudest wolves to be heard?

Right now I have given up all borrowing... as far as that is humanly possible. That, it seems to me, is the only way. And yet I read a respected and great writer recently and he was telling new writers to take from all other writers and to take and take, and then to make what has been taken their own. Is that simply being irresponsible? Or is there some magic in that phrase 'make it your own'? I repeat that I have never taken something and then not attempted to make it my own; I have never stolen words, not ever; and I have always been honest in my borrowings. I have not been sneaky or clever, but have been open and plain, and there for all to see.

I am not, therefore, a plagiarist.