A musician in the E Street band that backs up Bruce Springsteen recently observed that the way rock and roll musicians begin is by learning the songs of others they like ( “cover” songs) and then they play these covers for “five years in a bar.” This teaches them how to work together as a band and then gradually they begin to find their own voices and write their own material. Because these songs are instantly recognizable as being the works of others, this is imitation not plagiarism.

Plagiarism is work that copies rather than imitates and usually the original of the copy is not acknowledged. Unfortunately or may fortunately (I’m not sure its a good idea to rely on a formula) there is no test to indicate plagiarism; it simply relies on knowledgeable experts, often artists themselves, to recognize it. There are enough knowledgeable people out there to make this a pretty good system no matter how informal, and the people who control the marketplace for art be they curators, collectors, or auction house experts, are very careful about the provenance of work if money is involved. So there’s no lessening of creativity in the arts but because of the money involved here is no lessening of fakes either!

I appreciate your visiting the blog but it has been replaced by a new blog called Simulacra. You can find it at the link above. I’d welcome a visit!