Comes now Helene Hegemann, 17 years old, and within the last few weeks, a controversial best-selling author. Her novel, Axolotl Roadkill, is about a 16 year-old girl involved in Berlin’s under belly of clubs and drugs. The book is a hit in Germany, fifth on Der Spiegel’s hardcover best-seller list.
Amazing, not because Hegemann is only seventeen, but because of another surprising factor. A blogger accused her of taking whole passages from another’s blog and novel. Others discovered many other passages she had taken. Accused of plagiarism, she readily admitted her novel contains unacknowledged material from others’ works, but said she was just “mixing.” She said she is part of a new generation who mixes and matches to create new things. She said, “Berlin is here to mix everything with everything.”
A knowledgeable statement. Powerful. Which, incidentally, she failed to attribute to Airen, who wrote it, and also wrote the blog she took things to "mix", and who also wrote the novel Strobo from which passages were taken for “mixing.”
OK. We’re still not at the surprising part. The shock is , Helene Hegemann’s novel Axolotl Roadkill, is a finalist for the $20,000 Leibzig Book Fair Award for fiction. A member of the jury said they were aware of the plagiarism charges before they chose her novel. “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said mixer Hegemann.
Wow! If you try to check the originality of that statement you’ll find it’s quoted for two Google pages only in connection with the Hegemann plagiarism debacle. If you look at Amazon in Germany you’ll see those who bought Axolotl Roadkill are most likely to also buy Airen’s Strobo. New generation of mix and match DJs in writing, and learned contest juries agreeing? Hype rules. Help! Teachers, writers, circling the drain here.
Here is the New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html
Here is the blog showing what was taken. Doesn’t matter if you don’t read German – it’s all quite clear. http://www.gefuehlskonserve.de/axolotl-roadkill-alles-nur-geklaut-05022010.html
This is a departure from what I normally write - but this truly frightens me for the sake of copy-righted protection of one's creative works.
I've been cringing at some of the larceny that's going on. Have you been watching the "creative commons" people? Their credo is that if you've published it on the web, you've already given permission for anyone to use it anyway they wish. There is a woman named Nina Paley who has started making animated propaganda for them, including one called "Copying is Not Theft" which plainly states the case. A more recent one called "All Creative Work is Derivative" has been recently posted on her Facebook page! The whole thing reminds me of the debauched circle of artists that Ayn Rand described so beautifully in "The Fountainhead". Ellsworth Toohey is alive and well!
ReplyDeleteIndeed! Thank you for so many leads here - which I'll explore. I've spent my life-time honoring proper annotation through my teaching.
ReplyDeleteI should be careful how I criticize other artists - for almost 15 years, I made my living singing songs by other artists, and though I always revealed my sources, I'm certain there were occasions where copyrights were infringed upon. I've not read "Axolotl Roadkill" so I don't the context, or how the items were used...
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