What‘s Wrong with Copying?

What’s wrong with copying?

—Charges of plagiarism are flying in the world of books. Where does borrowing end and theft begin? Though disputed, there is a difference.

在文学圈剽窃之风盛行。而借鉴与抄袭又是如何界定的呢？尽管存在争议但是二者确实有明显的差异。

Every one knows the feeling. In a timely flash, the perfect quip forms in the mind and rolls onto the tongue. You deliver it to the table, and wait for the gasps or guffaws. In the silence that follows a dry violence says instead," Yes I read it too."

应该每个人都有过这样的体验，突然想到一个绝妙的笑话，并滚到嘴边。你将这个笑话分享给在座的朋友，本期待他们能笑得前仰后合，喘不过气。结果只换来了大家的沉默，还有一个无趣的人说“是的这个我也看过了。”

Authors have to wait longer to find out that their words are not theirs alone.But"unconscious borrowing", as critics call such silent plunder,is common among writers,even the best of them. Perhaps because night-foraging by the imagination is so vital to literature, good writers react warily when, as now, chargers of plagiarism fly.Though naturally eager to protect their own published words, and not above a malicious smile or two when others get caught, most authors recognize that this is boggy ground. Between imitation and theft, between borrowing and plagiarism, lies a wide, murky borderland.

作者需要等待一段时间才能发现他们的作品是否已经不是他们的专属了，批评家称这种无意识的借用等同于无声的的抢劫，但是这种事情在作家之间经常出现，甚至是那些优秀的作家。也许是因为借助于想象的”夜间觅食“对文学来说太过于关键。由于现在盛行的抄袭之风，优秀的作家也开始变得谨慎起来。尽管作家们出于本能地去保护他们已经问世的作品，甚至对被抓到的剽窃者投去不怀好意的笑。大多数作家还是承认这是一个让人犯糊涂的沼泽地。在模仿和抄袭之间，在借鉴和剽窃之间，存在着一个广阔又模糊的边界。

Since proving plagiarism is hard, legal redress is normally an expensive dream.The most that aggrieved authors can catch on is to shame the wrongdoer. But sham means attention, and attention brings sales. Recently, Ben Okri, a Nigerian-born novelist, claimed that Calixthe Beyala, a French one, lifted whole chunks of his 1991 Booker-winning novel, for her bestsellers. Plagiarism means copying delicately the exact words. His were English, hers French. Showing that a plundered book is not the only source is also a defense. On the advice of lawyers, he has dropped his case against her, and in effect the affair has died.

由于证明剽窃十分困难，谋求法律赔偿是一种奢望。受侵害的作者做多能做的就是去谴责那些做错事的人。但是谴责意味着会带来关注，关注将为被谴责者带来销量。最近一位尼日利亚小说家本.奥克利指责一位法国女作家在她的畅销书中对自己在1991年获得布克奖的作品中进行了大段的抄袭。剽窃意味着有意识地进行逐字逐句的复制。而他们的作品一个是英语一个是法语。被剽窃的作品并不是唯一来源，这成为了对方的一个辩护理由。在律师的建议下，他撤销了对那个法国女人的指控，最终这件事不了了之。

The personal vendetta carries different risks, as Neal Bowers, a wronged poet and teacher at Iowa State University, recounts in words for the taking: The Hunt for the plagiarist. One day, Mr Bowers got a fax from California of a page from a poetry magazine containing, under the name of David Jones, a slightly altered version of a poem he had written for his dead father. Worse, he learned that the purloined verses had been successfully placed in several other poetry magazines across the country. An outraged hunt began. Mr. Jones, he learned, had plagiarized other poets. Some editors sympathized; others did not bother even to respond. Mr. Bowers became, on his own admission, obsessed. He lost friends. But in the end he found the plagiarist, through a lawyer, only to be offered $100 in compensation, and a whining apology.

个人单方面的抗争总是存在各种各样的风险，如在爱荷华州立大学的教师，尼尔.鲍尔斯，一位受害诗人，在《追击剽窃者实录》中讲诉了自己的经历。有一天，鲍尔斯收到一个来自加利福利亚的传真，其中是一个是个杂志中所包含的一页。在大卫.琼斯的署名之下，他看到了自己写给自己死去的父亲的那首诗的轻微改编版。更加糟糕的是，他得知这首剽窃版诗作已经登上了全国多家其他的诗歌杂志。