‘Submitting someone else’s work as your own’

(Jude Carroll)

Visual plagiarism

Margo BlythmanUniversity of the Arts London

Joan MullinUniversity of Texas at Austin

Susan OrrYork St John University

Text based plagiarism in the UK

• Moral panic

• Spectrum from ‘rules to concepts’

• Predominate discourse is ‘rules’….or worse

• Metaphors of war, crime and pestilence (Carroll 2006)

Non-text based

• Photography• Graphic design• Fashion• Textile design• Product design• Interior design• Architecture• Film and television• Sound design

Importance

• Creative industries crucial to UK economy

Non-text based plagiarism

Silence…………….

Or

‘plagiarism is the raison d’etre of fashion photography’

Rules

• Can’t scan in, and claim as own, unaltered images

• Can’t buy objects and claim you made them

• Awareness of commercial copyright

• Some professional organisations have ethical standards

Homage?

• www.berkeleyhomes.com/graphics/moving_van/van...

Pierhead café Swanage(shockedcustard.co.uk)

Michael Bedard Window Shopping

The real thing

Advertising takes over

And the movies…..

So why?

• Appropriation is part of the tradition….homage

• In some areas direct copying is part of the tradition

• Sites for referencing?

- catalogue

- sketchbook

- others?

Implications

• Student confusion – especially where text based rules are expressed in absolute terms

• But….students in visual media are not paralysed by fear of plagiarising unintentionally

• Raises issues that problematise simplistic approaches to plagiarism in any context

The real Rosie

Some useful visual plagiarism websites

http://www.epuk.org/The-Curve/456/visual-plagiarism

http://www.plagiarius.com/e_index.htmlhttp://www.isidore-of-seville.com/monalisa/13.html

http://tonermishap.blogspot.com/2005/03/hopper-rolls-over-in-his-grave.html

http://www.talariaenterprises.com/product_lists/monet.html

http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/casestudies.php

Checklist of issues to discuss with students:

• Statement on the tradition of artistic creation • What "originality" means in the field• Ways in which source materials can be elaborated, used, in the discipline • What is regarded as common currency in the field and

so available to all to use without attribution. That being regarded as common currency will vary across time and culture.

• What the difference is between copying and interpretive/original vision

• The difference between academic, commercial and public expectations and regulations

And the students…….

• Devise an exercise for students that would help them ‘get it right’