The many ins and outs of 'copcatism'

The comedian Tom Lehrer urged his audience in song to “Plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise!/ Why do you think God gave you eyes?” However, earthly powers-that-be take a dim view of such me-too malpractices. Even as the groves of Indian academe are buffeted by the stormy winds of scandal and controversy concerning mass copying and the leaking of board exam papers, the authority in charge of higher education, the University Grants Commission, has recently approved an anti-plagiarism rule that will cause those caught indulging in this misdeed to lose the postgraduate degree they’d earned, or the teaching job they’d obtained, by ‘borrowing’ without acknowledgement a sizeable portion of their theses or research papers.

While such a measure is fully justified and comes none too soon, ‘copycatism’ can claim to have an illustrious provenance. With refreshing candour, Seneca unabashedly declared, “Whatever is well said is mine.” Shakespeare poached many plots not only from the Stoic philosopher’s works but from elsewhere, too. Three hundred years later, Emerson sighed, “All men are mimics, all literature mere quotation.” Such arguments, however, are unlikely to wash with the guardians of scholarly probity who’d abide by the principle that two, or more, copywrongs don’t make a copyright.