Art, Integrity, and Being True to Yourself
Well, it's been quite a while since my last post, as I've been occupied with other projects. Recently, though, I had something interesting happen that is such a valuable lesson that I just had to share it. This is a little long, but I think you'll find it well worth your time.
Not long ago, I received an email from a young man who is a magic enthusiast and a senior at a large university in another state. He was writing to apologize for having been so 'inspired' by an article on my website on 'approaching magic as an actual art form', that he decided to use a good deal of it, word for word, in a speech he presented for his speaking class, without giving me proper credit for the work. His speech teacher had also apparently found my article on my website and accused him of plagiarism.
He was writing to say that he'd 'disrespected' me by not giving me credit, to apologize and ask my forgiveness, and to see if I might be willing to contact his teachers on his behalf, since he was in danger of being failed on the speech, in which case he would fail the course and possibly ruin his chances of graduating this term.
Here is the letter that I sent to him, also forwarding it to his teachers and advisors. I've changed his name, to protect his privacy, for obvious reasons:
Hi Jonathan,
What a surprise it was to get your note. Sounds like you've gotten yourself into quite a bind...
But let me begin by saying how pleased and honored I am that you were inspired enough by my writing to use it in your speech. And I also want to commend you on your honesty and courage in taking responsibility for your mistake, letting me know about it, and for your apology. I do appreciate it.
It concerns me that so many today seem to be acting with no sense of integrity, honesty, and accountability. Our society has so often become rampant with acts of selfishness, "self-centeredness", and greed, with seemingly little or no need to accept accountability for such actions. And to my mind, these are the very issues that art, in it's highest and best, is meant to address.
So thank you for having the courage to face up to this and to contact me, as embarrassing as I'm sure it must be for you.
(Of course, the possibility does occur to me that you might not in fact be contacting me out of concern for whatever "harm" you've done me, but instead for your own self interest, in hopes of saving yourself from failing the course and not graduating this term, BUT I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, and for now at least, will assume your intentions are entirely honorable.)
I learned recently that one of the effects that's come about due to the ease of finding the wealth of information on literally any subject that's now available on the internet, is that many college students are finding it much too easy and tempting to simply "cut and paste" their way to a research paper or other course project, and plagiarism is becoming a huge problem in higher education. Many teachers and professors are now having to spend inordinate amounts of time and energy checking, re-checking, and researching students' works to make sure they are in fact original.
Even in journalism recently, periodicals as "prestigious" as the New York Times have been caught in huge controversies over cases of lazy journalists who tried to take shortcuts and use someone else's material rather than devoting the necessary effort to adequate research and to giving proper credit.
Perhaps more to the point in our case, in the world of magic, I really believe that one of the main reasons magic is so often not seen as an actual art form is that so many magicians simply don't approach it that way. Art is about finding and expressing your own unique vision through your work. Rather than putting in the time, effort, and energy to find their own uniqueness, develop a distinctive performing persona, and create original material, many (if not most) magicians seem so often to be satisfied with simply doing the same old magic, the same old way... in some cases even stealing original material from other more innovative performers. As you no doubt know, this type of theft has become a huge point of contention within the magic community.
I don't mean to imply that any of this was true for you. I don't know what your actual motivations were in using my article without credit. (I would hope that it was simply an oversight on your part, an honest mistake, or perhaps simply not being aware of the proper way to give credit in the context of a "spoken" work... all of which are certainly forgivable to my mind, particularly since you are now aware of your mistake and attempting to address it. I've certainly made enough blunders of my own over the years, especially when I was younger.) But I bring up these examples simply to say that I realize these issues are of real concern, and are certainly not to be taken lightly, especially by those in the educational field.
In my own case, the field of magic is not just my hobby, my art, and my passion, it is also my full time career, and the way that I earn my living. And in point of fact, the article that you used is excerpted from a much longer copyrighted work that I sell as a home study course for magicians on how to improve their magic and make it more artistic. So it's actually a so
Not long ago, I received an email from a young man who is a magic enthusiast and a senior at a large university in another state. He was writing to apologize for having been so 'inspired' by an article on my website on 'approaching magic as an actual art form', that he decided to use a good deal of it, word for word, in a speech he presented for his speaking class, without giving me proper credit for the work. His speech teacher had also apparently found my article on my website and accused him of plagiarism.
He was writing to say that he'd 'disrespected' me by not giving me credit, to apologize and ask my forgiveness, and to see if I might be willing to contact his teachers on his behalf, since he was in danger of being failed on the speech, in which case he would fail the course and possibly ruin his chances of graduating this term.
Here is the letter that I sent to him, also forwarding it to his teachers and advisors. I've changed his name, to protect his privacy, for obvious reasons:
Hi Jonathan,
What a surprise it was to get your note. Sounds like you've gotten yourself into quite a bind...
But let me begin by saying how pleased and honored I am that you were inspired enough by my writing to use it in your speech. And I also want to commend you on your honesty and courage in taking responsibility for your mistake, letting me know about it, and for your apology. I do appreciate it.
It concerns me that so many today seem to be acting with no sense of integrity, honesty, and accountability. Our society has so often become rampant with acts of selfishness, "self-centeredness", and greed, with seemingly little or no need to accept accountability for such actions. And to my mind, these are the very issues that art, in it's highest and best, is meant to address.
So thank you for having the courage to face up to this and to contact me, as embarrassing as I'm sure it must be for you.
(Of course, the possibility does occur to me that you might not in fact be contacting me out of concern for whatever "harm" you've done me, but instead for your own self interest, in hopes of saving yourself from failing the course and not graduating this term, BUT I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, and for now at least, will assume your intentions are entirely honorable.)
I learned recently that one of the effects that's come about due to the ease of finding the wealth of information on literally any subject that's now available on the internet, is that many college students are finding it much too easy and tempting to simply "cut and paste" their way to a research paper or other course project, and plagiarism is becoming a huge problem in higher education. Many teachers and professors are now having to spend inordinate amounts of time and energy checking, re-checking, and researching students' works to make sure they are in fact original.
Even in journalism recently, periodicals as "prestigious" as the New York Times have been caught in huge controversies over cases of lazy journalists who tried to take shortcuts and use someone else's material rather than devoting the necessary effort to adequate research and to giving proper credit.
Perhaps more to the point in our case, in the world of magic, I really believe that one of the main reasons magic is so often not seen as an actual art form is that so many magicians simply don't approach it that way. Art is about finding and expressing your own unique vision through your work. Rather than putting in the time, effort, and energy to find their own uniqueness, develop a distinctive performing persona, and create original material, many (if not most) magicians seem so often to be satisfied with simply doing the same old magic, the same old way... in some cases even stealing original material from other more innovative performers. As you no doubt know, this type of theft has become a huge point of contention within the magic community.
I don't mean to imply that any of this was true for you. I don't know what your actual motivations were in using my article without credit. (I would hope that it was simply an oversight on your part, an honest mistake, or perhaps simply not being aware of the proper way to give credit in the context of a "spoken" work... all of which are certainly forgivable to my mind, particularly since you are now aware of your mistake and attempting to address it. I've certainly made enough blunders of my own over the years, especially when I was younger.) But I bring up these examples simply to say that I realize these issues are of real concern, and are certainly not to be taken lightly, especially by those in the educational field.
In my own case, the field of magic is not just my hobby, my art, and my passion, it is also my full time career, and the way that I earn my living. And in point of fact, the article that you used is excerpted from a much longer copyrighted work that I sell as a home study course for magicians on how to improve their magic and make it more artistic. So it's actually a so