Sigh. Paul McCartney doesn’t tweet “hey HH Gregg has no right to use my song in their ads” because he KNOWS he doesn’t own the rights. Brian May tweeted it because he DOES own the rights.
The spin here is incredible. Is this how you run your business that you always tell us about?
The weird thing is, I’m sure Mrs. Trump could give a really great speech about her upbringing, her immigration to the U.S., and her relationship with her husband. She appears to be a poised, bright woman. Her speechwriters didn’t HAVE to crib from Mrs. Obama’s speech - they should have just let Melania be Melania.
Sparkle pony? Blaming Mrs. Clinton? It’s just strange.
And yeah - expecting shutdown in 5…4…3…2…
Extremely careless - not criminal.
Who said anything about the speech plagiarism being criminal?
Who said criminal?? Just poor judgment.
My reaction this morning: The ideas themselves certainly were not so unique. I don’t think anyone would raise an eyebrow at that. But the order and phrasing were way too similar to be coincidence.
Re: Students and plagiarism.
It’s amazing what my H deals with. Papers are turned in with equations, graphs, etc. layed out exactly the same. (At least move things around a little!). He even had someone literally turn in a copy…they didn’t even bother to write out the homework themselves. They just ran it through a copier!
My guess would be she searched old nominees’ speeches to get a gist of what kinds of things are said and inadvertently or not slipped that paragraph in.
I guess she couldn’t cite it the way I cite other pastors if borrowing their ideas in a sermon
I personally think it is much ado about nothing, to be honest I think there is a lot more in this campaign riding on than what Trump’s wife said or didn’t say. Is this plagiarism? From what I have read, yes, taking someone else’s speech and using synonyms is plagiarism. I kind of understand why she did it, I don’t think it would go over well at the GOP convention if you cited Michelle Obama’s speech…to be honest, without giving any details, what I think is more important are the things not being said.
Seems like the take away of this for students is–attribute, attribute, attribute! IMO the whole thing would have gone away if Melania hadn’t said she wrote the speech herself. Now it seems that the Trump people are throwing her under the bus saying she had a team of writers.
While I was listening to the speech my sense was that she hadn’t written it–not sure why I thought that.
“My guess would be she searched old nominees’ speeches to get a gist of what kinds of things are said and inadvertently or not slipped that paragraph in.”
I doubt that she or anybody else in either convention has given or will give a speech that hasn’t been vetted by all the candidates handlers. This is either intentional as some have suggested or somebody screwed up big time.
Again, this all would’ve mostly gone away if they had just immediately said “X screwed up and is fired” or X came forward and resigned.
It’s the pathetic cover-ups and excuses that are keeping it in the news.
Again: the lying is becoming far worse and far more of a story than the plagiarism itself.
Re: Copyright infringement cases. Such lawsuits are often settled out of court… Why? Copyright law is fairly unique. There are potential statutory damages and the courts’ discretion to award attorney’s fees to the prevailing party.
Trump’s campaign already settled one (even though Tump said he does not like to settle):
http://gawker.com/donald-trump-settles-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-ove-1779871396
Anyway, back to the discussion of plagiarism.
Just read an article that Queen does not like the use of the song. Fine, that is normal for lots of artists to do with their songs.
However, the article does not state whether Queen actually owns the song. So, if Queens actually owns the song and did not license it to be used, then that is illegal.
But, if someone else owns the song in its catalog, Queen can condemn the use and say it is not personally authorized by them, by that is far different than claiming it is being used illegally and it was stolen or that prior permission is required.
Yes…this. And if you were the actual owner of the rights to the song…whatcha gonna do. Have your lawyer fiire off a letter to the Trump campaign and tell them not to do it again…and they won’t. If you think about suing, by the time you got anywhere that entire campaign organization will be disbanded either because they all took positions with the President or he loses and they shut down.
http://www.tmz.com/2016/07/19/donald-trump-queen-we-are-the-champions-rnc/
"Trump walked onstage to “We are The Champions,” but a rep for Sony Music ATV – which owns publishing rights on the song – tells us the Trump campaign never asked nor were they given permission to use the song.
Trump also used ‘Champions’ last month, and Queen’s Brian May came out firing, saying he would never give permission to use the song because the band never wanted it used for politics.
Queen just released a statement, calling Trump’s move, “An unauthorized use at the Republican Convention against our wishes.”
It’s unclear at this time if Sony ATV plans to take legal action. "
I agree! I don’t believe in coincidences. The entire speech should be carefully analyzed to see if it contains any more clever zingers. Speech: “He will never ever give up, and most importantly he will never ever let you down!” Song: “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let ya down, never going to run around and desert you!” Somebody with an evil sense of humor helped write that speech. I also had to look up rickrolling to see what it meant. The funniest thing I read, which is admittedly mean-spirited and has nothing to do with the speech content, was someone who wrote, "I just want her to say, ‘Must get moose and squirrel.’
@momofthreeboys he already got a letter and he didn’t stop. Some people are rich enough not to care. He can afford lawyers to put it off or settle at some point quietly. He has no need to refrain from doing what he wants to do.
Also, I think it could have easily gone away if they had just said Melania doesn’t have a lot of experience writing speeches and must have inadvertently used words and phrases she had heard previously without remembering where she heard them. The campaign is based on this not being a typical politician so I think it would have worked. At least it wouldn’t have created more of a punchline IMO.
Is it the campaign or is it the venue (e.g., Quicken Loans Arena) that is responsible for securing the public-performance license to the music? If Quicken Loans Arena has the license (for games and whatnot), then T or anyone else can use any song. May not need to go through Queen, Sony or whoever directly.
(I’ve earned my law degree one hour at a time over the last several years of watching Law & Order and CSI Miami) (which coincides with my medical degree earned by watching ER and St. Elsewhere) (I’m sure I qualify for a few other things as well!)
We wouldn’t be discussing this today if her speechwriter had simply inserted five words, "as Michelle Obama has said, . . . " Attribution is everything. Everything.
^Which wouldn’t happen in a billion trillion years. No campaign would do that on purpose.