Actually, I suspect MO and MT would find a lot to admire in each other.
Someone was musing a page or two back on this not being really newsworthy.
Please keep in mind that I raised the topic as a discussion about plagiarism, and a warning. I’m not being disingenuous when I say I’m trying to avoid this being political.
To use your logic, momof3boys, Trump should have waited until the election was over, because the lawsuit over the unauthorized use of that eagle photo would have simply turned into a turnip. 
Exactly. When was the last time we spent days talking about a potential First Lady’s speech? Setting aside morality for the moment (because the rich are not like you and I), it’s a masterful manipulation of the press. I think Matt Lauer fell over himself to scramble onto Trump’s plane to interview her.
It’s all kinda awesome to watch the nonsense. The latest estimate is that Trump has received several billion dollars worth of free facetime from the media.
Melania said she wrote the speech “with as little help as possible.” You can drive a semantics truck through that “little”. Really, if she’d written it herself it would have run along the lines of “I’m smart, I’m gorgeous, and I can come to America and pull a billionaire. I love this country.” That would give her relatability issues (understandably).
Talked with a classmate of mine who is a Stanford law grad who has a practice in music copyrights. I asked the simple question - what is going on here? His answer - well, that depends. The band saying something is not authorized by them is useless if their licensing contract or their licensing agent does not expressly state this use is not allowed. This assumes there was license in play.
He says that Queen says it is against all political usage of their songs, but what happens in practice if not consistently applied would undercut that claim severely.
In some cases, permission is not even needed - forgot the term he used - but the point is the artist complaining he says RARELY means a law has been broken or the song stolen.
Not enough info at all he says to even determine what actually happening here, but the band complaining is par for the course, especially for very famous bands. And he said do not ignore the free publicity - he says Queen is going to sell a hundred thousands songs and albums off of this. Queen, he says, is not really “complaining” like people think.
To bring the topic back to the original intent (and to a college-related topic): three professors interviewed by “USA Today” say it’s plagiarism and such an offense would result in punishment from their institutions (Case Western, UVA, and Boston College):
^^There is something wonderfully subversive about playing “you can’t always get what you want” prior to a rules committee defeat!
Given that Melania dropped out of college in her first year (contrary to her long-standing claims of having a degree), perhaps she left before the lessons on plagiarism.
According to the latest leaked stories of internal finger-pointing, several campaign people are trying to throw Melania under the bus by claiming that she added the plagiarized passages herself. I doubt that’s going to go over very well with her husband!
Queen owns the song. Sony is the manager of the song. Queen and Sony have both told Trump not to use the song.
@awcntdb, we don’t need your lawyer’s interpretation.
Trump doesn’t have the right to use the song. Period.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/19/queen-and-sony-say-donald-trump-used-song-without-/
@dstark why so salty? Just chill and be glad we have a tricameral government.
Funny you should ask. I recall a lot of hoopla after Michelle Obama gave her speech back in 2008. I could be mis-remembering, but there’s some support from an “Utne Reader” story from 2008:
http://www.utne.com/politics/dnc-rounding-up-the-reaction-to-michelle-obama.aspx
…and sorry, I really liked some of these reactions to the plagiarism controversy:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/melania-trump-michelle-obama-speech-plagiarize
…especially the reference to “The Help.”
Maybe it’s because I have a lot of links to artists and the entertainment industry, but I think dstark has every right to be salty. If you don’t have permission to use an artist’s work and have been explicitly told not to, you don’t use it. They don’t want their work used. Period.
I think whenever a possible future first lady speaks at a convention there are bound to be similar themes in every first lady’s speech. They will talk about how they were raised, their values, their family, their support for their spouse, how they want to do what is good for the country, and do good for everyone of all races. These themes are bound to be common. There are only so many different ways to convey the same message. I think those common themes can sometimes translate to common sentences which can be used in the speech. I don’t think her use of certain common phrases was intentional. Sadly the focus has been on those few sentences instead of focusing on the themes she presented in her whole speech which I feel she presented quite well with confidence, class, and with good intention.
Similarly in a different scenario , a speaker at a graduation, or a father of a bride giving a speech at his daughters wedding. In both of these scenarios which have been repeated numerous times by many people common themes present themselves sometimes using different words and other times using words or phrases that are quite similar. Would we attack these speakers for plagiarism? Probably not.
When speaking in a political arena unfortunately every single word or phrase spoken is looked at through a magnifying glass when really we should focus on the overall message the person is trying to convey. A lot of times the message the speaker is trying to convey is misinterpreted in a wrong way sometimes intentionally to make them look bad. Often the words are twisted by the listener in such a way which was not the original intention of the speaker. Sometimes what we hear or interpret is based on our own bias.
Think about scenarios in our everyday lives. How many times when we wish to convey a message to a family member we use common phrases that we have heard before to relay our own message. I am sure we are all guilty of borrowing a quote for a card or to convey a message using a known quote. Don’t we tell our children to dream big and that if they are dedicated and work hard they can achieve anything. I am sure many others have conveyed this message before. Since we have heard this message so many times it is ingrained in our brain so when we say it we don’t think that we are plagiarizing anyone.
What I am seeing on this thread are digs at the speaker for perhaps not learning about plagiarism since she didn’t complete college which is uncalled for. No reason for personal attacks on this thread.
Well, if artists don’t want people to play them, maybe they should not release their songs!
“According to the latest leaked stories of internal finger-pointing, several campaign people are trying to throw Melania under the bus by claiming that she added the plagiarized passages herself. I doubt that’s going to go over very well with her husband!”
Perhaps the laws in Slovenia are different. I find it hard to belief that she would look up Michelle Obama’s speech and use any of it. Who even gives a sh** about Michelle’s speech.
As a matter of fact why would anybody so obviously plagiarize it. I’m beginning to believe it was deliberate.
@raclut --Yes, people have common ideas, and common turns of phrase. The stacking of them so similarly in these sentences, the order, the syntax, and yes, the identical words and phrases, is not the same thing as a common idea using somewhat similar wording.
All i can say is, my Facebook feed is filled with freshman comp profs from across the country who would fail and report this if it were a paper, and are preparing to use it is an illustration this fall when we all approach that “fun” plagiarism lesson. Actually, for me, the big thing it will illustrate is the ways people try to brush it off or justify it. Same excuses students use.
So PLEASE don’t say in front of your student that this could happen to anyone; or that it’s not really plagiarism. You won’t be doing them any favors.
@raclut I can just imagine a 9th grader making that very same argument about her essay on “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
It’s one thing to convey common ideas. It’s another to use the exact same words in the exact same order as a prior First Lady’s convention speech to express them! I’m amazed at the apologetics being offered here. Do you really believe that either Melania or her husband have ever in their lives used the phrase “his word is his bond”? That’s not how they talk. Those are not “common words” for them.
As far as Queen’s music goes…in a smilar vein…
I think we should all stay at one of Trump’s resorts. Have a nice dinner and not pay. Or maybe we can all order steaks. Eat the steaks. And when the bill comes, say we are vegetarians. Take the steak off the bill.