PERNICIOUS PLAGIARISM

PERNICIOUS PLAGIARISM 12/27/17 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman “Copying off” of someone else's work product, then claiming their work to be your own is plagiarism: otherwise known the theft of intellectual property, in legal parlance. From grade school to academia, from the commercial world to the charitable world, from ancient days to modern, it has been practiced. I have been subjected to plagiarism—the most extreme form of flattery—in various ways, some innocent, others much less innocent. First, two younger brothers confessed to me that they each had submitted my 1966 elegaic poem, “The Legend of Ali,” in class as their own creation for credit. Next, after law school, my poem, “The Post-Bakke Blues,” was palmed off for publication as his own, by a former friend. Lastly, a Baptist preacher presented as his own my spiritual vignette “Exhalations from My Soul,” with my name whited out as its author, to a table of other preachers, where I was sitting! 'All things come of thee, O Lord; and of thine own have we given thee.” 1 Chr. 29:14. Interestingly, extremely few ancient Egyptian megaliths, artistic, literary creations bear the names of their authors, architects, engineers, etc., perhaps, in recognition of this scriptural fact—that all things do come from God, including man, himself, man's medium, as well as mankind's manifold methodologies. This lack of ascribed authorship allowed less scrupulous cultures to claim as their own the works of others, even to the point of claiming them as their own: e.g., “whitening” Ethiopians and Egyptians! Today, however, certain intellectual property claims reach into the realm of genetics, botany, science. Indeed, some very presumptuously perspicacious persons and cultures have claimed God as their own! So, given the extent of pernicious plagiarism being practiced in our era, mine is pale by comparison.