Rhetoric, Technology, Culture Spring 2011

This podcast does an excellent job reflecting on the readings for this week. The inclusion of the examples from Chinese writing practices were illuminating and partnered nicely with the ideas of the readings.
My question here, and to these readings in general, is whether or not it is possible to dismiss our current philosophy toward plagarism, especially in regard to capatalism. Though I realize, as you point out, that private authorial ownership of a text is a relatively new idea in the trajectory of rhetorical history, the practice arose in order for writers to recieve credit for their work, most notably, financial benefit. If anyone has the right to reprint or copy another's work and distribute it as they see fit, the original authors will have a hard time convincing readers to pay for the ability to read something they can access elsewhere for free. The internet has made this concept a particularly slippery slope. A fine example of this issue is the music industry and musician led campaign to end peer-to-peer filesharing of copyrighted music. The labels, and in turn the artists, are concerned that they are losing money since some fans will not buy a CD if they can download the songs free elsewhere. To reiterate, how do we pay artists whose work can be accessed at no cost.
All that being said, your examination of current teaching practices, wherein teachers give students examples of good literature to imitate raises a great point. My thoughts on this contradiction of telling students to do one thing and then later tell them they can't do it, revolve around the question of the locus wherein quotation stops and plagiarism begins. The current answer seems to dwell in the realm of citation, yet as multimedia texts become more commonplace in academia, a sea change in attitudes and outlooks must occur.