COMM 120 UCLA Wk 3 Plagiarism A Point of Interest in Educational Institutions Response

Discussion Response

• The plagiarism that occurred from article 3, the article where music artist Brian Wilson from Beach Boys copied the melody from music artist Chuck Berry. The song that artist Brian Wilson created was the hit song “Surfin’ USA” and the other song was by artist Chuck Berry “Sweet Little Sixteen”. Brian Wilson denied any wrongdoing on his part because he said that he made the song into his own, by using his own lyrics; but it was later found out that Brian’s dad, Murray, gave credit to Chuck Berry for the song.
• One big ethical issue that comes from this type of copyright plagiarism is that while Chuck Berry spent his time creating the melody for his song, Brian Wilson came in and created a song using his hard work for financial gain (even though it was found out later that the Beach Boys were not collecting royalties for this song). Despite Brian Wilson creating his own words for the song I am sure that creating a melody is just as hard if not harder and he tried to take the easy way out by using someone else’s. 
• Another situation where plagiarism came into play was Rogers vs. Koons. In this case, famous artist Rogers took a photograph of a couple holding a line of puppies and went on and sold this photograph for greeting cards. Later, artist Koon found this photograph and decided to reenact the photograph to create statues. Once Rogers found Koons’ reenacted photograph Rogers took Koons to court and Koons had to pay Rogers back.

Citation

Ellison, Kaitlyn. “5 Famous Copyright Infringement Cases (What You Can Learn).” 99designs, 19 Apr. 2013, https://99designs.com/blog/tips/5-famous-copyright-infringement-cases/.

– Brandon