You might not immediately have 4 hours to watch Harry Brewis's merciless and very funny documentary about YouTube's plagiarism problem, but those targeted by it were scurrying into darkness in real-time after its publication this weekend. One, James Somerton, went from scoffing at it to apologizing to completely obliterating his online presence as the 3 hours, 51 minutes and 9 seconds elapsed.
What is plagiarism? Where did plagiarism come from? Who made plagiarism? Where am I, plagiarism? Can you help me?
What makes it great isn't the duration or its fearlessness, but Brewis's understanding of the offense—plagarists steal from people they see as unimportant—and his empathy for the offenders, who he observes doing more work to hide the plagiarism than citing or originality would entail and therefore must be trapped in a vicarious mentality that limits not only their work but their capacity for self-actualization.
One among many funny points in it: fancy words function as trap streets in the plagiarism ecology. Feel free to use them, young writers! Throw Strunk & White in the trash!
