Reflection to Ecstasy of Influence – Jamie (Ziying Wang)

This essay inspires me to think about the differences between “plagiarism” and “inspiration”. We support good artworks but when it comes to renovated pieces, we categorize them as plagiarized pieces and they should be disgusted. But judging the masterpieces in the history, Shakespeare for example, his Romeo and Juliet’s plot is similar to an ancient Babylonian story yet people still respect Shakespeare for his composing.

In this case, we should question ourselves, are divine authors being spared from the crime of plagiarism while the ordinary others are the main targets being watched? The renovation we make is inspired by original works but hardly not considered as “stealing” others’ ideas. The line between inspiration and plagiarism is murky and there isn’t a clear definition for either term. In my opinion, we should embrace all recreation works instead of judging them, even when the recreated version is similar to the original one, we should refer it as a better change, or a failed change of the original piece.

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