The Case for Including Flarf and Conceptual Poetry in the Next Economic Stimulus Package

“Originality today has become the diminished function of lessening production costs (‘content scraping’) i.e. there is less and less incentive today to produce original works, especially in the arts, because everyone, particularly those outside the arts, are doing so. And this creates a considerable incentive, especially among artists, to plagiarize works by others, works that already exist and were produced by those formerly considered to be non-artists. Or to put it more simply, as the price of originality has gone way down (everyone an artist), the price of plagiarism has skyrocketed – even if, in the end, plagiarism has costs that are nominal, illusory, and often gratuitous when stacked against the no-less illusory concept of ‘originality.’ . . . Such activity [uncited circulation patterns, syndication across networks] should probably be regarded as value-adding rather than either theft (removal of value) or fraud (deception), the two crimes most closely associated with plagiarism.”

- Tan Lin (plagiarism/Notes/Heath, etc.)