Gerhardt: "The Rules of Attribution"

This articles first talks about the plagiarism of the bright young writer, Kaavya Viswanathan, in her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. Gerhardt points out that we should not condemn Viswanathan, but that we should try to understand how she got confused about the rules of plagiarism. Gerhardt feels that students are not being taught the rules of copyright infringement and plagiarism in their writing. I guess I can see how some people would get confused, because you have to give credit to another author's ideas, even if you put them into your own words. I'm pretty sure this is what happened to Viswanathan - she didn't copy word for word, and she didn't do it on purpose. But I think this rule is pretty clearly stated, so I'm not sure how a Harvard student could have missed it.
By the way, I didn't know that Shakespeare recast the plot of Tristan and Isolde to make Romeo and Juliet, so this was and interesting new fact.
Like Gerhardt says, most of our ideas are borrowed, learned, recycled. I see how this relates to pop culture in the "music that uses riffs from other songs, ...books that are turned into movies, and then the characters from those movies" that show up on products like backpacks, toys, and video games. We just have to remember that through copyright licenses, credit is being given where it is due, and this is the main point of the article.