Thursday, 21 September 2017

What?

I looked up a book by Alison Freer, published in May 2015 and called How To Get Dressed, recommended on Anuschka Rees’s blog The Curated Closet. I like that title, but loved its previous name, Into Mind.

How To Get Dressed, as a title, also amused me. Thinking it showed promising signs of humour, I checked it out. If you include the sub-title, its full moniker is How To Get Dressed: A Costume Designer’s Secrets For Making Your Clothes Look, Fit, and Feel Amazing. I don’t know why the “and” lost its capital, but let’s not lose sleep over that.

Arriving on Amazon, what I found was a completely different book by Annie Ramsay, published in March 2016 and called (including its subtitle) How To Get Dressed: A Costume Designer’s Secrets For Looking Fit, Slim and Amazing in Your Clothes, self-published on Amazon’s Create Space.

The breathtaking cheek of that plagiarism!!!! How could she do that?

In the time-frame of the same week, I was puzzled by my failure to find a particular line in a worship song we were singing. It said: Till He returns or calls me home - here in the power of Christ I’ll stand. “But where’s the bit,” I wondered, bewildered, that says When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in him be found?”

Turns out I had mentally conflated Hillsong’s 2012 song about Christ alone; cornerstone with the 2002 song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, In Christ alone - which speaks of Christ as our cornerstone. My hope is built on nothing less, Hillsong's lyrics begin; Getty/Townend's - In Christ alone my hope is found. Even the tunes are eerily similar. I should say at the very least Hillsong's guys owe Getty and Townsend a drink. This rendition follows one on from the other for handy comparison. Well, hey - I like them both.


But is this level of plagiarism now okay? Perhaps we're back to the days when one scribe copied another, cheerfully expanding and embellishing as he thought fit, such that Paul (did he have poor eyesight?) claims authenticity in Galatians 6.11 with his See what big letters I make as I write to you know with my own hand!
at

11 comments:

  1. Ros22 September 2017 at 09:20

    I would agree that dressing up in someone else's clothes is not a fair means to fame and fortune.

    However, stealing cornerstones is a more complicated business, since Edward Mote's predates both Townend's and Hillsong's: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/298 And further examination reveals that all three refer to the same Rock anyway.

    So... um... whether with big letters or not, I'm not sure I can answer your question!

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  2. Pen Wilcock22 September 2017 at 10:21

    Jeepers, Ros! The plot thickens! That's outrageous! Poor old Edward Mote! He isn't credited or acknowledged, and Townend has the copyright on what is basically Mote's work! Well I never . . .

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  3. Deborah22 September 2017 at 11:39

    There are no new ideas in life ...only reworkings of things from before. I love The Phantom of the Opera but there's a section (maybe only 2 or 3 bars) that I'm sure came from the Paint Your Wagon musical (I Was Born Under A Wandering Star if you are interested ;-D. There are only so many ways to say Jesus is awesome and set it to music especially if everyone is using the same Biblical concepts to draw their ideas from.

    I came up with a brilliant idea for something to make and sell when I had my business. I Googled the heck out of it and there weren't any on the internet AT ALL. I ordered the stuff to make them but before I had the chance to start someone opened up a shop on Folksy selling the exact same thing. Even when we think we are original, we aren't.

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  4. Pen Wilcock22 September 2017 at 11:41

    I love "I was born under a wandering star"!

    :0)

    xx

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  5. Deborah22 September 2017 at 11:43

    I do too which is why I recognised it in Phantom ;-)It's a problem when there are only a few notes and only so many ways to organise them nicely so they sound good.

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  6. Rapunzel22 September 2017 at 12:12

    It's all in the spelling Pen, you were in fact born under a wondering star.

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  7. Pen Wilcock22 September 2017 at 15:25

    :0D

    xx

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  8. Anonymous1 October 2017 at 03:33



    Annie R and Alison F ... I wonder if there is the slightest possibility that they are both the same person using different author names? Probably not. Mairin.

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  9. Pen Wilcock1 October 2017 at 16:58

    Good thought, but I think probably not as the 2 books are quite different from each other.

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  10. Suzan2 October 2017 at 07:06

    It is amazing how huge the church run by Hillsong has become. They are huge in my area.

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  11. Pen Wilcock2 October 2017 at 07:40

    I always think "Hillsong" is such a lovely name.

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