By now, you are familiar with my take on the role AI plays in the writing of poetry and other creative works. Creativity is protected by the copyright act and the threshold of it is set very low. In order for you as poet to rise above the fear of AI-generated material overtaking the artist/author, you need up your game—there is no alternative, as banning the use of AI serves no purpose. It is like saying only scripts written in the poet’s own hand and on papyrus or vellum is copyright protected. AI ‘creates’ text, art, music, etc, by plagiarising existing work.
Today I would like to touch on a subject which seems to raise its ugly head at regular intervals, namely, plagiarism. It has a wider definition than merely passing someone else’s work off as one’s own. It is a fallacy that if you are not making money out of it, it is not really plagiarism.
It is a criminal offence to plagiarise people’s work (even your own, ie copying passages from previously published work without due reference to it)—it is governed by a variety of copyright laws worldwide. As soon as you write it down, it is copyright protected. Copyright protection extends beyond the borders of the artist’s country, thanks to The Berne Convention, a treaty signed by 163 countries. Since 1 January 1978, the term of copyright for works created by a writer is the life of the writer plus 50 years (70 years in the USA).
There are acceptable ways by which one might cite part of other people’s work. At the end of your poem, add ‘Inspired by: …’ or ‘With apology to …’, followed by the details of the piece that inspired you, or you may place the quote at the beginning of your poem. This is considered as ‘fair use’. However, it is not necessary to acknowledge the author’s copyright where it is a well-known quote, for example: ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ ~quote from Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. You may even quote only part of the well-known line.
This is particularly relevant when poetry is submitted for contests and passed off as one’s own. What you do behind closed doors is your affair, but don’t publicise it via contest entries – it WILL be rejected. Unfortunately these scribblings (I loath to call it ‘poetry’) get equal exposure with legitimate poetry via New Poems.
During my current contest, there are a number of instances where people have blatantly plagiarised work (swathes of scripts are instantly recognisable to those who are well read). Even copying work and paraphrasing it in your own words or translating existing text, is plagiarism. This might be as little as a sentence without giving due recognition to the author, or part of or a whole poem/text. One can’t be just a little bit pregnant; plagiarism is plagiarism. Period.
I personally feel that if you don’t have something meaningful to say or contribute to the poetry community, please keep it under wraps and don’t expose yourself to being reported for plagiarism.
App for checking plagiarism: Justdone.ai
[Edit] After the invaluable feedback, I ran a check using a poem I wrote a few days ago, but have not yet posted on the internet. Result: 0% AI (per AI Detector by Grammarly); 95% plagiarism (per Justdone.ai); 0% plagiarism (per Plagiarism Checker | Grammarly). These results speak for themselves.
Thank you for stepping up and having my back. Much appreciated.