Why does Lethem find obsessiveness about influence (aka "plagiarism") a disadvantage for artists?

This article by Lethem is based entirely off of plagiarism and all of its forms. He shows us examples of plagiarism in books, movies, and music. Throughout this article he continues to flood our minds with examples of what should be considered plagiarism, but is not. He opens this article with an example of a story from 1916 which was later reused in another novel forty years later. Another example used is Bob Dylan who uses many lines from movies and plays in his music. Lethems idea on plagiarism is that especially in literature, ideas are going to be reused. The part that he obsesses over in his article is how it is a disadvantage for artists. The idea of usin reoccuring themes is a complete and total block to young artists today. My personal idea on artists today is that they are going to plagiarize in some form or another because it is impossible to not. Themes are a recurring idea and when young artists are given examples whether it be in music, art or literature, they are going to remember some of the ideas and unwilling use them. Or some might chose to just copy ideas directly. Also in his article Lethem writes how even when some things are placed into collages, they simply jog a persons memory. The objects do not serve the full purpose of being put out there to be interpreted by others. Since these ideas have already been used so many countless times in the past, the people who are viewing them now can not have an original feel for the ideas. Granted it is possible that some students might interpret things in an uncommon way, but the basis of that idea was most likely already published or thought of by someone else before them.

One other reason why it might be that Lethem is obsessing in this article is that even though there is always some room for modification in art, today it will most likely be thought of as stealing and plagiarism. He uses examples of Walt Disney in his defense, mentioning how he could have been yelled at for stealing from Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. or even the existence of a real mouse. Lethem's point here is that artists should be able to, as he writes, "be free to capture an image without compensating the source." In this he means that people should be free to create without having to worry about who thought of it first and if it was created already. The artist should not have to worry about giving credit for everything tht they do. The problem here is that today almost everything is protected by copyright laws and is so limited in its use by others.

"But the truth is that with artists pulling on one side and corporations pulling on the other, the loser is the collective public imagination from which we were nourished in the first place, and whose existence as the ultimate repository of our offerings makes the work worth doing in the first place."

In this Lethem is concluding obviously that the public is losing out in the long run of copyrighting and the prevetion of plagiarism. This is only because on the one side pulling, the artists want to copyright their work and keep that ownership so that no one else can copy it, while on the other side, mass media is trying to take ideas and publicize them into mainstream ones. With both of these sides fighting and being put at a standstill, the public is losing out because we are now presented with more and more bad advertisements and main stream garbage because artists are so particular about what they create so that the media has such a hard time getting to it. An example of how the media has gotten to literature and used it in a positive way is in the Hansel and Gretel commercial. AT&T was able to put a positive and commercialized idea on it. They were able to use art and transform, which it should always happen. Art is never meant to be unchanged, it is art because it is creativity, and as long as there is a human mind somewhere, there will always be room for more change and creativity. An example in which we see the collective public imagination suffering is in any Geico commercial. They have the worst advertisement campaign other than the gecko. The cavemen are a terrible idea I feel and I personally do not like the idea of the pile of money with the googlely eyes either. There are no good ideas for the commercials because they, the media, are not pulling at any forms of art (literature, movies, music, etc.) to get decent ideas. Without any art to get our ideas from, the minds of the public suffer and struggle for creativity.