The Cheating Life

It is no secret that we live in an age of cheating. You don't have to look far to find many examples in almost every facet of our society. 

In the world of sports there are figures like Alex Rodriguez, and Lance Armstrong. Two men who competed at the top of their respective games, but did so with the help of illegal substances. 

There are even examples in the world of finance. You can't help but think of Bernie Madoff who cheated his way to the top of the investment industry robbing innocent people of everything along the way. By 2009, it seemed that nearly all of Wall Street was cheating its way to supposed financial success by selling worthless junk to regular folks like you and I - and laughing while doing so. 

There have been countless cases of authors getting caught lying in their books or flat out plagiarizing the work of others - but the case of 17-year-old German author, Helene Hegemann, is very interesting, and I believe speaks volumes about how younger people look at the creative process.

Hegemann's debut novel, "Axolotl Roadkill", won acclaim upon its release. The book reached the top five on German best seller lists, and then it was revealed that Hegemann lifted entire pages of work from another writer. When called on it, she apologized for not being "more open" about her sources. In a telling quote, she stated; "I myself don't feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context..." She also said, regarding the first edition of her book, she did not "fully understand" the process for acknowledging borrowed material. The following statement, though, speaks loudest: "There's no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity."  

I am not defending Hegemann, but I think her mindset is one of an entire generation who has been raised believing that creativity holds no value. To them, it is simply "content".  This is a generation that has never had to pay for music or movies (if they don't want to), and whose high school and college careers have been plagued by cutting, pasting and lifting information without even thinking about it (Hegemann blatantly took verbatim from a Bloggers page).

My son and daughter are both in high school and have grown up engulfed in technology. I am shocked that no where in our children's education is there a course or class given on Internet responsibility. This massive technology has been handed to our kids, and nowhere are they instructed on its proper use. Yes, it is up to us as parents to present proper guidelines to our kids, but I know many parents who steal their music and movies as well - and brag about it.  

As generations get older, progress through High School, and into college, the cheating becomes more apparent. Don McCabe of Rutgers University performed a survey of 14,000 undergraduate students, and asked if they had cheated. Two-thirds of those surveyed admitted to cheating on tests, papers and/or homework. The worst part is, many of the students surveyed were unsure what constituted cheating, and what didn't. Again, young people are growing up with very blurry lines when it comes to coming up with, and creating original ideas. Many of the students McCabe spoke with also said they cheated because "everyone else is doing it". McCabe concluded the number one reason undergraduates are cheating so much: "The Internet."

You don't have to look far to see the results of what's happening. Just enter "College graduate writing skills" into Google, and see what comes up. Employers everywhere say the number one thing college grads lack are writing and/or communication skills. A report released by the Chronicle of Higher Education stated: "When it comes to the skills most needed by employers, job candidates are lacking most in written, and oral communication skills, adaptability, and managing multiple priorities, and making decisions, and problem solving."

It sounds to me like they simply lack the skills to be creative.







   

Enough is Enough

This Blog was inspired by the source that allows it to exist: The Internet.  Since the creation of the world wide web, I have been fascinated by the demise of Intellectual Property rights.  Why is it that everyone is under the impression that because it's on the Internet...it's free?

This mindset began with cutting and pasting people's words and/or photographs into reports and papers and has since snowballed into downloading music, movies, and Ebooks without even thinking of paying for them.  Please tell me why the same newspaper that costs $2.00 at the news stand finds it increasingly more difficult to get paying customers on its web site?  Where did this mindset come from?

Perhaps the biggest perpetuator of this mindset was the onslaught of free music software, starting with Napster.  I find this incredibly ironic being that the creator of Napster, Shawn Fanning, made an incredible amount of money (in the reported millions) by knowingly and willingly creating an application that allowed people to obtain music without paying for it.  Fanning chose to use the word "share" music instead of "steal", and this clever use of semantics allowed him to come across as some innocent digi-hippy who was just in it for the love of music...man.  He essentially screwed musical artists out of money for their own creations while making damn sure he got paid for his.  The worst part in all of this has been the artistic community's response: none.  Many artists have remained silent while others have gone as far as to endorse the stealing of music.  I don't understand that.

I make my living as music teacher and worked as a professional musician for years before that, so yes, this is a subject near and dear to my heart.  It's amazing to me that no one in the creative community has come out guns blazing against what is going on.  Yes, people use iTunes and other legal means to get their music now more so than before, but make no mistake that there are still hundreds of millions of people out there stealing music and laughing while doing so.

I had to rant this post because I recently read about the wedding of Sean Parker - the co-founder of Napster.  This guy is reportedly worth over a billion dollars which is hilarious.  Again, this guy helped screw music as well as other artists out of the money they deserve for their legally protected work but made sure he got royally paid for his.  To make matters worse he married a musician!  Their wedding was an over the top gross display of wealth costing millions of dollars.  The most horrific part is that far too many musicians willingly chose to attend this ostentatious affair.  I saw pictures of this ridiculous event, and there smiling for the cameras were Sting, Sean Lennon, Lars Ulrich and many others.  This douche bag helped take millions out of your pocket, and you're willingly going to go wish him well...and be photographed!!???!!??  That's like the bank manager posing with Bonnie and Clyde!  I would have walked up to Parker and asked "Can you help me pay for my wedding?  You see because of the software and subsequent mindset you helped create, I don't have the money to pay for it myself...douche."

It's symbolic of what's become of our world.  Creativity has been taken for granted for decades and now it's worse than ever with no sign of improvement.  That's what I will write about here.