The Colin Covert episode at the Star Tribune

We learned recently of the ignominious departure of Colin Covert from the Star Tribune. He was their movie reviewer. His byline appeared often. I remember back in the early days of the Internet, he was nice enough to answer an email I sent him. It was a thrill in those days to find that a well-known person might take the trouble to communicate with you. It was part of the sea change brought about by the Internet.
More and more well-known people today are getting behind walls where they are not so easily reached. This was inevitable as the blizzard of communications grew and filters became needed. Occasionally you can still get through as I did recently with well-known Minnesota journalist Eric Black of Minnpost. He sent a nice and thoughtful email after I had expressed concern about the Star Tribune's political endorsements.
I'm not sure a newspaper needs an in-house movie reviewer anymore. Surely they can get access to outside material that would be just as good. The Internet being as ubiquitous as it is today, we can easily find an array of reviews about any movie - it's understood. I'm age 63 and remember a time when you needed to consult the print media, far more limited - no comparison. Those of us who sought to be erudite and well-read had to work at it. Today we should pinch ourselves to see if we're dreaming.
There's the "Rotten Tomatoes" site for movies. We might click to see a review and find that particular review is not there, or in Spanish, and we'll cuss to ourselves. We're so spoiled! In the old days, we'd wade through the Twin cities papers (when they had an evening edition, how quaint) or the weekly news digests like Time Magazine. That's what made you a refined person.
 

Colin Covert

"Borrowing" brings ax down
You probably know what happened to Colin Covert. He made an abrupt forced exit (like Jeff Sessions?) due to having been found to borrow or lift phrases. Based on what we have learned, it does appear that Covert crossed a line, but I think there are elements of this that scare professional writers. Consider: writers are of course voracious readers, and why do we read? We read to learn. We learn to expand our vocabulary and our background so we can comment on things in a learned way.
I say "professional writers." Yes, therein lies the tension because from a legal standpoint, the risk enters in where money changes hands. Our legal system does not care about situations where money does not change hands. If you are paid to be a writer, you really have to be careful.
No one defends stealing another's creation but there is a gray area. Mike Barnicle claims that he got in trouble with the Boston Globe for "joke stealing." Is joke stealing really OK? On impulse we'd like to give it a pass with a smile. But when serious critics come down on you, maybe people with an ax to grind, then? We hear in the news about allegations of music theft. There is a cavernous gray area on these matters, making us all wonder, really, if our system should just lighten up and allow music stealing except in blatant cases.
I remember discussion of a case a couple years ago where a jury decided the accused party was guilty, apparently based on nothing more than a drum fill. A commentator on TV asserted the judge should not have turned the case over to the jury. Your man-on-the-street jury members would be asked "does this song sound like the other one" and they'll likely say yes.
I have read that such cases have become an actual deterrent for people who are interested in songwriting: fear of inadvertent copying of existing material. Why does this happen? For one thing, a song is not a random pattern of notes. Certain progressions of notes work ideally, and how about chord patterns? A panelist on "Morning Joe" remarked that country music is "all just three chords anyway." A bit of an exaggeration but more than a grain of truth. Could you imagine if someone could copyright the blues?
We heard for a long time how the "Happy Birthday" song could not be used in movies because of IP (intellectual property) issues. How absurd. We live in a media-saturated world now where we are awash in the creative products of countless souls. We learn from all of that - we learn new words and manners of describing things - and isn't that the whole purpose of reading and consuming? Subconsciously we pull certain words from our memory and employ that means of describing where we see appropriate.
Covert used phrases. Unfortunately those phrases had a distinctive creative stamp that made accusations against him credible. But I cannot help but feel sorry for him. I think writers everywhere are watching their backs a little more. There are "plagiarism check" systems available online - what isn't available online? - where you can have material checked against billions and billions - apologies to the late Carl Sagan - of existing written pieces.
As a rule of thumb, any duplication up to six words can be coincidental. After six the odds go up a great deal. But it's not certain. The plagiarism check systems appear designed mainly to check college students who of course are condemned to damnation forever over assertions of borrowing. I am of a mind to think we should only punish egregious cases.
Doris Kearns Goodwin went through the plagiarism thing and she has re-surfaced with her reputation intact. It no doubt helps she's a woman and an older woman.
Sometimes a name writer will be caught and we get a standard excuse: an intern did it! I remember the "Morning Joe" panel, on which Mike Barnicle sits, laughing uproariously about that.
I keep emphasizing that it's professional writers, oh and college students of course, who are in position to really worry. Amateurs? In other words, everyone who simply taps out something on their electronic device? No need for a fuss about such things in the amateur world. I have read "it isn't worth the trouble" of going after a mere blogger.
 
Brave new world, as it were
Our legal system is adjusting to the sea change of electronic communications. Pre-digital, the only way to create something and have it be consumed by a mass audience was for money to change hands in various ways. It was so assumed, it took time for us all to realize we were truly entering a new world, a digital world in which ambitious creative undertakings could be done - writing and music - with money not necessarily as an incentive or a factor! Wow!
And to review: our legal system is only concerned with situations where money changes hands. A blogger who lifts a paragraph from a newspaper? The legal system doesn't want to bother with it. You might say it's "de minimis."
There was a company established for a short time, "Righthaven," that was an experiment in going after the likes of bloggers. They intimidated alleged "infringers" with extortion-type letters, but I don't believe they ever won a case that went to trial. The company got rubbed out eventually. Can you really "steal" something that appears on your laptop screen? It's not like taking something off a store shelf and walking out without paying for it.
Our whole legal system and its underpinning philosophy have been forced into substantial adjustment. Just like our legal system is in flux now dealing with "distracted driving" accidents where the punishments to date have been far too lenient. People are killed in these accidents.
Colin Covert probably had to go at the Star Tribune. But I am far from being of a mind to condemn him. Any professional writer who arouses ire of certain readers, as movie reviewers certainly do, will have those detractors use online systems to exhaustively "check" them, against those "billions and billions" of other items. And heaven only knows what will turn up.
As we speak, Ed Sheeran is involved in more than one dispute over song stealing or borrowing. His cases do not appear cut and dried. Frankly I think legal people pull their hair out over these cases, but they of course get paid well. It is a shame if songwriters are backing out of their passion for fear of legal entanglements. I have noticed that much of country music today does not have an easily discernible "melody," not like the old days of three-minute song singles with the "catchy" melody that we'd hear on the radio. Write a "catchy" melody today and it almost certainly will have resemblance to something previously written.
One solution is to just be an amateur. But that can be disheartening. Actually I have read that if you want to be a pure songwriter today, writing songs to be recorded by others, forget it. No money there, nada. Money from music in general? Well, then get popular and do product endorsements. That's your only real hope.
Every movie reviewer in the corporate media is probably now wondering: is there any series of words in my latest work, or even a distinctive adjective, that I may have picked up from some other place? It may cause movie reviews to become bland.
I do wish Mr. Covert good luck in the future. There but for the grace of God go all writers?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com