Between Plagiarism and Faith
Monday, February 22, 2010
I stumbled across this image that appears to be a promotional poster of an event held by a church’s youth service. Seeing this, I am truly embarrassed, especially as a Christian. This is an example on why we seem to hold this “double standard” on how we treat stealing as a sin. Didn’t we all agree that the seventh commandment is “You shall not steal”?
When I see this picture, all I can think of is that it’s a direct rip-off of Michael Jackson’s “This is It”. No matter how you see it, how you think that you can get away because you did this for a religious cause whatsoever, it’s still a blatant plagiarism. And no, this is not a parody. At all.
So if you think that this is a parody, then you must’ve got it all wrong, as a parody is created to mock, comment, or poke fun on the original version. If you call this a tribute, what tribute? Does God want you to steal other people’s work? Do you even think that He will have this slightest pride upon you for doing this? Does he give you such little and puny creativity that you must steal an idea? That is preposterous. I believe completely that even if it’s only an ugly text in a photocopied piece of paper, God would appreciate that so much more because you didn’t include stealing as a part of the process.
Hey, creator (or should I say copycat?) of this “He is It” poster, you think you’re more religious than I am? Because I mocked you down for your religious and faithful effort to please God? Please, don’t be such a hypocrite when all you can do is stealing people’s work. You should be ashamed of calling yourself faithful to God. Yes, God inspires the praise, but He certainly did not inspire you to steal. This has got to stop, one way or another.