NON-OBVIOUS SUBTLETIES OF PLAGIARISM IDENTIFICATION AND SCANDALOUS SPEECHES OF FAMOUS AMERICAN POLITICIANS

Abstract

This article examines the relation between legal and ethical understanding of plagiarism on the basis of three cases in modern American political history. Ethical understanding deals with any theft of others’ work, whereas legal is observed within the Ukrainian legislation. The authors have made the attempt to cover some theoretical and practical aspects related to the process of plagiarism identification. Nixon/McCarthy, Kinnock/ Biden and Patrick/Obama as cases discussed have received publicity in the United States because of plagiarism accusations aimed at their authors being political figures well-known outside the country. Each of them has different consequences for thereputation of speakers involved. Special attention has been given to the issue of public political speech.The results of the research reveal that as a rule, the speeches of politicians refer to oral literary works, even if they were objectified in written form. The notion of a work according to the general formulas described in the national legislation remains unclear, and there are a lot of doubts whether we can protect any result of creative activity in the spiritual realm. Sometimes a judge should be consulted by an expert, able to distinguish a separate work. Journalists do not tend to look into a situation more deeply and that is the reason for why they blame politicians lacking legal grounds. There are three questions, which are worth considering in cases like those mentioned in the article. Firstly, where does the creative activity of a politician (or his speechwriter), being granted legal protection, start and end. Secondly, do speakers mean to say that they are the authors of words pronounced by them (as B. Obama did not mean to say that he had come up with «I have a dream»). Thirdly, who has written a text of a speech? Wasn’t it somebody else but a speaker? If a politician says words said earlier by someone else, that doesn’t mean he is plagiarizing. Anyway he might avoid any accusations of the plagiarism in legal understanding by using quotes. The study shows that the issue of oral literary works should be elaborated more thoroughly, for example, regarding the presumption of authorship.