When is copying wrong?
Above: The TV series Invasion (2023). Below: The Abyss (1989). Is this sort of copying wrong?
I’ve been watching the Apple TV+ series Invasion. There’s a scene in the show where I’m sure thousands of sci-fi fans all said, “Uh, that’s from The Abyss.”
You can see the two shots above. And yeah, they’re quite a bit alike. Is there anything wrong with this?
Let me talk this through using the example of the seventies hard rock band Led Zeppelin. (Click that link to watch this section of Everything is a Remix Part 1.)
There’s no doubt that Led Zeppelin were a highly imaginative group of musicians, especially Jimmy Page, the band’s guitarist and founder. Nonetheless, early in the band’s recording career, Page and Zeppelin repeatedly crossed an important line: the line between copying and plagiarism.
The clearest example of this is the song “Dazed and Confused.” Without a doubt, this was an uncredited cover of a song by Jakes Holmes. Check out the songs back to back in our playlist: Spotify, Apple Music. (They’re songs 31 and 32 in the list.)
Page plagiarized Holmes’ song.
So: copying is wrong when it’s plagiarism.
Uh huh. But when is copying plagiarism?
Copying is plagiarism when you copy too many parts at once.
For instance, Page could have copied a single part from “Dazed and Confused,” like its dark mood, the descending guitar line, a bit of the melody, even the title “Dazed And Confused,” which wasn’t Holmes’ invention.
But Page copied all these things. The Led Zeppelin version of the song does all of these things… and more.
(Yes, there’s plenty of original music and lyrics in the Led Zeppelin version, but as a whole, Zeppelin’s song is too much like Holmes.)
So what’s the verdict on this image?
In my opinion, it’s certainly not plagiarism. All that was really copied was a single element: reaching out to a gelatinous blob.
However, I will say this: I think these filmmakers could have done better. That moment from The Abyss is well-known and they could transform that idea more. This would make it less recognizable, and more importantly, make this scene more their own and more imaginative.
And that’s where we’ll head next, into the realm of transformation. This is how we take things we love and make them our own.