“In my class, my students get marked down for originality"

Once caught plagiarizing, actor Shia LaBeouf claimed it was a performance art project. One of the people the actor plagiarized, a poet, reacted rather amusingly... or so I thought, you be the judge.

Goldsmith told TIME that he had never heard of LaBeouf until the actor started quoting the poet extensively on the web, claiming the words as his own. While these acts of plagiarism caused some victims like Daniel Clowes to consider legal action, Goldsmith wasn’t among them: “I thought it was great,” he said. “You know, that’s what I do.”

Normalizing plagiarism is Goldsmith’s bread and butter. He’s written a book about the subject and discussed it on the Colbert Report, in his classroom at the University of Pennsylvania, and even at the White House. “In my class, my students get marked down for originality,” he said. “They must plagiarize well and convincingly, and I don’t think [LaBeouf] has done that so far. Quite frankly, that’s why people have been so angry with him. Had he been a better plagiarizer, a smarter plagiarizer, people actually would have been admiring of his action rather than scornful.”

Time Magazine