Park is not the first South Korean writer charged with plagiarism. Shin Kyoung-sook, an authority on contemporary Korean literature, was accused of copying a paragraph from the novel Patriotism by Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima. Shin, until this came to light, had received much praise for her work, and a significant number of people supported her. Others, however, consider such copying unjustifiable.

 

Solely arguing upon the basis of a universality of ideas and thoughts by asserting that similar ideas emerge incidentally devalues an individual’s art. This is especially true in the world of literature, where much critical emphasis is placed on how original and novel a work’s theme is. Therefore, both Shin and Park’s defense that they were unaware of having plagiarized is invalid; even if their assertions were true, they were still at fault for their negligence in not making sure their work was theirs and not someone else’s.

 

Subsequent incidents revealed more fundamental issue with regards to an abuse of power by influential institutions affiliated with Korean literature. In this case, a noticeably higher number of experts were more enthusiastic about defending Shin rather than Park. Lee Eung Jun, the initial exponent of Shin, wrote in a newspaper editorial that “Shin is excessively revered as a towering figure,” and that being the only reason Shin had not been accused until then. In addition, authorities including Paek Nakchung, the head of Changbi Publishers, and Choi Wonshik, a renowned literary critic, had defended Shin from the fear that her plagiarism would be a black mark on Korean literature as a whole.

 

The literary world of Korea is clearly in urgent need of solving issues of plagiarism. Education on the gravity and seriousness of plagiarizing, as well as the implementation of proper control mechanisms could serve as effective keys to this problem. Nevertheless, a more apparent, yet fundamental solution lies with the writers themselves.

 

Put differently, all writers should explicitly specify the sources of their ideas, themes or references instead of claiming them as their own, just like in research papers or dissertations. This assertion may sound obvious, but recent cases of plagiarism have proved otherwise. Not doing so would be the same as claiming the ownership of intellectual property rights for works created by others. When writers admit that some of the ideas within their creative works have been derived from others, they are giving credit where credit is due. As the Bible states, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”