The Beatles valedictory speech

For days, the controversy surrounding Circleville High School (Ohio) valedictorian Melanio C. Acosta IV had been circulating around the internet but, as of last weekend, local media has not picked it up. I probably wouldn’t have read about it had not a friend, and an aunt of Acosta, told me that Acosta is a Filipino or, at least, of Filipino parentage.

I purposely did not ask my friend for details. Instead, I asked for links to news reports. From the two links to Ohio newspaper reports that she provided, I picked out the names of people and places, used them as keywords and fed them to the search engines. I’ve read more than a dozen articles about the controversy but the best timeline is provided by The UTube Blog, an unofficial blog about everything YouTube. YouTube videos figure prominently in the controversy. Let me just quote parts of the narrative.

“In 2006, Cassandra Malloy delivered a 2-minute valedictory speech — titled ‘Beatles Valedictorian Speech’ — at her high school graduation… The speech cleverly used Beatles’ lyrics and song titles to advise her fellow classmates…

“…in 2008, another high school student, 18-year-old Melanio C. Acosta IV, from Circleville, Ohio… made a Beatles graduation speech… he says he only borrowed the idea from the YouTube video, but didn’t plagiarize.”

Acosta was subsequently stripped of his title as valedictorian. The school authorities were able to extract a written confession from him admitting that two-thirds of his speech was lifted from the 2007 YouTube video. Acosta thereafter claimed that the confession was obtained by duress and without the benefit of legal assistance. His parents are now threatening to sue the school. Reports vary as to the deadline Acosta’s lawyer has given the school to respond to the demand to reinstate Acosta as valedictorian. Some say Monday (yesterday); others say Wednesday (tomorrow).

First of all, Acosta’s speech was reviewed and approved by the school principal before he was allowed to deliver it publicly. Secondly, the reference to The Beatles is clear and he is not being accused of plagiarizing The Beatles. He is accused of plagiarizing the 2007 speech. The news web site 10tv.com has some very revealing quotes from Circleville Principal Paul Vitartas (“He did ascribe the speech to The Beatles but not the person who gave it in 2007″) and Acosta’s mother Ofelia (“I would really like for them to offer to instate his title as valedictorian. This is not about money. This is about his reputation”).

The difficulty here is that the 2007 video is no longer available on YouTube. The question now arises as to whether it was withdrawn after the Acosta controversy became public to save the speaker from having to explain whether he (or she) plagiarized the 2006 speech by Cassandra Malloy.

The full text of Acosta’s speech has not been published either. That makes it impossible to compare how similar or different it is from the 2007 speech. It would be unfair to put Acosta on public trial.

Still, the claim that Acosta confessed under duress deserves more scrutiny. Schools are often too concerned with their image, and school administrators and teachers can be good at washing their own hands. I can only imagine what it must be like for an 18-year-old to be face-to-face with school authorities who are insisting that he had done something wrong and must confess. It’s the same principle applied by law enforces when they need to pacify the public but aren’t so sure if they are blaming the right person.

Anyway, one interesting and very ironic aspect of the controversy is how YouTube, probably the most popular video-sharing community on the internet, figures prominently in it. Hundreds, if not thousands of, illegally taped TV programs get uploaded to YouTube everyday. Not too long ago, Disney cartoons and shows were all over YouTube. Missed an episode of Lizzie McGuire or The Suite Life of Zach and Cody? Get them on YouTube. That was how things were until Disney threatened to sue YouTube. Almost overnight, all Disney videos were removed.

Many say that the internet has invented a way to make plagiarism easy. Everything is there and only a mouse click away. Essays, photos and even recipes get stolen everyday. And the thieves are not always small time operators like the fans who uploaded the Alyssa Alano “Keys Me” video (lifted from a German Moreno TV program) two years ago. Even big media outfits have become involved. Blogger and photographer Anton Shekker is suing The Manila Bulletin for publishing his photos without his knowledge and permission. I had a brush with the same newspaper last year.

But it really isn’t about how the internet has made theft of intellectual property easier. It is about how we use the internet and how much we respect other people’s words, works and ideas. It’s about ethics, really, or the lack of it.

References:

Utube
The Dispatch
Red Orbit
WBNS