Having ditched big budget popcorn fare like the Transformers franchise and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for projects such as Lawless and Nymphomaniac, Shia LaBeouf was just starting to gain some credibility… until he allowed his short film HowardCantour.com to be posted to the internet yesterday, and almost immediately got caught out for plagiarising comic book writer Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) 2007 comic Justin M. Damiano.
After password protecting the film, LaBeouf took to Twitter and actually plagiarised a Yahoo! Answers post about plagiarisim, stating that,”Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work.” LaBeouf seemingly then realised that “lifting parts of a creative work wholesale” isn’t exactly being “inspired” and came up with a ridiculous follow-up suggesting that, “In my excitement and naivete as an amateur filmmaker, I got lost in the creative process and neglected to follow proper accreditation.”
Overlooking the fact that “proper accreditation” generally includes actually gaining permission (and paying for the privilege), LaBeouf may be an amateur filmmaker, but he’s been involved in the business for over 15 years, and unless he’s an idiot, he must have discovered at some point in his life that you can’t just go around stealing other people’s work. Nevertheless, LaBeouf then went on to apologise for failing to credit Daniel Clowes in any way shape or form and to anyone who assumed that he wrote it himself (based upon the fact he’d previously implied that he’d wrote it). And finally, he expressed his “great respect” for Clowes’ work, before admitting he “f*cked up”.
As it happens this isn’t the first time LaBeouf has been caught plagiarising, having previously ripped off an article from Esquire in a letter he wrote to Alec Baldwin back in 2009. You’d have thought he’d have learnt his lesson then and took the time to look into copyright. Maybe he is just an idiot after all.
Originally published December 17, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
