Copy & Paste

What’s wrong with a copy? As a group, we felt that copies had both pros and cons. Although a copy of an ancient building may bring to light certain details that would normally have deteriorated away over time, we saw that a copy removes the building from its original context. Ones experience of a building can be completely different when visiting the original building, as opposed to simply seeing a duplication made out of modern materials with modern technologies.

This brought us to discuss the idea of whether the word real or first is better suited to describing something that has been copied. We were unable to come to an agreement on which word was better. The word real implies that every reproduction after it is no longer real, even though every physical copy is in fact real, it exists after all. The alternate was first, which allows for both original and copy to be real, just that the copies can never be on the same level as the first. Both words, real and first give an impression of superiority over the copy. This draws another question we tried to answer, are original things always better than a copy? The example of a book was brought forward. Are copies of books less real than the first edition or original copy? Reprints or reproductions of books often fix errors and mistakes the original missed. By this logic, wouldn’t a copy of a building be able to correct errors made in the original? This led us to question whether or not there is a difference between multiple productions of a book, or a Tim Hortons cup as opposed to a copy of a building.