copy stuff and don't get busted

In Confessions of a cut & paste artist author William Gibson talks about the merits of re-appropriating writing, mashing it up, changing the context, and creating something totally new. We internet neophytes might think we're pretty nifty, but long before Ctrl/C/V there was Burroughs and his tape recorders. By rearranging conversations by randomly splicing reel to reel tape, he effectively destroyed what he called the word virus, bringing new meaning to old words. He transposed this techinique to his writing, and that was the start of his infamous cut up technique.