What we call plagiarism is actually one of the main movers and shakers in the "creativity" industry. To the victor goes the spoils, people see an idea they like and then the recast it in their own image. You could easily say Zep took that riff from Spirit, but nobody could say that Taurus and Stairway are the same song. In that sense it is influence, not theft.
Heck, just yesterday I read a novel called Carnosaur from 1984, 6 years before Crichton would come out with Jurassic Park. Carnosaur contains most of Jurassic Park's major plot points, including the genetic engineering of dinosaurs through use of a surrogate animal (in this case chickens instead of frogs, which actually makes more sense from a scientific standpoint), and most of the same dinos (or ones that are colloquially identicle such as the Dienonychus instead of the fictionalized Velociraptor and the Tarbosaurus which is the same as a T-Rex). There are even certain scenes which Crichton may or may not have lifted right out of Carnosaur, such as Dodgson's ultimate fate in The Lord World being first presented to Lady Jane in Carnosaur 11 years earlier.
But Crichton is clearly the Led Zeppelin of this scenario. Because as much as I love Carnosaur, Crichton's novel was miles and miles above it; better written, more interesting, more intelligent, and ultimately countless times more popular.
For all I know, Brosnan (Carnosaur's author) stole the ideas from someone else. But hey, at least it's not the same old 'lost world' story that had been recycled dozens of times. Would it be better if Zep went ahead and did the millionth permutation of Dust My Broom instead of borrowing from something new and exciting? As rock n roll as Zep was, their feet were planted firmly in the blues, and all they did was update the blues mentality for a new generation in regards to influence and creativity. Are Johnny Winter, Peter Green, Alvin Lee any more original? It's not about where the ideas come from, it's how you put them together, and how you play them.
