In this particular case two cartoonists both came up with Dennis the Menace around the same time. It was deemed that it wasn’t plagiarism and while the exact details aren’t clear I would assume that it was due to the fact that the two artists probably had no interaction and no way of seeing the other’s work. So just because your work is similar to someone else’s does not necessarily make it plagiarism. However, in this age of technology and computing there really is no way to prove ignorance, we have access to pretty much anything at anytime. So while in the pre-internet age it would have been a simple matter to prove ignorance and therefore innocence in plagiarism, now it is virtually impossible.
I definitely believe that two people can have almost identical ideas on a subject but have come up with these ideas independently, as in the case of Dennis the Menace . It’s a shame that when events like this occur in modern day society, someone is automatically blamed.
This reminds me of instances in which artists have come up with similar beats to songs and have been accused of stealing others music. When you think about it there aren’t that many combinations to be made, thus it seems unfair that artists are accused for such when all they are doing is trying to play music.
Technology has made it difficult for people to plead ignorance. There are websites that show where plagiarism is done and are free websites. Missing giving credit is tough to do.