Lethem has an interesting opinion of plagiarism, especially for a writer. He says that "the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances--is plagiarism," because all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously, drawn from sources everywhere.
I think that he is correct to say that the film maker in Iran should have been allowed to develop his own adaptation of Salinger's story. He makes a valid point asking what would it have hurt Salinger for Mehrjui to show his adaptation to an audience. Salinger should have been glad that someone enjoyed his story so much and was touched so deeply by it that they would want to develop their own adaptation. Doing this does not destroy the story as Salinger wrote it. There are many adaptations of stories out there.
Lethem says that "authors and their heirs should consider the subsequent parodies, refractions, quotations, and revisions an honor, or at least the price of rare success." By threatening a lawsuit on the Film Society, Mehrjui is not given the opportunity to "build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work,"as copyright encourages others to do.
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