Plagiarism: is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement. -Online DictionaryFair Use: The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.” -US Copyright Office
Okay, here's the story: this past weekend the Bitches at Smart Bitches discovered incriminating evidence of plagiarism from romance writer Cassie Edwards. Whole passages from non-fiction works like Indian Boyhood were pasted into several of her novels. The offending texts were easily found because of a jarring change of voice. Characters with names like Running Fox suddenly sounded like Mr Peabody. I've never read Edwards work but it doesn't sound like compelling reading to me. However, Edwards has written 100s of books and has a boatload of fangirls frothing at the mouth over what they see as a hate-on by the Bitches.
Now Nora Roberts has gone on the record that this is plagiarism plain and simple. Signet offered a statement citing fair use (see above). They claim Edwards has done nothing wrong. From the definition above, it sure looks like plagiarism. Whether or not it's actionable (the works may be out of copyright) it's not ethical. If you have hours of time (and a big bottle of Excedrin), you can read all the posts and comments on Smart Bitches/Trashy Novels. For me, the comments left me feeling Dazed and Confused.
I have a few predictions though:
- Edwards fans will keep on loving her
- The people that hate her will keep on hating her
- Some people who said, "Who the hell is Cassie Edwards?" will buy her books out of curiosity and then promptly forget who she is. (Hello, James Frey)
- The sun's going to rise tomorrow.
*In other plagiarism news, Avril Lavigne settled her dispute with the other mental giants who composed the haunting lyrics, "Hey you, I want to be your girlfriend" into song. There's not enough bleach...
*Let's cleanse the palate, shall we? Some big names in Canadian literature are part of this literary collection of love letters: Four Letter Word. Sounds really interesting.
*English hard. We need brains. Brains!
*Or perhaps this. I feel like a slow mother too sometimes. Maybe I should go.
*For Kookiejar or any rocker wanna-bes.
*Steinbeck vs Hemingway. Hemingway, blech, blech.
*Estella's Revenge starts off the new year. Oh the possibilities.
Have a great weekend. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, you know, like copyright infringement. Just saying.
Hmm, good question. I think if a favorite author of mine plagiarized it would definitely make me lose quite a bit of respect for them. Being an English teacher and all, plagiarism and other issues of intellectual property are big-time concerns. I mean, at the end of the day, plagiarism is easy NOT to do, so the author in question shouldn't be terribly tempted to do it in the first place.
ReplyDeleteArrrg!
Thanks for another great post, Chris. I popped over there, but didn't stay long. I've only been awake for 30 minutes and my coffee hasn't yet kicked in...and my Exedrin is running low :) Seems simple to me though - if you use someone's else's words you need to be clear...as in a quote, thank you very much...or you need permission. I also agree with your ultimate conclusions...in fact, I can see the sun peeking through the clouds right now!
ReplyDeleteI'd lose respect for them. It's one thing to inadvertently paraphrase someone in a non fiction book, but lifting whole passages? In any genre, that's wrong in my book.
ReplyDeleteOMG, CMac! Thank you for that link! I can actually use that for my fake tribute band! I'm very excited to play with that a little bit. *huge, grateful kiss* SQUEE!!
ReplyDeleteBeing a writer, the idea of lifting someone else's words is abhorrent to me. If someone lifted my words, I would be furious, because "copyright" is just that. It's just plain wrong. I've read the Smart Bitches blog about this, seen Signet's response, which I do not agree with. You can't just "borrow" someone else's words. If you can't come up with your own original words, then you shouldn't call yourself a writer.
ReplyDeleteKookie- Glad you liked it!
ReplyDeleteAndi, Wendy, & Carrie- I feel the same way. I'd wonder how much of what I read was really theirs. I'd feel cheated as a reader as well.
Karen- Apparently Signet has issued another statement. They're going to review her work. I think they had no idea how mad people were going to get. I don't know what Edwards was thinking. It doesn't seem that hard to put something in your own words- or more correctly the character's words.
If I found out a favorite author of mine did this, I know I'd be disappointed. I'm just amazed that people still do this. I mean in this day an age when information is so much readily accessible why would any author even try?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to check out that Smart Bitches/Trashy Novels site - I'm curious what her supporters are saying.
Iliana- On comments page, it's one or two supporters although the SBs are getting plenty of hate mail. Mostly, they say the SBs are mean to be picking on Cassie, who cares, get a life, etc. It seems to me that they don't care that she did something wrong. It boogles my mind.
ReplyDeleteGreat links - that Canadian book looks interesting.
ReplyDeleteOh, internet drama can take on a life on its own. I must go look into it.
Students understanding of plagarism is abysmal. I don't do research papers, but the English teachers have fits every year.
As always, a great Friday post!! I don't know anything about Cassie Edwards, so I'm sure how to react. I do think it's horrible to just copy someone else's work. But it's a really fine line and all that jazz!!
ReplyDeleteIf I found a favorite author of mine blatantly plagiarized whole passages, yeah, I think I'd stop reading their work. If it was one of those borderline "well this paragraph is paraphrased, they probably forgot to properly label their notes, whoops" situations, I'd give them another shot. It definitely sounds like Edwards falls in the former category, so if I actually read her books, I expect I'd stop doing so.
ReplyDeleteHeather- Yeah, I think so too. It now seems that they've found passages from a Pultizer Prize Winning novel "Laughing Boy" which is still under copyright. That is huge!
ReplyDelete