So I see a firm point of plagiarism, followed by a vast shadow of gray area where it might be or might not be.

But, Plagarism is not illegal and is not the same thing as copyright infringement, which is illegal.

Ideas, plotlines, etc cannot be copyrighted. Characters and fictional places can be as can the whole story. Then there are exceptions to the rules like parody. The most common form of copyright infringement is fan fiction. But, unless you try to profit from it, most publishers ignore the existence of fan fiction, but there are some significant exceptions.

I know there was an attempt to patent a plot about six months ago, but cannot remember if that went anywhere.

As for the rest it's beginning to have the same feel as some discussions I've heard about copyright and music.

On one bb I visit, there are occasional debates about trading bootleg copies of CD's. The argument against is pretty obvious, but it's the argument for trading that gets me. The idea is that if you have bootleg copies of CD's, you can share an artist's music easier and you're more likely to increase actual CD sales. Listen to the album online, then buy a copy if you like it.

Back to writing, I rarely buy a book I see in a bookstore just from browsing. I don't usually read fiction a second time, so I'll usually just check out what I want from the local library or (if I'm desperate for a title/author) buy it from a used book store. It keeps me from spending money I don't have on things that will end up just taking up space.

However, there are exceptions. I've got several "classics" and books by a few authors that have especially resonated with me. And because I want those books to last, I buy them new.

So, when I walk into a bookstore with the intent to buy, I usually already know what I want.

I've had too many bad experiences with books that came highly recommended for me to change this system. What I'd really like is something like Baen's library where I could read the entire book online, then, if I like it enough, order a print version for my personal library (or simply to support the author and encourage them to write more books).

I don't think there's too much more to say about fanfic. I thought it wasn't copyright infringement as long as you didn't make any money off it: now I have to check and see what the law says about that.

And then, there's Lori Jareo. (Amazon has finally broken the links to her story)

You can find all the relevant ubb codes by clicking on the link next to the reply window that reads "*UBB Code is ON", or you can click on the link I just posted using this method.

As for the other link...

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...fly up her thermal exhaust port...

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After all the bard stole his ideas and no one seems to give a #$@$ if anything we praise his ability to give us timeless stories.

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Yes, but this isn't plagiarism. Plagiarism is, according to Wikipedia, "the unacknowledged use of another person's idea(s), information, language or writing," or "the passing off of someone else's work as one's own". It's the ideas bit that's confusing, but it's rarely -- if ever -- applied to fiction; the "they stole my ideas" cases are the ones getting kicked out of court, like the Harry Potter case and the Da Vinci Code case.

The current blow-up is over Kaavya Viswanathan's copying of Megan McCafferty, and it's not based on stealing ideas. There are several passages in the Viswanathan book which are, word for word, passages from the McCafferty books, with only a few names changed. This is plagiarism proper, the kind of thing my friend the English teacher is currently flunking students for, and it applies to fiction as well as academia, and it's wrong everywhere.

A Million Little Pieces wasn't plagiarised -- it was a case of events described in a supposedly true-life memoir being figments of the author's imagination, and proveably so.

The difference between inspiration and plagiarism in fiction is the difference between someone's work inspiring you to work and using someone else's work to save you work. Most of the teachers I know say that true plagiarism is easy to spot, particularly if you've read the source material (or have ready access to Google....) It stands out. It clashes with the writer's own work. It's bloody blatantly obvious -- and very, very stupid. "Inspired by" work, while it may or may not be good, is an entirely different kettle of fish.

I'm still puzzled over that one.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512948

It's a book that a Harvard student was getting published, but uses almost the same wording, but not quite. So how close does something have to be to be considered plagerisim, and how often? Are ten instances like this enough over a whole book to be called plagerized? Maybe more, or less? Or is this even plagerism?

I will say in this case, it seems obvious to me that this girl just reworded these other books, but what do you think? She doesn't seem to have been very creative with the writing, but from what I heard, the publisher had set up a six figure deal with her and was ready to publish before this!

Edited to add that I guess this book was mentioned in the original post, but the article is interesting anyway.

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The current blow-up is over Kaavya Viswanathan's copying of Megan McCafferty, and it's not based on stealing ideas. There are several passages in the Viswanathan book which are, word for word, passages from the McCafferty books, with only a few names changed

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I was originally going to post that I saw an example and it didn't strike me as plagiarism... just heavily influenced prose.

Then, in the spirit of backing up my words, I looked on the Internet to see if I could find that article with said example. Instead, I found what Thieftess was talking about.

Examples of Similar Passages Between Viswanathan's Book and McCafferty's Two Novels

For those who want to see the difference between "heavily influenced" and plagiarism.

Sorry for posting a similar link, luapc. I'm leaving it in just for the sake of irony.

I thought from the one story on CNN.com i read it was similiar passages not direct copying.

Thanks to beth's explanation in a separate thread, it's the 17th Street/Alloy thing that makes my eyebrows rise.

Kaavya's Expensive Inner Circle

One of the things that drew me to writing Internet Fan Fiction, infringement or not, was the lack of success I'd had "playing by the rules," copyrights and all. If I wasn't selling what I wrote, why not do something utterly uncommercial and have some fun besides? Using already-existing characters and settings relieved me of the burden of creating them myself...and I was able to draw on other things besides "the show" for inspiration as well.

I learned from the experience. I came out of it refreshed and ready for another stab at trying to sell. Besides, I got more attention and, as a result, gratification, for what I wrote there than anything I'd written before. (I might someday write another---I've got a few ideas---but, right now, that chapter of my writing career is closed.)

*****

On plagiarism...alas, in the current plagiarized book up for discussion, I've read neither the original book nor the plagiarized book. They're out of my current reading habits. The only major bestseller that I read and enjoyed but whose author was later busted for plagiarism was Alex Haley's "Roots."

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Was Kaavya Viswanathan ready to become a signed author as a high-school senior? Or were her youthful jottings no different from the rough writing that goes undiscovered in countless diaries and notebooks belonging to teenagers less well off than Sundaram and Rajamaran’s daughter?

These questions are unanswerable.

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"On Thursday night Little, Brown announced that it was pulling the Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan's chick-lit novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," from bookstores because numerous passages in it had been plagiarized... After Little, Brown's announcement Thursday night, the book leapt from No. 64 in sales on Amazon.com to No. 10 yesterday. Amazon was no longer selling the title directly but referred buyers to third-party sellers, who were asking as much as $89.95 for a copy."

"Ms. Viswanathan has called the borrowings "unintentional and unconscious."

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I was reading this and while there is a similar scene is this a little too much of a which hunt?

I mean the line the article uses from Can you Keep a Secret is meant to create a steorotype as is the one from the Havard girl's book and without a line to invoke the stereotype of "silly/stupid fur lover/animal hater" its rather empty.

So the question is can we have characters or incidents that are similar in order to reinforce a particular experience? ie star crossed lovers sneaking out/into each others houses. Or Really messed up families where a boy is forced to become a man only to lose most of what he's fighting for?

You're free to consider it a witch hunt if you want. I'm sure you wouldn't mind if someone stole your words and used them to get into Harvard, get a half-million dollar advance, and a movie deal.

My first copy of this post got lost, so I may lose some of it.

Yes, this is a witch hunt that will lead to such things as: J.K. Rowling sueing for plagerisim if ANY writer should create a charachter (male or female) with a scar anywhere on their body.

Reason: The only evidence these writers have shown is charactherization similiarities. Basically, these charachters are similiar stereotypes. The exact same charachters described the exact same way exist in hundreds of written works by different authors. The authors claiming plagerism are not the first, nor will they be the last to create these charachters.

If they want to show plagerism, they need to show plagerism of ideas and whole passages beyond similiar, (not even idential) charachterization.

The instance of similiar charachters has existed for hundreds of years. Stock, stereotype charachters are usually described the same way by most, if not all authors who use them.

Stock charachters are normal, it is what the author makes them say and do that can cause plagerism to exist.

Yes, I think the publishers should offer the same deals to every author who publishes through them.

Yes, I think actual known plagerism should be punished.

However, what this looks like, is the girl wrote as a teen would, and she had read quite a bit of teen literature, so there will be similarities.

I do not describe charachters in my works, thankfully. I will keep writing, but refuse to try to publish anything until this witch hunt ends, likely, long after I am dead!

I also agree there are only so many ways to tell a story. At first, I thought Viswanathan had found her own. Then, I took a look at the examples published in the Harvard Crimson.

It's still possible that Viswanathan is telling the truth. Maybe 17th Street/Alloy really did just help her polish things up a little. Maybe she really had internalized (memorized?) several passages from McCafferty's books. If that's true, then this is a cautionary tale for young authors who want to get published before they at least catch up on the plots that are already out there in their chosen genre.

After looking at the comparisons in the Crimson, it appears to me that plagiarism is a strong possibility. And since I doubt any author is going to jump around yelling, "I'm guilty!" when faced with that kind of charge, I completely understand why the publisher pulled her book.

I can only assume that she's an aspiring writer (obviously one with no self confidence in her own skill.) It's sad to think that at a very young and foolish age, she's ruined her chances for any future shot at the "big time." Or, so I would hope.

On the other hand, maybe Publish America will pick her up.

An example: Jayson Blair, bounced from the New York Times for writing up articles but not bothering to actually do the reporting itself, in addition to occasionally stealing stories from local newspapers. He managed to get a self-serving and accusatory memoir published...but, as far as I know, nothing else.

Another aside: again, in my Internet Fan Fiction period, I did what I liked to call "homages" to certain works of literature or certain authors. I always said which authors and works I had it mind...and, in my opinion, it was usually obvious.

Even in this thread, we've seen a lot of people who wanted to believe she didn't do anything wrong. And from what I understand, her own work was judged too "dark" to be publishable (the reason she turned to plagiarism). That may be true, though I thought it was code for "this is crap." But that little factoid about why she couldn't sell her own work in the first place makes her seem "edgy". Doesn't it?

I'd guess that there are people looking seriously at her first manuscript to see if it can be massaged into a salable book. They want to get the right angle, of course, she has to be repackaged as the victim of the system first. That takes time. Possibly a tell-all memior of her publishing dream-turned-nightmare has to pave the way. But I doubt we've seen the end of Viswanathan.

Basically I find that insinuation of similarities as "plagarism" is crazy. Sure she maybe heavily borrowed from one but to say she plagarized another based on similar situation is crazy.

But ultimately my point was can we do anything but Stereotype when it comes to character development? Granted there is always a little difference here and a quirk there but the "messiah" description haunts most fantasy figures and the "misunderstood rebel" most teen novels.

Now On Blair:

For me the biggest difference between Blair's case and the Harvard Girl's is job title.

Blair: NY Times Reporter

Girl: Next Best thing Female Writer (or some such make up your own)

Of course here I go sterotyping stereotypes

My work has never seemed, to me, much like anybody else's work. But I've thought that some, if not all, of my influences must show through at times.

On phrasing things...in grade school through high school, if I had to write a report on something I usually paraphrased my way around them. (In particular I remember a report on the life of Theodore Roosevelt that I rephrased right out of an encyclopedia.) I don't think I grasped the idea of saying things in an original way in non-fiction until late in high school---by which time my fiction writing, where I always had to be [relatively] original, had been going on for three-some years. (I wish I still had copies of my writings from then---I'd love to see what I actually did say in them.)

As for Viswanathan...a couple of thoughts...

(1) It seems okay to let grade school or high school kids get away with paraphrasing...but in college, or in particular, in a published novel, I don't think it's at all tolerable.

I'm as jealous as the next writer, but I think that Viswanathan is getting a bad rap.

If there is a suspicious element to this story, it's not the plagarism, as much as it is all of this "book handler" business.