Yesterday, my local Romance Writers of America (RWA) Chapter, Washington Romance Writers (WRW), had a discussion about plagiarism. Author Nora Roberts and blogger/author Sarah Wendell talked about the different reactions from readers once plagiarism is discovered. Nora was plagiarized by Janet Daily back in the late nineties. I remember this well. I was still going to RWA conferences regularly back then, and everybody was talking about it. Here’s a summary of what Roberts talked about yesterday. This is from this Wikipedia link, under the Plagiarism heading:
In 1997, another best-selling romance writer, Janet Dailey, admitted to repeatedly plagiarizing from Roberts’ work. The practice came to light after a reader read Roberts’ Sweet Revenge and Dailey’s Notorious back-to-back; she noticed several similarities and posted the comparable passages on the Internet. Calling the plagiarism “mind rape,” Roberts sued Dailey. Dailey acknowledged the plagiarism and blamed it on a psychological disorder. She admitted that both Aspen Gold and Notorious lifted heavily from Roberts’s work. Both of those novels were pulled from print after Dailey’s admission. In April 1998 Dailey settled the case. Although terms were not released, Roberts had previously indicated that any settlement funds should be donated to the Literacy Volunteers of America.
When Sarah Wendell exposed the Cassie Edwards’ case on (NOTE, THIS IS A SECULAR ROMANCE SITE AND THERE’S SOME PROFANITY ON IT. I’M LINKING TO IT BECAUSE IT’S THE BLOG POST THAT EXPOSED AUTHOR CASSIE EDWARDS’ PLAGIARISM AND IT WAS THE SUBJECT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT YESTERDAY.)her blog, it was a more recent event, but there were mixed (many negative) reactions from her blog readers.
It appears that when this happens, some make the plagiarizer out to be the victim! Now, that’s frightening! And we’re not talking about just one sentence that was copied. We’re talking about whole passages that were copied from one author’s work to another author’s book…several passages! They may have changed the character names, and a word or two, but it’s basically the same passage!
If a writer is the victim of plagiarism, then they have every right to let others know that their words were stolen! I feel that some readers don’t realize how much time and effort goes into writing a book! If this were to happen to me, I’d be dumbfounded, hurt, and highly upset.
Nora and Sarah took questions, and somebody asked how they felt about the younger generation and plagiarism. With the internet, it’s easy to look stuff up, copy and paste it into a document, change a few words, and then call it your own? Nora said that the kids need to be taught that it’s wrong to take words, change them a bit, and then call them their own! This question prompted me to mention this fairly recent case, involving Kaavya Viswanathan, and her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, And Got A Life. Kaavya was around twenty when this novel was released. What bothers me is, Kaavya apparently got to keep her advance? I did read this novel (even though it had been pulled from the shelves) I already had a copy. I also had the Megan McCafferty book from which Kaavya had stolen passages. I loved the Kaavya novel, but couldn’t get through the McCafferty book. Was it youth and immaturity that played into Kaavya’s decision to plagiarize? I feel she knew what she was doing! Also, since I enjoyed the novel, I feel that she could have developed a talent, eventually, to write a good novel. By making this foolish decision, she ended her literary career forever (at least I think she did)?
However, when plagiarism happens, the plagiarizer will sometimes go on to another publisher, and continue to write books and get them published! That’s a frightening thought!
A used bookstore owner was present. She had two old Harlequin/Silhouette titles by two different authors. She said that someone came into her store a long time ago, upset because, apparently, there were passages that were copied from one book to the other. This made me think that plagiarism is a problem that needs to be fully brought to light and squelched! Often, when the crime happens, the offender continues to publish books! It doesn’t always ruin their career!
I believe there MAY be several books out there that were plagiarized – however, the crime may never be discovered since there are a gazillion books published, and the chances of someone reading the two books back to back (which seems to be how this crime is sometimes discovered) is minimal. However, with the internet, it is sometimes easier to find copied books, especially with some books scanned on Google. This would therefore make it easier at times to find passages from novels that were used elsewhere.
I got to thinking about this yesterday and wondered if this problem exists in the Christian market? I’ve never heard of it happening there, but if anybody has, please comment on this blog post and let me, and other blog readers, know the details.
Oh, well, I guess we have to do what we can, and leave the rest in the Lord’s hands!