| Current mood: |  sad |
| Entry tags: | writing |
a dose of reality
I’ve been in Maui for a week of fun, nature and relaxation. I have no desire to plunge back into stress.
But meanwhile, there’s a new scandal about plagiarism. Since it’s an important topic, I feel the need to weigh in with a tiny rant.
Copyright Infringement = illegal. It’s stealing. It takes money out of the starving artist’s pocket. (And even if the artist isn’t starving, or even if the artist is recently deceased and left a family behind, they are entitled to make a living from those precious, creative words. Right? Who dares take that from them? Our entire culture is based on allowing artists to make a living, lest art go by the wayside or underground.) In that sense, it is unethical too, of course, as is any theft offense.
How is Copyright Infringement different from plagiarism? The big difference, besides being illegal, is that it doesn’t necessarily involve plagiarism at all. If someone makes fifty photocopies of IDENTITY CRISIS and sells them on eBay as “Kate Donovan’s IDENTITY CRISIS” – giving me full credit for having written the words – that person is still infringing my copyright because I am the only person who can give permission for reprints of my words. I gave that permission to my publisher, no one else.
Plagiarism = unethical. It’s passing someone else’s words off as your own by failure to attribute (if paraphrased) or failure to use quote marks and attribute, if using someone else’s wording. It’s stealing, obviously, but it’s also akin to impersonation. Theft based on false pretenses. Pretending that you wrote those words, when another author really did. It’s despicable.
Plagiarizing copyrighted material = the perfect storm of illegal and unethical.
And then there’s FRAUD (cue music is you’re over 47). This is where the reader comes in. You buy a book, or read a work, and you think you know what you’re getting. You read a phrase and it resonates with you, and for that moment, you are so grateful to the author, but – um, someone else wrote it. Yikes. And meanwhile, thanks to the lack of attribution, you can’t go out to the bookstore and find more of that resonating material. You have been ripped off. Hoodwinked.
All of these behaviors are unethical, immoral, despicable. But what is the remedy? In some cases, a lawsuit. In others, re-education, or if egregious, shunning, I suppose.
An author/publisher can sue for copyright infringement. For plagiarism, the plagiarist’s publisher could sue the plagiarist based on contract. And I think a reader who paid money for the work could sue for fraud, but it’s outside my area of practice, so I can’t say for sure.
It’s interesting that so many authors are worried about accidental plagiarism. I say, relax. If you don’t use someone else words, you’re okay. If you do – well, a little worrying is a good idea. Find out what the parameters are. There are times when it’s okay – especially when it’s an allusion to a well-known source, e.g. “to be or not to be” – but if you’re unsure, go ahead and ask an editor or agent. And if it’s a lot of words, chances are, you’re wrong.
Edited to add: I just read an opinion piece suggesting that “old-school” writing permits fiction writers to rip off nonfiction writers, especially if the work is out of copyright. Ugh. My reaction is just the opposite. The taboo against plagiarism was drilled into me as a child by everyone --- teachers, parents, and frankly, my own instincts – and I was educated in the 60’s and 70’s. Pretty old-school, right?
If I thought any age group might be more likely to think copyright-infringement is okay, it would be the people who got caught up in the music wars, and have some passionate (mis)conceptions about public ownership of art. But new-school, old-school, or even ancient-school – I think everyone with a conscience knows that misrepresenting someone else’s art as your own is wrong, wrong, wrong. Right to the core. Or at least, I hope that’s true.
Kate
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katedonovan) wrote,
