The Finer Points of Plagiarism

I debated for nearly a week with myself. Did I really want to talk about plagiarism? After all, I’m no expert, and I haven’t really thought much about plagiarism since I was in college, writing papers. But then I thought maybe you haven’t, either. And maybe we should revisit the topic, considering recent news.

Of course, if you have anything to do with writing romance fiction, then you’re probably aware of Nora Roberts and what she eventually addressed publicly. If you haven’t heard—or you don’t know the whole story—then zip over here to her blog post where she writes in detail about her experiences with being plagiarized. And no, that’s not a typo. Roberts has had multiple experiences of plagiarism!

So maybe you’re thinking, like me, plagiarism in romance novels? Because isn’t plagiarism more prevalent in the academic world? Or in media? College students or high school students, reporters and journalists, that’s who plagiarizes. It’s about leaving out citations, or not paraphrasing properly, or making up sources to support a story, right? But it turns out that fiction writers plagiarize, too. And not just in the romance genre. Kidlit writers plagiarize, mystery writers, too. Probably even soulful, baring-their-truth poets plagiarize. Whenever someone steals someone else’s work, that’s plagiarism.

Sometimes, it appears to be clear-cut. A thief can’t be any more overt than copying other people’s sentences or whole passages word-for-word and then signing their name to it. But other types of plagiarism (yep, there are five to ten different types, depending on who you ask) are a lot more difficult to assess because honestly, people don’t really understand the finer points of plagiarism. That probably explains the accidental plagiarism category, but sadly, accidentally or not, it’s still plagiarism.

So what’s a writer to do? Should you go out and copyright all the manuscripts that are gathering cyber dust in your laptop to protect your work against plagiarism? Nope, not necessary. As long as you have your work saved, you can always prove which words belong to you if they somehow show up in someone’s book.

If, on the other hand, you have reams and reams of hand-written stories, poems, and novels, you have a couple of choices: You can spend a lot of time scanning or taking digital pictures of your work. Or you can do nothing.

Because for most of us, plagiarism on a gut-wrenching scale like Nora Roberts experienced is unlikely. We don’t need to worry too much about scofflaw writers stealing our work—words or ideas--though I suspect with self-publishing becoming so accessible, plagiarism may become a huge problem in the future. Still, I don’t think we need to start adding lawyers to our writer’s toolbox just yet.

But it wouldn’t hurt to brush up on the finer points of plagiarism from a professional source now that you know it’s out there. And also because you don’t want to be an accidental plagiarist yourself. Like I said when I started on this topic, I’m a writer, not an expert. And like you, I’m just trying to make an honest living with words. Wouldn’t it be great if that were the case for all of us?

~Cathy C. Hall

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11 comments Cathy C. Hall, Nora Roberts, plagiarism, types of plagiarism

Can You Plagiarize Yourself? Conversations about Copyright

The issue of copyright has risen again in a controversy from The New Yorker blogger, Jonah Lehrer. The basic story is that Lehrer, who just moved his blogging to The New Yorker’s site, has been copying sentences, paragraphs and passages from previously published work and using them in new posts. Is this plagiarism?

Copyright and Rights

This accusation sent me to my dictionary. Plagiarism is “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.” (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition. New York: Random House, 1983. P. 1479.)

How can this be plagiarism, when he is quoting himself and not another author? Let’s get our terms right. Lehrer misrepresented the rights available for his work. By definition (see above), he can’t plagiarize himself.

This Slate article about the controversy says, "On Tuesday morning, media watcher Jim Romenesko caught Jonah Lehrer stealing. The victim: Jonah Lehrer."

That is incorrect. Instead, the victim was The New Yorker, who thought they were buying an original article, and instead got a partial reprint.

Copyright is the legal protection of a creative work. The rights to use a creative work can legally be licensed, sold or assigned, and can be sub-divided in many ways. Some traditional rights are First North American serial rights (first time an article/story appears in a magazine), or book rights (often the territory for the rights may be restricted). In other words, the venue for the publication, the geographic location for the publication and almost anything else is negotiable. If both parties agree, it's a deal. If Jonah Lehrer told The New Yorker that his blog posts were part reprint and part original, there would have been no problem. Instead, he misrepresented his material and sold rights that he no longer had. But he did not plagiarize himself.

The General Conversation about Who Owns What

Photo copyright Darcy Pattison, 2012. All rights reserved.
Lake Ouachita, Arkansas. 2012.



This situation with Lehrer has sparked other conversations about copyrights. Kids and teachers freely copy music and text online. The addition of Creative Commons licenses makes it trickier.

But let’s be clear: the intent of the copyright laws are to protect the material created by authors, musicians, videographers, artists, etc.

This is necessary because without the ability to sell their work and make money, the level of creativity dies. Why should I work for three years on a novel that I just give away free? It makes no sense. Compensation for creative works is essential so we can live and eat and pay bills. The intent of copyright isn’t to deprive others of using something, it is to protect the possibility of creative people making a living from their creativity.

Depending on the source, researchers say that 1-5% of people actually create content online and the rest consume it. Those of us who create, spend our lives trying to be original, to entertain, to inform, to delight, to make money from what we do. You want to use our material because you choose not to create yourself, or you haven't developed the skills yet. We understand. It's taken us years of effort to get to the point where you actually want what we create.

So, please, don't copy. If you have a legitimate, non-commercial request, ask permission; I'll likely say yes. If you have a commercial request, please be ready to pay, just like you would expect from any other business.

Let me repeat: the intent of copyright is clear, to protect the rights of creative people, so we can make a living. Please, honor our copyrights.

----
Darcy Pattison blogs about how-to-write at Fiction Notes.

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2 comments copyright, plagiarism

Can Plagiarism Be Creative?

The same week I read about a German author who is defending her plagiarism, J.K. Rowling is being mentioned in another case of an author who believes Rowling heavily borrowed from his books.
In the instance of the first case of plagiarism, the author Helene Hegemann believes that her use of another's author's work is an art form. According to the Salon article I read, Hegemann reportedly told a German newspaper: "I myself don't feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me." However, as Laura Miller points out on Salon, Hegemann did not give the author of credit for the passages taken from "Strobo."
Please note that I have no first-hand knowledge of either case of alleged plagiarism, but I am interested in how reading someone else's work can or might influence my own work--maybe even creeping into my writing?
Many writers state that by reading the masters, they improved their own writing. When studying the greats, often a professor will suggest copying the words of the master to learn the cadences, word choices, and rhythms. I'm sure my novel writing career would do much better if I were to borrow heavily from the greats. I also understood that as civilization has moved along, we build on the shoulders of those who came before us. Some even argue that there are no original stories, just a re-hash of stories that have come before.
But sometimes, that line blurs. I have taught college students whose academic careers could be destroyed due to one instance of plagiarism and yet the students seem unsure what constitutes plagiarism--and why it would be such a big deal.
I think that as an exercise and to understand the world it is vitally important to be aware of the work of those who have come before. From the standpoint of creativity and our own interaction with creativity, I'm not sure that plagiarism is the best method of rising to the occasion and meeting our muse. Or is it?

Elizabeth King Humphrey is a writer and creativity coach. Besides contributing to AOL's ParentDish, she blogs at The Write Elizabeth, delving into creativity in everyday places.

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6 comments craft of writing, creative writing, Elizabeth King Humphrey, plagiarism