Recently there was a fascinating case of plagiarism in the romance world recapped at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I have to say that the thief’s initial excuse — that the stolen story was simply in the wrong folder on her computer and she thought it was something she’d started a long time ago — is absolutely classic. Oh yes, it was a story she started long ago and…now with fresh eyes decided to change all the names and identifying details. Uh huh.
I’m glad she did ’fess up by the end of the day, admitting to everything and not giving any further excuses. But certainly too little, too late. It just amazes me that in this digital day and age, someone would have the nerve to repeatedly try and pass off other writers’ work as their own.
NPR wrote about the issue of plagiarism in Createspace, Amazon’s self-publishing imprint. Some “authors” are shamelessly cutting and pasting stories wholesale, slapping on their name and a new title, and making money (although I hope not much). I really feel Amazon should be policing Createspace and taking responsibility for what they’re selling. Of course, I recognize this is not an easy task given the sheer number of self-pubbed works on Createspace. I like NYU professor Adam Penenberg’s suggestion:
Why not require an author to submit a valid credit card before she can self-publish her works on the Kindle? If an author, who could still publish under a pen name, were found to have violated someone else’s copyright Amazon could charge that card $2,000 and ban her from selling again. Amazon could also run content through one of the many plagiarism detectors that are available — such as Turnitin or iThenticate –before an ebook is put on sale.
Amazon should be an industry leader in preventing plagiarism and not just respond to complaints. I feel there must be something more they can do than just slowly take stuff down after reports.
I’ve never — to my knowledge — been plagiarized. I certainly wouldn’t be flattered if I was! I’d be furious. How would you respond?
I like Adam Penenberg’s idea, too. That seems like a really good place to start.
As for being plagiarized, I don’t believe it has ever happened to me, either. I would be furious if someone was making money off of my work and words. If they were simply taking credit for it, but no money was being made, I think I’d be less furious, and more consider them sad and pathetic that they’d have to pretend to write something they didn’t to feel validated. (How would that work, anyway?) But the money thing? That would enrage me.
Yeah, I definitely feel like there’s something retailers such as Amazon can and should do.
I’m with you on the money thing. If it was just for credit, I’d be mad, and think them lame and sad, but if they were profiting? I’d be absolutely furious and litigious!
I’d be flattered most of the time.
If someone copied something I’d written wholesale (without any changes) and put his name on it, then sold it, I might be slightly more peeved, but I’d consider the person tactless, not liable. I’d be angrier at a someone who stole my cookie. I’d have been deprived of my cookie! Here, I suppose someone could make the argument that a buyer would have bought the story from me but-for the plagiarist, though it seems untrue in the most cases. In most of these cases, the plagiarists appear to either luck out on the basis of quantity (lots and lots of stories) or they’re rather good at marketing. If I have a great novel sitting in my shelf and someone else plagiarizes it, markets it and sells a bunch of copies, I don’t see why I should be compensated. The plagiarist is irrelevant; I didn’t and wouldn’t have sold anything.
I also don’t understand who, under Penenberg’s plan, would get the $2000: the first author or Amazon? Neither makes sense. It’s clear Amazon hasn’t done anything to deserve the money. It’s also unclear why the original author—in Penenberg’s examples, many of them people who post stories for free on Literotica—should get the $2000. It’s not in Amazon’s interest to prevent plagiarism (i.e. the fine as a scare tactic doesn’t make sense.) It’s also not the role of the civil law to punish people. The principle is compensation, to make the suing party “whole”. When someone takes a story that’s available for free and sells it, what is there to make whole?
Authors have the right to feel as they wish, but I think the system is fine as it is. Amazon has procedures to follow if you, the author, find that someone else is posting your work without your permission. I don’t see why Amazon should, or would, decide to act as the plagiarism or copyright police.
What amazes me is how badly people plagiarize.
That makes me sad.
“Where, oh where, hath the skillful plagiarists gone?”
If I have a great novel sitting in my shelf and someone else plagiarizes it, markets it and sells a bunch of copies, I don’t see why I should be compensated.
That’s a very interesting POV. I can’t say I’d feel the same way. Why should a plagiarist be compensated for something they didn’t create? If an author publishes a story as free literature, for example, what gives someone else the right to come along and make a profit from it? It’s still the author’s creation, and I don’t think anyone else should profit from it without the author’s blessing.
I also don’t understand who, under Penenberg’s plan, would get the $2000: the first author or Amazon?
You raise a great question. I honestly hadn’t considered that — my thinking was only in establishing some risk for the plagiarizers; some possibility of consequence for their actions.
As you said, there’s nothing in it for Amazon to prevent plagiarizm, but I don’t think that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. For me it’s about being good corporate citizens and trying to prevent offences actively instead of only passively responding after the fact.
What amazes me is how badly people plagiarize.
Ha! Yes, it’s very true.
Thanks for commenting! Always great to hear from a different perspective.
Thanks for writing an interesting post. I liked the example you gave, too. The writer’s excuse was so painfully of the “dog ate my homework” variety.
My gut sometimes agrees with you about the free story. If I wrote it and posted it for free, why should someone else make money from it? I want control! But I struggle when I try to come up with a proper remedy. I haven’t lost anything. Indeed, I’d have lost more if someone wrote his own story, that story was bad, and sold it under my name; I might suffer damage to my reputation as a writer. If I was trying to make money from a story and someone else sold it, I could try to argue that they took my sale, but that’s hard to prove.
In an ideal world, the plagiarist would simply be dropped by her publisher, blackballed by her fellow writers and ignored by her former readers. She pretended to be a writer—someone who creates with words—but wasn’t that at all. In the real world, the readers don’t care (especially because genres like erotica or romance are seen as trash), the publisher will go with what makes money, and other writers—really, what’s the difference what they think?
Perhaps the best remedy would be for Amazon to put up a link to the free story. The original writer just wanted to be read, no money changes hands. However, what’s Amazon’s incentive to do that? It means anyone who thought about buying the plagiarist’s file would simply go and get the original for nothing, instead.
Anyway, those are just some more thoughts.
I don’t think the plagiarism that happens on places like Amazon is good. It’s mostly: copy-paste and a stick a sexy cover on things. On the other hand, I don’t know what to do about it.
*nods*
It really is a complicated issue. I definitely think a publisher has a responsibility (more so than a reseller like Amazon) to not knowingly publish plagiarized work. In most of the cases I’ve heard of, the plagiarists have self-pubbed their stolen works. But when a publisher is involved, they have acted swiftly and harshly, as in the case of Kaavya Viswanathan. They recalled and destroyed the books and her career is toast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Opal_Mehta_Got_Kissed,_Got_Wild,_and_Got_a_Life
The Cassie Edwards case is also interesting:
http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/cassie-edwards-plagiarism-recap
A practical solution with self-pubbing and ebooks is tough, no question. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!