[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Twenty paragraphs from a dozen different sources or so in a whole novel? Doesn’t really sound like wholesale copying to me. I agree it would be more gracious and generally nicer for her to own up to or at least thank her sources in her foreword, but I still don’t see how the originals are being harmed. I mean, you say “unethical” but why unethical? Who is harmed? What is the nature of the harm? If someone borrowed a paragraph or two from one of my novels and stuck it their novels I’d think they were rude and a bit of a dumbass, but I wouldn’t feel deeply wronged. Hell, if they made a lot of money doing it, I’d be gleeful – I could prolly sue 'em and maybe get some dough. That would be all right by me. But I don’t think romance novels pay a hell of a lot.
[/QUOTE]
Wait, are you really saying it’s OK to take entire sentences and paragraphs from other authors’ works and present them as your own? You don’t find that unethical in any way?
I suppose I feel that it’s so wrong because she’s written over a 100 books, and profited nicely from that. An examination of 20 of them has shown each to contain at least 10 instances where she has lifted phrases and descriptive passages from other works and presented them as her own. Those passages are only the ones that could be found through a Google search, and most of her books were written pre-Internet. Who knows how much of her work is plagiarised from other sources? When you can’t just copy and paste something with your mouse, you have to consciously type it in or write it out, and a lot of the examples go past simply remembering a turn or phrase. Passing other people’s work off as your own is incredibly dishonest, and she’s been doing it for a long time.
If you can’t understand why plagiarising multiple works over many decades is unethical, then I’m not even going to try to explain it to you.
Purl, have you been following the Fandom Wank coverage? You’ll find some other interesting tidbits - for instance, Edwards gets extra fail points for equating her humiliation to the suffering of her(?) Native American ancestors who were “picked on”.
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
Written to the rhythm of a supposed Indian drum.
[/QUOTE]
But it was originally a Finnish drum, so the plagiarist was plagiarized.
[QUOTE=Risha] Purl, have you been following the Fandom Wank coverage? You’ll find some other interesting tidbits - for instance, Edwards gets extra fail points for equating her humiliation to the suffering of her(?) Native American ancestors who were “picked on”.
[/QUOTE]
No, I haven’t. I don’t usually read Fandom Wank, though I probably would get much entertainment from it. I was aware of the comparison of the suffering of Native Americans with the current media barrage she’s under. I wonder how the endangered ferrets feel about this issue.
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington]
Paul Tolme, the author of the article on ferrets, responded in Newsweek with a very amusing article about his experience reading his own work in the most expected place. He says, “Had I known that my text would one day appear in a romance novel, I might have sexed up my story: ‘Hot-loving polecats do it in prairie dog holes.’” Indeed, Mr. Tolme, indeed.
[/QUOTE]
An amusing article indeed.
I found Cassie Edwards’ defense to also be, well, amusing, though not in the way that was intended. One wonders whether her perspective would be different if it had been her work that had been similarly used as for “research”.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Twenty paragraphs from a dozen different sources or so in a whole novel? Doesn’t really sound like wholesale copying to me. I agree it would be more gracious and generally nicer for her to own up to or at least thank her sources in her foreword, but I still don’t see how the originals are being harmed. I mean, you say “unethical” but why unethical? Who is harmed? What is the nature of the harm? If someone borrowed a paragraph or two from one of my novels and stuck it their novels I’d think they were rude and a bit of a dumbass, but I wouldn’t feel deeply wronged. Hell, if they made a lot of money doing it, I’d be gleeful – I could prolly sue 'em and maybe get some dough. That would be all right by me. But I don’t think romance novels pay a hell of a lot.
[/QUOTE]
Did you bother to look at the Master PDF? It’s a lot more than twenty paragraphs and it’s a lot more than a novel. Why don’t you look at that, and then give us your edifying opinion? I think the PDF is up over 50 pages now, and is being updated regularly as more people find more stolen text. This has been an on-going problem with Mrs. Edwards, and she has stolen from a variety of sources.
What if somebody stole more than a few paragraphs of your work? What if they stole an entire chapter? Or two? Would that still be okay? If not, why not? Where does your double-standard begin? If it is okay, do you bother to register the copyright for your work?
But I guess for some people “Lying is immoral and unethical” is not enough. I do know that after all this hit the blogs (and fandom_wank…) I lost a lot of respect for a lot of authors who offer Evil Captors rationale. Stealing isn’t okay. Stealing other people’s words and thoughts is no better stealing their money and personal belongings, and imho, sometimes worse.
[QUOTE=]
“I read that ferrets stalk and kill prairie dogs during the night. Using their keen sense of smell and whiskers to guide them through pitch-black burrows, ferrets suffocate the sleeping prey, an impressive feat considering the two species are about the same weight,” Shiona said, shivering at the thought, for to her one animal was as cute and precious as the next. It was a shame that any had to die to sustain the other.
[/QUOTE]
…ow.
resists urge to scream about snuggly wuggly bunnykins
resists urge to scream SHOW DON’T TELL SHOW DON’T TELL THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT CAN BE ABUSED
reminds self that above author is published and has made more money than LPN has at publishing, assuming she has been paid more than $0.
reminds self that above writer is a little old lady and probably bakes wicked ass brownies and wears a lot of those bright purple and blue patchwork coats and looks, in LPN’s mind, like elinor peace bailey, and she quite likes elinor peace bailey
Probably not. Most people are outraged, but her die-hard fans are basically saying what Evil Captor is saying. One publisher already responded with “Mrs. Edwards did nothing wrong” though they later took that back. Two of her publishers haven’t responded at all. She’ll be sued for copyright infringement, most likely, (Since Laughing Boy is not in the public domain and neither are the non-fiction articles she used about ferrets and the like), but she’ll probably continue publishing one way or the other. And she’ll continue selling books. And people will continue to insist she’s done nothing wrong. At the very most, she’ll just start publishing under a different name.
that’s the most depressing part of this whole thing. You can establish a pattern of theft and lying that spans years. You can take from non-fiction articles, beloved poems, and Pulitzer Prize winning novels. You can be lazy and unethical. And you will still be defended and keep your career.
[QUOTE=Risha]
And the estimates I’ve seen are that she’s made approximately $57 million dollars from those books.
[/QUOTE]
:eek: You gotta be shittin’ me. If that’s the case, then I think me and Mr. Splitfoot will be signing a contract very soon. (Not like it’d be hard work, either. Just steal a little bit here, and a little bit there, and I can knock out a dozen in afternoon.)
When a man’s book is plagiarized he’s supposed to do something about it. When one of your books gets copied it’s bad business to let the plagiarist get away with it. It’s bad all around – bad for that one writer, bad for every writer everywhere. . . .
