Plagiarism: Number 1 Sin?

Yes, I think plagiarizing is a sin in the publishing/writing world. I have had some poems published in online magazines, and I often wondered if someone would steal them, but then I realized that it didn't bother me too much.
I probably wouldn't be able to find the person if they plagiarized my writing, like if they copied it for a school assignment or even if they published it somewhere else. According to the 1978 Copyright Act, your work is automatically copywritten, once you write it down, but many people do not know about it, especially if they are not real writers.

If I caught someone plagiarizing, however, I would probably turn them in, even if I'm friends with that person (if I had proof they did it).

Apryl

Plagiarism

Plagiarism makes you a liar, a thief, and a coward. I don't know if it's the number one sin, but it's certainly up there.

And of course I mind someone plagiarizing my work. But I know none of my unpublished work will be plagiarized because no one sees my writing until after it's published.

I had an editing job not too long ago where I caught the author plagiarizing great chunks of text (this was nonfiction) straight off Web sites of fairly well known organizations. I was tipped off by the changes in style and just a gut feeling that something was wrong, so I plugged in a couple of his sentences and up came the original material. Essentially his whole work was a pastiche of the work of others. I was furious at the author and it gave me GREAT PLEASURE to reveal his plagiarism to the publisher. Yes, plagiarism is a sin. It is a sin of sloth, greed, and overweening pride that the plagiarist thinks that other people are too stupid to figure out that the work is not his own.

I don't know if it the #1 sin - but, to me it would be like someone coming into my home and, upon seeing something beautiful that is one of my most prized possessions, taking it without my knowing, just because he/she wants it. It is outright stealing - plain and simple.

Cindy

Yes, plagiarism is a sin. The worst a writer can do? Depends. Writing fiction as fact is grievously wrong, IMO. Presenting someone else's work as yours is the same kind of lie, just lazier because you didn't even have to think up the fiction to make it fact. That might make it more offensive to me. I've run into plagiarism in works I've edited. The worst offense was also the laziest: the writer lifted material from an unpublished chapter I sent to him as an example (and stated as such) of what I was looking for. I mean, dude, come on. At least go to the effort to plagiarize from something I don't already have in front of me. And now I've dropped my first "dude" at AW.

I think that all of things you mentioned are equally bad. They all involve deception.

As far as plagiarism goes, I kept a tight lid on my novel until I had it copyrighted. I think that most writers are decent people, and would never stoop so low, but all you need is one "bad egg".

The internet can be terribly troublesome. Unless you are careful, your uncopyrighted work can be floating around anywhere.

Example: I used to write music reviews for a site called The Koffin. The Koffin is gone, but my reviews live on because other sites lifted them without permission to fill up their own content.

It's theft. There's a reason why I won't buy Janet Dailey's books. Ditto anyone else I find out is a plagiarizer.

Plagiarism is bad, but I almost put copyright infringement by writers as worse than that. Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and claiming them as your own. It makes "your writing" a dead end. You can't produce like people think you can ('cause you couldn't write so you plagiarized). Ultimately it doesn't help the plagiarizer. It is evil and wrong-headed, though.

What really ticks me off is when writers on Internet boards paste in whole articles from some newspaper or magazine, or a whole poem for discussion. It happens on AW all the time. That is against the law, and it indicates the writer has no clue about intellectual property writes. He/she has no room to cry foul when someone dies it to them.

I can understand non-writers being ignorant enough to infringe on a writer's copyright, but I can't understand other writers doing it.

NDG

It's stealing. I don't believe in the concept of sin but I sure do believe in revenge. I'll prosecute in a heartbeat.

Plagiarism is terrible, this is true. But to my mind, the worst sins a writer can commit are libel (malicious libel the worst of all) and hate-mongering.

Food for thought. Is it plagiarism to write "West Side Story" based on the
concepts and ideas of Shakespeare (or the hundreds of other knock-offs of his work)?

Are the ten commandments "better" or "worse" than one another? I think that plagiarism is HORRID. So are many of the other things mentioned in this thread.

bison said:

Food for thought. Is it plagiarism to write "West Side Story" based on the
concepts and ideas of Shakespeare (or the hundreds of other knock-offs of his work)?

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I think that basing a story off of another plot like that is okay in certain circumstances, such as when the writer's copyright has LONG SINCE expired, and the fact that it is based off of his play is well known.

10 Things I Hate About You is one of my favorite movies.

I don't think it's the worst sin, but it's probably #2 on my list. I reserve #1 for fabricated nonfiction. Of course, being mostly a nonfiction writer myself, I suppose that would make sense.

As far as having my work plagiarized? I really try not to think about that. I've seen enough evidence to prove to me that the perpetual fear of being robbed is actually more destructive than being robbed ever could be.

bison said:

Food for thought. Is it plagiarism to write "West Side Story" based on the
concepts and ideas of Shakespeare (or the hundreds of other knock-offs of his work)?

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Absolutely not. Nobody can copyright an idea, a character "type" or even a general plot.

Jamesaritchie said:

Plagiarism makes you a liar, a thief, and a coward. I don't know if it's the number one sin, but it's certainly up there.

And of course I mind someone plagiarizing my work. But I know none of my unpublished work will be plagiarized because no one sees my writing until after it's published.

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Ditto all of this, except for the "until after it's published" part, which, in my case, can just be left off.

caw

WildScribe said:

I think that basing a story off of another plot like that is okay in certain circumstances, such as when the writer's copyright has LONG SINCE expired, and the fact that it is based off of his play is well known.

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You can't copyright a plot, and authors reuse plots all the time, intentionally or not.

Norman D Gutter said:

Plagiarism is bad, but I almost put copyright infringement by writers as worse than that. Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and claiming them as your own. *** I can understand non-writers being ignorant enough to infringe on a writer's copyright, but I can't understand other writers doing it.

NDG

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Actually "copyright infringement" is the legal term for plagiarism; you can't sue someone for plagiarism, you sue them for copyright infringement. But I know what you mean about writers, of all people, blithely cutting and pasting copyrighted material, especially on the internet. It's depressing that so few seem to "get" it.

It's also sobering how many younger people especially seem to feel that creative works should be free and passed around with no compensation to the author. The schools appear to be missing the boat in teaching the difference between information -- which should be free and available to all, and entertainment -- which was created by someone, usually to earn income, and should be viewed as intellectual property that belongs to its creator, to be treated with respect.

bison said:

Food for thought. Is it plagiarism to write "West Side Story" based on the
concepts and ideas of Shakespeare (or the hundreds of other knock-offs of his work)?

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No, of course not. Aside from the fact that Shakespeare's work passed into public domain long ago, ideas and story structure can't be copyrighted any more than characters and plot devices can. There's nothing wrong with retelling an old story in a modern way (Clueless springs to mind, since it was such a wonderful modern version of Austen's Emma).

Besides, there really aren't any "new" stories, just new ways of telling them.

WildScribe said:

I think that basing a story off of another plot like that is okay in certain circumstances, such as when the writer's copyright has LONG SINCE expired, and the fact that it is based off of his play is well known.

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Julie Worth said:

You can't copyright a plot, and authors reuse plots all the time, intentionally or not.

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Exactly. Unless you've got an open book still under copyright protection beside your keyboard and copy phrases and whole passages word-for-word, you're fairly safe.

CheshireCat said:

Actually "copyright infringement" is the legal term for plagiarism; you can't sue someone for plagiarism, you sue them for copyright infringement.

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I disagree somewhat here. There are many US government Web sites with huge gobs of information and articles that are not copyrighted (National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control for example. Using this material and passing it off as your own is still plagiarism. Whether the plagiarist can be sued for copyright infringement or not is a side issue. Teachers, professors, publishers expect original material. In fact, many of my contracts say that I warrant that the material is original AND that it does not infringe on anyone's copyright.

Plagiarism and copyright infringement are somewhat separate issues. For one thing, plagiarism, as it is commonly understood, the passing off of someone else's work as your own, isn't usually criminally illegal. It's just unethical as hell, and can get you sued, bigtime. Copyright infringement, the unauthorized reproduction of someone else's work, even with proper authorship creditation, is piracy, and is illegal. It's a bigger problem in the music and movie industries than in literature, but it's still a problem.

caw

Julie Worth said:

You can't copyright a plot, and authors reuse plots all the time, intentionally or not.

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Apologies, I MEANT lifting the plot without changing names, locations, or even large blocks of text. But I was really unclear on that.