That Plagiarism Scandal

[mabfan]

I haven't been following the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism scandal too closely because I've had friends doing it for me. However, I do want to note one speculative point that I made yesterday that appears to be correct.

Yesterday, writer Stephen Leigh (sleigh) noted in this post that the book was put together by a book packager. I suggested in one of my replies that it was entirely possible that the packager was the one who really committed the plagiarism. (Still, Viswanathan would have to take full responsibility, since it is her name on the book.)

Well, there are two articles I found today that would appear to substantiate my theory.

First, today's New York Times article "A Second Ripple in Plagiarism Scandal" points out that some passages in the Viswanathan novel were lifted from yet another book, implying that the plagiarism was deliberate.

Secondly, the Harvard Independent article "Kaavya Case Not First Plagiarism Controversy for Opal Mehta Packager" points out that the packager had been found guilty of committing plagiarism before.

Methinks the packager is mostly at fault, but as I said before, Viswanathan has to take responsibility as well.

Comments

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

...the packager had been found guilty of committing plagiarism before. Methinks the packager is mostly at fault, but as I said before, Viswanathan has to take responsibility as well.

Well, ya know, I wonder. If this was a work-for-hire, as it seems to have been, then the publisher would have taken the manuscript, made whatever changes they liked, and moved forward with publication. She can't be held responsible for changes the publisher made. A work-for-hire gig means they own the property and can do whatever they like with it. So what I wonder is whether or not, if it comes out that the author was a patsy in the whole business, she'll be cleared of wrong-doing. Seems like she's been painted into a corner, especially since she apparently requested to be interviewed on The Today Show to make apologies for inadvertent plagiarism. I suspect she's screwed whether or not she was an innocent in this affair. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Her agent, perhaps, should be held responsible for allowing her given, legal name to be used on the cover. This business has ruined her for any legitimate writing career she may want to have down the road.

[saxikath]

I wonder if incoming freshmen at Harvard still have to attend the plagiarism lecture?

[affinity8.livejournal.com]

I think Kaavya's lying about things. She said she read McCafferty's books a few months before starting her own and was highly impressed by them, but when asked to name her influences before the scandal broke, she didn't name her. She initially denied the similarities, then admitted them. During the first week, she kept saying that she hadn't been able to apologize to McCafferty directly: how hard can that be? If the packager put the text together for her and she let her name be used, then she's lying about being the author.

I do feel sorry for her, in that this is something that will dog her for the rest of her life.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

I'm boggled by this entire case. Aside from the gross instances of plagiarism, I can't imagine wanting to put my name on a book that was largely written by a marketing committee. It strikes me as a blatant grab for fame on the part of the author. Why do a lot of hard work and get paid and publicized like an average author when you can be catapulted to fame largely on the basis of someone else's work?

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of something that happened when I was in graduate school. A fellow at the Great American University I was attending was found to have stolen gobs of somebody else's textbook for his own. His defense was that he didn't even read the book in question. His own, I mean. The publisher had just paid to use his name. He found another job. But kept his international reputation as a scholar.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I'm doing my usual fence-sitting on this one, on a couple of factors.

I wouldn't want to be what amounts to a hired typist for a company project myself, no. But I've heard that getting published as a writer is not exactly the easiest game to break into anyway -- not if the author wants to get accepted, paid, and effectively marketed. In most creative pursuits, a lot of people probably take whatever break they can get in order to establish themselves and realize just how bad the deal is only later. The standard band contract dispute story comes to mind; so does what I've heard about Jay McCarroll's turning down the Project Runway funding prize.

As for the plagiarism, if it was the writer's and not the company's, the question to me is intent. The Boston Globe had an interesting article about inadvertent plagiarism, I think maybe in their Sunday magazine; it really hit home for me.

You can say that the phrasing is just too similar; maybe it is. But I know I've had occasions when the perfect phrase just comes to me, and I have no idea whether it's original or it comes from something I read in the past ten years. Since I'm constantly re-reading and rewriting my text until I get the rhythm and language just right, the fact that a phrase or even a passage sounds familiar doesn't necessarily mean anything. This is compounded for me by the fact that I tend not to remember details (of novels, films, television shows, pivotal baseball games, last month, my childhood ...) unless I set out to review and remember a particular element. I've set out to read a book I've never heard of and realized halfway through (only because of a particularly vivid scene) that I've actually read it before. This means that I can read the same book a dozen times or more and still enjoy it, sure, but it also means that if I ever actually complete the Jonathan Chronicles, I'm going to have to hire a dozen readers to look specifically for lifted passages.

If some persuasive evidence does emerge that the plagiarism in this case was deliberate, though, then I'll agree she's scum. I just don't know enough yet.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

At this point, through the murkiness of the writer/packager relationship, I think it's impossible to tell who initiated the plagiarism. But the author allowed her name to be put on the book, so she's responsible; the packager either was complicit in the plagiarism or didn't catch it, so they also share the blame.

No matter what way things really happened (and we may never know), it's ugly, ugly, ugly.