More on Plagiarism From Adam-Troy Castro

[mabfan]

Just last month, I began discussing issues of copyright and plagiarism. For those of you who are interested in revisiting those discussions, I've created a new tag: copyright. You may recall that in one of the posts I complained about Lehman High School's unlicensed production of Chicago. A student at the school replied anonymously, and one of the questions he asked was why I should care about what happens at their school.

I gave an answer to his question, but in case he's still reading, someone else has come up with an even better answer.

Friend and writer Adam-Troy Castro recently had to deal with a plagiarist who violated his copyright by posting an excerpt from his powerful story "The Juggler" on a vampire role-playing board, and represented it as his own work. When confronted, the malefactor removed the excerpt and apologized. But a few other people in the RPG complained that this wasn't so big a deal.

So by invitation from one of the other RPG board participants, Adam wrote a response, laying out exactly why this was, in fact, a big deal. He's posted his response on his own newsgroup under the title Plagiarism Note, and I encourage any and all of you to go read it. The gist of it can be summed up in one sentence from the letter: "The fact is that plagiarism is a serious crime with serious consequences." And Adam explains exactly what those consequences can be, and how they not only hurt the victim, but damage the public good as well.

Copyright © Michael Burstein

Comments

[ffoeg.livejournal.com]

But the example of MZB and fan-fiction is entirely irrelevant - the claim there was not plagiarism (or, rather, infringement, since "plagiarism" is not a criminal term). He claims there that money was taken out of MZB's pocket, but that's unsupportable, and certainly literally false. (Did that writer actually steal money?)

You just wrote a Harry Potter ficlet on your LJ. Either that's legal or it isn't. Did you just take money from JKR's pocket? I don't think so.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing here that you're not familiar with the whole MZB story. I don't recall all the details, but the upshot of it was that MZB was prevented from publishing any more Darkover novels. So I'd say that yeah, money was taken out of her pocket.

As for my ficlet, I believe that what I did fell under parody, which is why I was willing to do it. But I certainly did not post a chapter that Rowling actually wrote and claim it for myself.

[ffoeg.livejournal.com]

Why would you guess that I'm not familiar with the whole MZB story, especially if, as you say, you don't yourself recall all the details?

It's not true that she was prevented from publishing any more Darkover novels. She elected to not publish the novel under question, which is too bad.

But you miss the entire point. Like you and your ficlet, the other author didn't take stuff that MZB had written and claimed it for herself. Rather, MZB had taken an idea this fan came up with and used it in her novel.

For the actual story and other wise comments, see: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007464.html (see especially the Mercedes Lackey post).

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the fan sued, or threatened to sue, MZB. And that even when MZB said, fine, I won't use the concept you developed, the fan still threatened to sue anyway. So if MZB made a choice not to publish the novel, it sounds like a choice made under duress.

[ffoeg.livejournal.com]

No one denies that it's a terrible and sad story.

But it isn't about plagiarism.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

No, it's not about plagiarism. But I think Adam's point in including the story was that it is about an author's copyright, and what can happen if people are not careful to respect it. Remember that he's trying to show a group of people that copyright is, in fact, a "big deal." This is one example of how it is.

[clauclauclaudia]

To be clear, in the MZB case the "fan" had the effrontery to sue Marion Zimmer Bradley for infringement, when MZB published things that too closely resembled the fanfictions. This is why many writers insist that no fic or story ideas be mailed to them or posted where they can see them, and authorized fic will involve the fan writer signing a waiver. Some examples: Mercedes Lackey, J. Michael Straczynski.