Comments on: Regarding the Cassie Edwards situation

By: Signet/NAL Deserves a Round of Applause | Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:00:47 +0000

[...] 9, 2008: Signet doesn’t respond very well to a query I made suggesting that whatever Edwards did was both legal and [...]

By: Romance novel fans catch plagiarist black-footed ferret! « The Learned Fangirl

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:32:27 +0000

[...] posted on Smart Bitches , Dear Author, and MediaBistro’s GalleyCat, the attorney for Cassie Edwards conflates these two issues, by [...]

By: Random

Random — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:00:08 +0000

Layne: Loyalty to what? The written word is all some of us have. It’s our child and livelihood and form of expression and monument to our existence, all rolled into one. I feel absolutely no “loyalty” to anyone who chops up someone else’s work and stitches still-recognizable chunks into a Frankenbaby-type collage.

Unless you’re saying that our “loyalty” should involve us meekly and quietly waiting for Signet to do the right thing, when every implication is that Signet didn’t care to run Edwards’s books through plagiarism-detecting software to begin with and that they would’ve swept this entire deal under the rug if not for the massive outcry and media attention.

By: Imani

Imani — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:25:53 +0000

How about little to no loyalty at all? We’re readers not members of some kind of creepy sorority.

By: Bernita

Bernita — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:15:12 +0000

Seems “loyalty” is applied in a selective fashion and appears to be blind.
How about a degree of loyalty to those writers whose works have been plagiarized?

By: Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:45:56 +0000

I posted this on another blog but I feel it applies here as well: I’ve always thought the romance community was very loyal, but lately it appears that some people on the blog want to ruin this woman’s life and career

Layne, you’re entitled to your opinion, but I think most people have enough going on in their own lives to worry about ruining the life of a historical romance author over plagiarism.

Yeah, some of us… me included… are watching this closely, but since it’s something that could impact a lot of writers, writers are certainly entitled.

Readers who put down their hard earned money for a book are entitled to see how this plays out because none of them probably want to think about using that hard earned money to buy a book that may or may not have plagiarized content.

I have no desire to ruin any body’s life or career but if the author in question can’t even admit she made a mistake, then what’s to keep her from doing so again in the future?

If there isn’t some measure of accountability, some sort of consequence, then there is little deterrent to others who may consider doing this in the future.

If nothing else, this has probably enlightened some people that may not seem to realize the seriousness of plagiarism.

By: Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:28:49 +0000

Deborah, I’d have to say you and I have different definitions of fair use. And imo any writer, regardless of her age, who lifts another’s work, employs bare minimum paraphrasing, then calls it her own, has plagiarized. Imo, there should be consequences.

By and large, the discussion has centered on plagiarism, and not personality. I recall, clearly, having many other writers accuse me of publicly attacking Dailey when I took action against her lifting my work. I wish I could get a clear and logical explanation of why it’s wrong to speak out against what, on my scale, is the biggest offense in the profession.

Layne, I certainly don’t want to ruin anyone’s life or career–and have made no jokes on the issue of plagiarism. I have no obligation to be loyal to anyone if I believe they’ve plagiarized. In fact, I feel obligated to speak out against appropriating another writer’s work.

It appears there are multiple examples of copying–from work out of copyright, and work still copyrighted. A writer who does this puts her own career at risk.

By: Layne

Layne — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 05:57:15 +0000

I posted this on another blog but I feel it applies here as well: I’ve always thought the romance community was very loyal, but lately it appears that some people on the blog want to ruin this woman’s life and career (Nora Roberts included). Yes Edwards should be held accountable, but when you care about your authors (the way romance fans do), you don’t just toss them under the train and then joke about it. As a life-long romance reader, I find all of this to be very embarassing – on both sides.

By: Truth and Consequence « Trivial Pursuits

Truth and Consequence « Trivial Pursuits — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 02:35:44 +0000

[...] and flipping a word here, there, and then claiming it as your own is wrong. Over at Dear Author, Robin commented, I mean, would you be okay if I wrote a Romance novel comprised entirely of five or ten sentences [...]

By: Lynne

Lynne — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:23:13 +0000

If part of the language of a publishing contract states that the author guarantees that the manuscript in question is her own original work, isn’t it fraud if she has included chunks of someone else’s manuscript and passed it off as hers? It doesn’t matter if the stolen material comes from work long out of copyright. The fraud occurs when the author represents the manuscript as 100% her own creation.

It is possible to express similar facts but use radically different words and word order. And if someone is to avoid stealing another writer’s hard work, it’s absolutely necessary. The passages are far too similar for coincidence, and to say that it’s completely fine to lift them wholesale is bullshit.

Fair use. People keep using that term. In the words of our old friend Inigo, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”