I'm struggling to understand the circumstance you'd plagiarize fiction - you can literally write anything you want. Why steal someone else's writing and slap it in your book? It'll either stand out and be weird / stilted or you took the time to make it work somehow in which case you probably rewrote it and so why steal in the first place? Or like use allegory instead?
Obviously it shouldn't be done in any circumstance
Instead of slapping Harry Potter in the middle of your book wholesale, imagine you lifted a few really good lines from Harry Potter, a few from Lord of the Rings, and more from a handful of other books.
Read the evidence document another poster linked for actual examples.
To me as a dumb reader, that would be fine, maybe the author could have mentioned that he likes these authors and takes them as inspirations. Also you can't really forbid books to never have references to pop culture. And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings.
Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism.
References to pop culture are the same as lifting sentences from other books and pretending you wrote them.
> And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings
In the actual case being examined the copied references certainly hadn’t reached any such level of famousness.
Also there’s a difference between having a character tell another “not all those who wander are lost” as a clear reference to a famous quote from LOTR and copying multiple paragraph length deep cuts to pass off as your own work.
> Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism.
Of course, but wrote 'could' and not 'should' for a reason, I won't expect it. A book isn't a paper and the general expectation is that the book will be interesting or fun to read and not that it is original. That means the general expectation is not that it is never a rehash of existing ideas. I think ever book including all the good ones is. A book that invents the world from scratch might be novel, but unlikely what people want to read.
> copying multiple paragraph length deep cuts to pass off as your own work.
If that is true, it sounds certainly fishy, but that is a case of violation of copyright and intellectual property and not of plagiarism.
> That means the general expectation is not that it is never a rehash of existing ideas.
There’s a different from rehashing existing ideas and copying multiple passages off as your own.
> If that is true, it sounds certainly fishy, but that is a case of violation of copyright and intellectual property and not of plagiarism.
What exactly do you think plagiarism is? Here’s one common definition:
“An instance of plagiarizing, especially a passage that is taken from the work of one person and reproduced in the work of another without attribution.”
> What exactly do you think plagiarism is? Here’s one common definition:
Both are about passing of something of your own. Plagiarism is about passing ideas of insights of as your own. It doesn't really matter, whether you copy it verbatim, present it in your own words or just use the concept. It does however matter how important that idea/concept/topic is in your work and the work you took it from without attribution, and whether that is novel or some generally available/common knowledge.
For violation of intellectual property it is basically the opposite. It doesn't matter, whether the idea or concept is fundamental for your work or the other work you took it from, but it does matter, whether it is a verbatim quote or only the same basic idea.
Intellectual property rights is something that is enforced by the legal system, while plagiarism is an issue of honor, that affects reputation and universities revoke titles for.
> There’s a different from rehashing existing ideas and copying multiple passages off as your own.
Yes and that's the difference between plagiarism and violating intellectual property/copyright.
But all this is arguing about semantics. I don't have the time to research whether the claims are true or not, and I honestly don't care. I have taken from the comments that it was only the case, that she rehashed ideas from other books, and I wanted to point out, that while this is a big deal for academic papers, it is not for books and basically expected. (Publishers might have different ideas, but that is not an issue of plagiarism.) If it is indeed the case that she copied other authors verbatim, then that is something illegal she can be sued for, but whether this is the case is for the legal system to be determined, not something I should do.
>I have taken from the comments that it was only the case, that she rehashed ideas from other books, and I wanted to point out, that while this is a big deal for academic papers, it is not for books and basically expected.
In addition to near verbatim quotes, she is also accused of copying stories beat for beat. That's much different than rehashing a few ideas from other works. It is not expected and it is very much considered plagiarism by fiction writers.
As for the quotes she copied. That is likely both a copyright violation and plagiarism.
Plagiarism isn't just about ideas but about expressions of those ideas in the form of words.
Webster's definition:
"to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source"
"to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source"
Oxford learner's dictionary:
"to copy another person’s ideas, words or work and pretend that they are your own"
Copying verbatim or nearly verbatim lines from a work of fiction and passing them off as your own is both plagiarism and copyright violation.
So I won't defend what was done here, there doesn't seem much to argue.
> copying stories beat for beat. That's much different than rehashing a few ideas from other works. It is not expected and it is very much considered plagiarism by fiction writers.
Some operas are a greek play. There rehashes of the Faust, the Beggars Opera is a copy of a play from Shakespeare, there are modern versions of Pride and Prejustice, there are tons of stories that are a copy of the Westside Story, which is itself a copy of Romeo and Julia, which I thinks comes from an even older story. This often don't come with any attribution at all, although the listener is sometimes expected to know that the original exists. They change the settings, but the plot is basically the same. Do you consider all of that to be plagiarism? These would be all a reason to call it plagiarism when considering a paper, but for books nobody bats an eye. This is because authors don't sell abstract ideas or a plot, they sell concrete stories.
First, the stories you mentioned are very famous. The audience watching Oh Brother Where Art Thou is aware it’s an adaptation of the Odyssey. Therefore it’s not someone attempting to pass off work as their own.
The stories this authors copied were either unpublished manuscripts she got access to in writers groups or very obscure works that it’s unlikely her readers had read.
Second, the examples you gave were extremely transformative. Just look at the differences between Westside Story and Romeo and Juliette. It’s a musical for goodness sake. It subverts expectations by letting Maria live through it.
The writings at issue are short stories, so there’s less room for transformation in the first place. And there was clearly not even a strong attempt at transformation. The author even kept some of the same character names.
There was no attempt to subvert expectations largely because the audience had expectations, since they weren’t aware of the originals.
>change settings
She didn’t even do that.
> for books nobody bats an eye
If a popular book were revealed to be a beat for beat remake of an obscure novel with the same setting, similar dialogue, some of the same character names, and few significant transformative elements, you can bet your life there would be a scandal.
Like I wrote, I wanted to point a difference in attitude between academic and entertaining writing. I think I don't disagree with you in this specific case (now). You seem to have looked into the actual case, while I didn't.
(I have no knowledge / context of this situation - no idea if she did or what happened here)