I want to take a little while and talk about plagiarism and the serious consequences of it. Not just to the plagiarists, (though those consequences are very severe) but to the authors of the original works as well.
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The reason why I want to address blatant plagiarism, the act of stealing someone else's work, words, ideas, plot etc. and trying to make people believe they're yours, is because a friend of mine, Rachel Ann Nunes, is currently going through a nightmare of emotional stress and legal expenses because one of her works was plagiarized. The other person took a book that my friend wrote back in the late nineties, changed the point of view from third person to first, changed a few other things, added some steamy sex scenes, and then tried to pass the work off as her own. Other than those minor changes, the whole plot and story and most of the wording were Rachel's. By the time it was discovered, it was actually up for sale in the U.K. However, several bloggers who had been sent the plagiarizing book recognized similarities between it and the real story and contacted the actual author. When Rachel contacted the plagiarist, hoping that everything was just a misunderstanding and wanted to just clear things up, the plagiarist offered a series of increasingly mind-boggling lies and threats in a futile attempt to intimidate my friend and deflect blame elsewhere. When those didn't work, she turned to several sock puppets (up to 20 of them) to leave harsh, ad hominem reviews on Rachel's published works, and to discredit and bash the bloggers who had stepped in to help Rachel uncover the plagiarism.
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It didn't work.
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Despite having a pen name, which she tried to hide behind, and many sock puppets, she was traced and her real name found out.
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The plagiarist is now being held accountable for her dishonesty. She may, if convicted, face a fine of up to 150,000 U.S.D. She also will have to face other consequences as a result of her treatment of Rachel and the bloggers, her attempts to discredit them, hurt their professional and personal reputations, her choice to lie rather than come clean about her behavior, and other dishonest things she did (for one, using her sock puppets to dishonestly inflate her own ratings).
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This doesn't take away the fact that Rachel and the bloggers who stood up for her, have suffered from this woman's false accusations to say nothing of the original act of plagiarism. Still, holding her accountable will hopefully stop her and other would-be plagiarists from victimizing other people in the future.
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And make no mistake. Plagiarism is not a victimless crime.
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John Doppler said: "To an author, there are few crimes more heinous than plagiarism. Every author knows the agony of the untold story, the grueling birth of a novel, the joy of finally bringing that creation into the world and holding it up for all to see.
Having that joy stolen from you is an unspeakable cruelty." (Doppler, 2014)
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Rachel has said that discovering this plagiarism was like having someone break into her house and steal something very precious to her. I can only imagine how violated a victim of plagiarism would feel. And I certainly don't want to know the feeling first hand.
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John Doppler also said: "(Name Withheld) proudly portrays herself as an indie author… but indie authors are a supportive community. They don't prey on their fellow authors. They don't cannibalize their family.
They don't steal each other's work." (Doppler 2014).
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I like to think that most people out there are honest, ethical people who would not dream of doing what this plagiarist did. Unfortunately, it only takes one dishonest person to ruin things for everyone else.
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I don't want what happened to Rachel happen to any ethical, hard working author.
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Again, my personal belief is that most people are ethical and honest. But in regards to plagiarism, here is some advice that everyone can benefit from:
Don't do it.
...oOo...
Doppler, John. Prose and Cons: A Plagiarist Faces the Judge. The John Doppler Effect, 2 September 2014. Web. 6 September 2014. http://johndopp.com
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