Posts Tagged: "plagiarism"

“It was a warm and pleasant day on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. The waves lapped at the shore and far off a sea-bird raised its plaintive cries to the sky. She looked up from her book, thinking, ‘Wait, where have I read that that before? … ‘ “ Rather than an irksome daydream on the beach, an author’s nightmare is of having her works — or parts of them—lifted from her control and passed off as those of someone else. That is exactly the allegation that bestselling novelist Nora Roberts brings in her suit, filed in late April in a Brazilian Court, against Cristiane Serruya, a lawyer-turned-author. Nora Roberts is one of the most popular living American authors. She primarily writes romance novels, as well as police procedural (crime) fiction. Her works are solid sellers, and she has received a huge number of industry awards, as well as having more than a dozen of her works adapted into film and television productions. Hers is the type of market success that every genre author dreams of. Sadly, with widespread popularity comes risk of infringement—in this case, not of copyright infringement, but a very particular violation of authorial rights. 

Earlier this week a friend posted a magazine article, “The Rise of Fakes and False Attributions in the Art World,” on social media. The article was about art authentication and due diligence. Before I reached the end of the first paragraph, I realized that I was reading a plagiary of my article, “Purchasing Art in a Market Full of Forgeries: Risks and Legal Remedies for Buyers,” published in the International Journal of Cultural Heritage. The author structured her article on my work, a piece that includes extensive research and that is partially based on experience that I cultivated while working with major art collectors. And rather than just using the outline of my article or presenting some of my arguments, she copied entire sentences. In fact, she went as far as copying entire paragraphs. Shockingly, she even kept the same punctuation, quoting words that I had placed in quotations marks in my article.