Three Most Notorious Cases of Plagiarism

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Not everyone is inspired, and this is why when it comes to racking the brains many people take the easy way out and opt to just copy what they need. There have been cases when many authors became a little more than inspired and resorted to blatant plagiarism.

Let’s look at the three most notorious cases of plagiarism in the publishing industry:

Rand Paul’s book, Government Bullies

When we talk about plagiarism, the latest case that comes to the mind is of Rand Paul. The famous Kentucky Senator wrote Government Bullies which maybe should’ve gotten him an award, but that didn’t happen. However, the book DID make him famous, primarily because it was copied from the 2003 Heritage Foundation case study. With 1,318 words copied and pasted into his book, the senator probably didn’t know that plagiarism is really easy to catch these days.

Alex Haley’s book, Roots

I’m sure we all remember the case of Alex Haley’s Roots, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Although Haley said that he did a lot of research into his own ancestors, it was later learned that the book was actually copied from The African by Harold Courlander. What followed was a high profile lawsuit that was won by Courlander. It was not just a notorious case of plagiarism, but also the Pulitzer Prize winning book was not non-fiction, or even well-researched for that matter.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys

You might think that Haley was probably the only Pulitzer Prize winning author who landed in the plagiarism soup, but you would be wrong. Doris Kearns Goodwins (yes, the same writer who won the Pulitzer in 1995), wrote a book called The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. As anyone would assume, a book written by an award winning author would be genuine. However, the book was copied from several sources. This led people to believe that her Pulitzer Prize winning book No Ordinary Time might also be a plagiarized copy.

What is the Digital Copyright Act

 

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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a law that the United States put into place in 1998 through a unanimous vote in the Senate. This act criminalizes the sharing of devices, services used to pirate digital media, and the sharing of technology. This includes services meant to get around digital rights management software, which helps to control who has access to copyrighted works. One of the largest changes that this act makes is the exemption of liability from both Internet service providers and other intermediary technological services.

Here is a rundown of the provisions of the DMCA:

·       Title I: WIPO Copyright and performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act - It modifies United States copyright law to be in compliance with the two international treaties from which it derives its name.

·       Title II: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act – Title II provides a safe harbor ability for Internet service providers. It limits their liability with regard to copyright infringement claims so long as they are able to meet certain requirements.

·       Title III: Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act – Title III allows for individuals or companies repairing computers or making computer modifications to make temporary copies of files found on this computers in accordance with the work that they are doing.

·       Title IV: Miscellaneous Provisions – Including broadcast copy provisions, duties of the Copyright Office, collective bargaining and movie rights provisions, provisions designed to help with education across distances, and provisions meant to help libraries keep and preserve various sound-recordings.

·       Title V: Vessel Hull Design Protection Act – This adds protections under copyright law for boat hull designs. Formerly, these were not covered under copyright law under the auspices that their form could not be separated cleanly from their function.

This act has been one of the primary tools used by copyright lawyers to combat the piracy of digital media in the United States. A complete summary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be found at the United States Copyright Office website.

How Hollywood Deals with Piracy

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Robbing Hollywood

When piracy of digital media began in the late 1990s, the issue was somewhat small and it was relatively easy to contain. The lack of high speed Internet connections made downloading large video and audio files difficult. Beyond that, the level of technology available to rip these video files from DVDs or to create digital media files from other types of physical media was simply not widespread. Fast forward ten years. High speed Internet connections are commonplace. Digital media is extremely easy to get. New sharing protocols such as torrents and new compression algorithms has made the sharing and piracy of digital media extremely easy to get into. This is a perfect storm for increased levels of piracy.

Reactionary Measures

The primary thing that Hollywood has done to combat piracy has been to react to its existence. They formed coalitions of lawyers in order to target assumed pirates. This has had positive and negative effects. The lawsuits filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have historically been somewhat outlandish. Sharing the rip of a DVD could result in lawsuits for hundreds of thousands of dollars and other outlandish sums. This has results in a very negative view of the industry in the eyes of the public.

Beyond that, Hollywood has launched a massive public relations campaign aimed entirely at ending piracy. They put ads in front of movies with taglines such as, “You wouldn’t steal a car, would you?” in an effort to sway people against piracy. They also publish statistics about their losses and the effect that piracy is having on the film industry in major news outlets on a regular basis. By keeping the subject in the minds of the public, they hope to sway public opinion in their favor.

One of the few proactive measures that the film industry has taken is to include digital rights management (DRM) on the media that they produce and sell. This measure is meant to make it difficult for pirates to take control of their work and to share it or use it for unauthorized purposes. Unfortunately, pirates have been able to easily find ways around nearly every type of DRM that has been created.

There are also those people who see piracy as a good thing. It increases brand awareness and it has been shown that people who truly enjoy media will be willing to purchase it after they have viewed it. Some producers in Hollywood see piracy as a way to keep them on their toes. People will not be willing to blindly purchase movies based on trailers now and, thus, the film industry must modify their methods of media distribution and creation to “stay in the game”.

Different Ways Publishers are Protecting Themselves

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Given the sheer size of the publishing industry, it should come as no surprise that publishers take a number of efforts to protect themselves. There are a myriad of legal issues that are involved with every step of the process. Beyond that, there is always the fear that piracy or other forms of book theft could cut into profits and damage the economic integrity of the industry as a whole.

There are, however, a number of ways that publishers protect themselves from these threats:

Lawsuits

Typically, lawsuits are handled by either lawyers that are on the staff of the publishing house or through an outside lawyer that the publishing house has on retainer. These individuals will handle lawsuits stemming from consumers and from clients in the publishing industry itself. At times, authors will file lawsuits against publishing houses because they feel as though they (or their work) is being misused or they are not being compensated the amount owed to them. Consumer lawsuits usually originate with some sort of social issue regarding document content.

Piracy

The publishing industry has a number of methods of dealing with piracy:

·       Sharing fake or incomplete documents – One of the best ways to combat piracy is done by sharing incomplete or fake copies of published works that direct downloaders to purchase a physical copy.

·       DMCA notices – Using the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, publishers can send takedown requests for copyrighted material.

·       Public relations campaigns – PR campaigns are primarily used to turn public opinion onto the plight of publishers who are suffering due to piracy of their works.

The publishing industry as a whole invites problems upon itself merely by existing. Since they set the prices of books and they are the group who chooses what kinds of things will get published and which ones won’t, they become the target from many different groups. Fortunately, there are countermeasures that they have in place to stabilize their position in the industry and maintain the chain of creativity that moves from authors to consumers.

The Cost of Book Piracy

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Given the increased popularity of E-books and digital copies of print material, the economics of digital reading has exploded. This means increased readership for authors, publishers, and agents representing their clients in the marketplace. All of this, eventually, translates into increased profits. A major factor that is disrupting the booming E-book industry is the prevalence of pirates and pirated material in the marketplace. This is particularly true given the lack of digital rights management (DRM) on digital books.

Specific Costs of Book Piracy

There are many aspects to this problem, only one of which is the time and effort that must be spent removing pirated books from websites that they are located on. The amount of money lost to this effort depends on the amount of money charged per hour by the individual performing the takedown notices. For freelance workers, this could be upwards of $100 an hour.

It is estimated that around 10% of the books currently being read in the United States are pirated texts. This has led to estimates and reports that the publishing industry (and the authors on whose behalf they work) has lost upwards of $3 billion. This includes potential lost sales based on the number of shared copies of books estimated to be in circulation at any given time. These losses trickle down from the publishers at the top of the industry down to the authors providing their work.

It is often difficult to assess exactly how much money is being lost to book piracy due to the fact that digital media is capable of being easily copied. This makes the economics of loss more difficult than it would be when determining loss of physical stock. Losing fifty books in a store is going to be a fixed cost. On the other hand, having fifty books copied and uploaded to sharing sites is a dynamic cost.

Copyright Law Fees

The cost of fighting book piracy is another aspect of the situation. Hiring a lawyer to help with a copyright issue can become an entire issue unto itself, but it usually starts with paying somewhere between $10 and $50 dollars for a paralegal at a given law firm to look over the facts of the case and decide whether it is worth pursuing.  If they do, the fees will vary depending on the exact nature of the claim, but usually run between $200 and $300 an hour. These fees can add up very quickly and make filing copyright claims almost impossible for most authors.