Earlier this week, Little, Brown pulled one of its Mulholland books off the shelves and is issuing refunds to those who bought the book. Released last week, Assassin of Secrets by Q. R. Markham (Quentin Rowan), was recalled by the publisher because it was found to have liberally plagiarized several previously published spy mystery novels, including some of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.
Several commentators have wondered how this could have happened. Shouldn’t someone in the review or editing process who read the book have been familiar enough with the genre to spot Markham’s deception?
Given the state of the traditional publishing industry, perhaps we know why the problem remained hidden until readers pointed it out.
The website Reluctant Habits did an excellent job of demonstrating the breadth of plagiarism evident in the book. Edward Champion found 33 instances of plagiarism in just the first 35 pages. That’s almost one stolen idea per page! For example:
Markham, page 13: “The boxy, sprawling Munitions Building which sat near the Washington Monument and quietly served as I-Division’s base of operations was a study in monotony. Endless corridors connecting to endless corridors. Walls a shade of green common to bad cheese and fruit. Forests of oak desks separated down the middle by rows of tall columns, like concrete redwoods, each with a number designating a particular work space.”
Taken from Bamford [James Bamford’s Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency], page 1: “In June 1930, the boxy, sprawling Munitions Building, near the Washington Monument, was a study in monotony. Endless corridors connecting to endless corridors. Walls a shade of green common to bad cheese and fruit. Forests of oak desks separated down the middle by rows of tall columns, like concrete redwoods, each with a number designating a particular work space.”
What intrigues me is a lengthy comment on Reluctant Habits from a Dr. Edwin Poole. Poole doesn’t think Markham did anything wrong. Plagiarism is a fallacy, he claims. He writes:
Isn’t the idea of the total originality of a work of art supposed to be one of the worst fallacies of romanticism? How can any spy novel, or any other type of genre novel, be totally original? …. Isn’t the mere re-use of English words previously used by others a form of plagiarism?
Which brings us to the central question: what is plagiarism?
According to The American Heritage Dictionary, to plagiarize is “to reproduce or otherwise use (the words, ideas, or other work of another) as one’s own or without attribution”; “to present another’s words or ideas as one’s own or without attribution.”
Anyone who compares even a couple of the quotes from Markham’s book to their original sources can see that Markham didn’t just use the same English words in a similar order that another author did; he took other authors’ ideas and their specific expressions of them and presented them as his own.
We’re not talking about the same plot being reinvented. I believe it was Aristotle who said there are no original stories left; they’ve all been told (someone please correct me if I’ve confused my ancient philosophers). But the key word is reinvented. Good writers can take a story told for millennia and write it as they see it, bringing their unique take to the story, creating a new work of art.
That’s not what Markham did. He presented other writers’ ideas as his own. He lied. Other authors did the work of creating characters, settings, and events. Markham doesn’t make you experience the story in his book; the original writers did. Markham simply edited those ideas to fit them together.
Poole claims it’s all about money. You can steal all you want if you pay for it, he says. Here, he’s almost right. It is all about money, at least in this case. But if you pay for the right to republish someone else’s work, you’re not stealing. You’re sharing the benefit you get from using someone else’s work with that person.
You can write whatever you want. You can copy the works of Shakespeare, James Joyce, or any other author, published or not, to your heart’s content. The moment you claim someone else’s works as your own, however, you are stealing. You’re benefiting from someone else’s work. And in our society, you can’t do that without sharing the benefit you gain. The benefit doesn’t have to be in terms of dollars and cents. It could be a good grade, the admiration of the person you make this claim to, or something else.
It’s one thing to be influenced by other writers’ works. To create a similar, yet distinct, style of telling a story. It’s another thing to copy down someone else’s ideas, word for word, and claim them as your own.
Poole asks, “How many plagiarized sentences are allowed in a book of fiction? Of history? Of humor? Is there an exact formula? Or is it merely guesswork? Is one copied sentence sufficient to ban a book? Or five? Or fifty?”
How would you answer him? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Poole asks, “How many plagiarized sentences are allowed in a book of fiction? Of history? Of humor? Is there an exact formula? Or is it merely guesswork? Is one copied sentence sufficient to ban a book? Or five? Or fifty?”
Copied work must be attributed and, where applicable, reprinted by formal permission. Anything beyond that is theft.
Copyright law is clear that titles and ideas are not copyrightable, but an author’s presentation of them is protected. Ergo, authors are obliged, as Erin says, to REINVENT so their work is unique.
Sometimes people will use the same phrasing to capture ideas, and so there’s accidental “copying” all the time. (This is how cliches happen — somebody comes up with a great way to say something and everyone else borrows the phrase.) When things go to court, the “intent” piece comes into play. But in Markham’s case, there’s no room for question. The guy lifted text wholesale. He is a thief and I’m glad somebody caught it.
The situation is a very good case for why the publishing industry needs to restore the editorial function to a higher level rather than keep paring it down.
I read an article on the Translation Journal just last week that I think provides one appropriate answer, although it’s not about plagiarism. The author quotes from a book he was reading:
“Consider the simple fact that there is an infinite number of sentences potentially available in each language known to us. The sentence which stands at the beginning of this paragraph has probably never before been written down or spoken or even thought. Very similar sentences have been produced before, and other similar sentences will be produced again, but it is probable that until this chapter was written no one had ever before written or said: ‘Consider the simple fact that there is an infinite number of sentences potentially available in each language known to us.’”
He goes on to say,
“To test the statement’s validity, I rushed to my computer to perform a Google search on the sentence in question. Not a single hit! Indeed, chances are that the two occurrences of the sentence above were truly the only times this particular sentence was ever written.”
His rationale as a translator who must search for patterns in word usage and phraseology:
“We all know that some kinds of texts have a fairly high degree of repetition, including instructional text, legal boiler plates, and certain medical phrasing, but the repetition in the majority of texts does not happen on the sentence level.”
Having an idea and putting pen to paper only to find that some one beat you to it some four hundred years earlier, is that a form of plagiarism?
That depends. Putting your own spin on an idea is not plagiarism. Copying someone else’s words and ideas and claiming them as your own is plagiarism.
That page 13, based on the quotation posted in this blog post, is copied from that Bamford book. There are similarities of sentences. Plagiarism is not allowed and never should. I don’t buy the idea of small dosage of plagiaristic statements. And this came to mind…. When I was reading Umberto Eco’s novel “The Name of the Rose”, I enjoyed the story and the author’s postscript. I have a notion that story ideas are nothing new. A story idea for a book can be a collage of ideas from other books especially those the writer likes. And to quote from that book, page 531 (the postscript): “As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.” Note, that statement in that postscript isn’t related to plagiarism but think about it, the speaker did one thing: he qouted; he made a reference to express his feelings to a ‘very cultivated woman’. Afterall, how many times has the phrase ‘I love you madly’has been said?