As we’ve learned lately some people wrongly assume that work which is available to the public, particularly on the internet, is “in the public domain” and therefore available to be reproduced any way anyone likes. This is not true: there are very particular laws regarding copyright, which we are all meant to follow; and it’s…
Category Archives: plagiarism
Another Statement From Judith Griggs At Cooks Source
Judith Griggs at Cooks Source magazine has just issued another statement. Here it is in its entirety, in case it disappears like the last one just did. / Its sad really. The problem is that I have been so overworked and stretched that when this woman — Monica — contacted me, I was on deadline…
Cooks Source Issues A Statement
I had a brief look at the Cooks Source website this morning and it was still there in a somewhat truncated version: the home-page was pretty much unchanged, but most of the other links had gone. I just took another look, and all it contains now is a statement in which it claims Cooks Source…
Let’s Learn About Copyright: Get Blogging!
Some of you might have noticed (ha!) that last week I blogged about the Cooks Source copyright infringement story and suddenly, the number of visitors to this site has soared. I usually get between 300 and 800 hits on any single day; and until last week, my highest-ever number of hits was around 1,200 when…
Copyright Infringement And A Medieval Apple Pie
Tuesday, November 9 This affair has attracted a lot of ugliness which I find very disturbing. I know it’s an emotive issue; I agree that Griggs was wrong in using other people’s work without permission, and I don’t think she’s handled things well at all: but I don’t think she deserves the insulting and abusive…
Plagiarism: The Whole Story
If you’ve been following my anti-plagiarism blog posts, you might be interested to know that Vanessa Gebbie has now blogged about the whole sorry mess in detail, giving names of all the writers, stories and publications involved. It’s a sordid story, but I’m glad it’s all out in the open now. Here’s the link. To…
Anti-Plagiarism Day: An Update
Remember how so many of us joined forces to fight plagiarism? I’ve been told that the “writer” who sparked off all that outrage has once again won a prize for a story which seems to owe far too much to someone else’s work. And this time, the writer who wrote the original piece might well…
Anti-Plagiarism Day!
Before I start, I have to point out that I don’t want to scare anyone here. Despite the fears of many novice writers, plagiarism doesn’t happen often in the professional arena. Very few jobbing writers would ever even consider it as an option, and the odds in favour of a publisher or agent stealing the…
Anti-Plagiarism Day: Friday 17 July
Just a little reminder to you all that on Friday I’ll be blogging about plagiarism, and hope that some of you will write about it on your own blogs. If you’ve already written on the subject send me links (by email or in the comments to my plagiarism posts) and I’ll edit them into my…
Anti-Plagiarism Day: Friday 17 July
A few weeks ago I watched a nasty case of plagiarism unfold which involved some writers I’ve had close dealings with over the last few months. One trusted, talented member of an online writing workshopping group went much too far when looking to his colleagues’ writing for inspiration, and ended up in deep and particularly…
Message-Board Plagiarism (Part II)
This piece is one of a small group of my published posts which recently decided to hide themselves from view and move to my drafts folder. I am inept, and don’t know why that happened, but I’m posting them all again and hope that this time they stay where they’re put. Apologies for any confusion….
Copyright: a Brief Introduction
When you write something, you own it and, in the UK at least, the laws of copyright give you automatic protection against your work being stolen. There’s no need to plaster your work with copyright symbols and declarations of ownership before you submit it: good editors and agents already know the rules of copyright, and…