Part of a series: Cassie Edwards 1: The First Post | Cassie Edwards 2: Savage Longings | Cassie Edwards Part 3: Running Fox | Cassie Edwards Part 4: Savage Moon | Cassie Edwards Part 5: Savage Beloved | Follow-up: Penguin (Part 1?) | Official Statement from Signet | AP Article Contains Response from Edwards | RWA Responds to Allegations | A centralized document for the Cassie Edwards situation
An Associated Press article has a response from author Cassie Edwards to the allegations that “she lifted work from texts:”
[Edwards] acknowledged that she sometimes “takes” her material “from reference books,” but added that she didn’t know she was supposed to credit her sources.
“When you write historical romances, you’re not asked to do that,” Cassie Edwards told The Associated Press, speaking earlier this week from her home in Mattoon, Ill.
Edwards then asked her husband to get on the phone. He told the AP that his wife simply gets “ideas” from reference books.
“She doesn’t lift passages,” Charles Edwards said, adding that “you would have to draw your own conclusions” on how closely his wife’s work resembles other sources.
The article also quotes plagiarism software detection developer John M. Barrie as saying that she “had indeed lifted material,” and Sherry Lewis, president of the RWA, is also quoted: “It’s not clear-cut to me,” she said. “You can see similarities in the passages, but I’m not qualified to make that assertion.”
Willa,
yes, among other things. Such as the number of times a word or phrase was repeated; run-on sentences, broken sentences, etc. Also, LKH copied herself multiple times (I won’t use the P-word…) in various books.
I found some snotty commentary (sorta) on January Magazine:
http://januarymagazine.com/2008/01/plagiarism-plight-plagues-romance.html
“A publishing tale this sordid could only spring from romance. In fact, it’s so sordid we don’t even want to comment on it. It’s turning into the kind of he said, she said shouting match one would expect to find at Dog the Bounty Hunter’s family reunions and we don’t want to go there.”
*sigh*
Only in romance? Ye gods o’ willful blindness and selective memory!
From today’s GalleyCat . . .
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors/ap_cassie_edwards_takes_from_reference_books_74660.asp
Nikki said: Depending on what the outcome is, I may go the OCR route as long as it won’t break any laws. You know, like those pesky copyright laws.
—>You’re doing nothing wrong, Nikki. The US Copyright Office is clear about it in paragraph 107 of US Copyright Law.
The relevant passage, for those who don’t like to click links:
“…the fair use of a copyrighted work…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”
Let us note that “writing fiction” is not covered here, therefore not fair use.
Researching potential plagiarism, and then discussing the findings, falls clearly into “criticism, comment, news reporting…[and] research.”
Considering how many idiots don’t seem to understand the problem, I think the collective Bitchery is covered by the “teaching” clause, too.
I don’t know, that seems to have been cleared up, what’s making you scratch your head (and what’s your point)? If it’s because some keep on piping up about possible copyright infringement it’s because one of the works plagiarised was published in the 1980s. (Whether that was a first or just late enough first publishing date for it to qualify, I do not know.)
The very fact that the text was taken from sources that are largely unable or unlikely to prosecute made me a little suspicious when this first broke. It suggested to me that the author knew her “borrowings” weren’t kosher. I’m now actually doubting this in the face of all the incredulity from Edwards and her publishers. I’m starting to believe that she thought – or allowed herself to think – this was acceptable behavior all along.
I’m hoping she is just naive and not a thief. Her website says she and Charlie have been married 51 years. If she was 20 when they married, then she is now about 71. My mom is 73, has many medical problems and mini-strokes, and knows plagiarism is wrong. Goodness knows, she preached it enough when I was in school.
Her publisher is not at fault if she represents her work as wholly her own.
Back in the 1960s there was a writer, I can’t remember who, who lifted passages from his own work to put in a new work. He got in a lot of trouble with the press because he thought stealing from himself was ok.
I’m out of the loop, perhaps, but what’s with the reference to Diana Gabaldon’s “didn’t know I had to” moment? I don’t remember that, and I’ve been a member of the Books & Writers community over on CompuServe for some time now.
I find it hard to believe considering the flow of her novels (nothing sounds as lifted and choppy as the stuff found in CE) and the lengthy, lengthy acknowledgements to her sources in all of her books. Also she’s got her doctorate and if you write a dissertation, you obviously know how to cite.
I’m just clueless as to the situation.
Katie, I’m with you. I wasn’t sure where Ms. Gabaldon was coming from, nor what her actual stance was…very perplexing from my POV…
Anyone have any theories?
Oh wait, sorry, I didn’t see the letter she wrote to Jenny. Now that’s a bit cleared up for me.
OK, so there’s some grey area and confusion, it seems, with concepts of “copyright infringement” and “plagarizing,” which Candy cleared up for us in normal persons’ legalese.
I see where Diana is coming from, though, if you think about the content of her novels. She regularly uses real letters from historical figures, real passages from old books, etc. Because of her subject matter and meticulous research, though, we as readers don’t take this as plagarizing because a) this stuff is old as damn and well out of copyright and b) she acknowledges her sources and often points out where she’s lifted real material. I find that the historical material she finds really enhances her books (because I’m a history minor and a big nerdy dork).
I think the major difference here between CE and DG is: CE lifted passages from recent, not-so-much-public-domain material; CE did not credit sources; CE passed it off as her own.
Yah?
*de-lurks*
This is a massively long thread, and other threads talk more about letter writing and contacting, but this is where it appears, so I thought I’d post here.
Karla, have you (or Sarah or Candy) thought about trying to contact Hugh Dempsey to let him know he’s been plagiarized? He seems to still be alive and considering how many authors have been ripped off and are dead and can’t do anything about it, it would really be great to hear that someone had taken action against this theft. He’s a member of the Archives Society of America, so maybe they know how to contact him. I’d do it, but it seems like it would be better if it came from the person who found it or the top Bitches.
http://www.archivesalberta.org/default.asp?V_ITEM_ID=29
*re-lurks*
Say, is there any way of finding out who/bunch-of-who EDITED the books? And I use the term loosely.
Random replies:
Minnow said: On a happier note, I’m pleased to announce that Signet is going to be publishing my book! It’s called The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: A Romanceâ€
It starts “Call me Ishmael†said Romulus…
I URGE YOU TO BOYCOTT THIS BOOK!!! IT IS PLAGIARIZED FROM MY PULLET SURPRISE-WINNING HISTORICAL WORK THE SACK OF ROME: PAPER OR PLASTIC?
Re: Putting her husband on the phone to speak for her: I’m not quite as old as Edwards, but I am hard of hearing; whenever I can, I get someone else to speak on the phone for me, mainly because I can’t always clearly understand the person on the other end, especially if said person has a very soft voice, an accent, or a tendency to mumble. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt on this one. Also if she was too upset by the kerfuffle and didn’t want to break down in front of a questioner, even if it just was on the phone.
I think there are two major disjunctions in this debate. One is between the Edwards readers, whom someone pointed out here are of an older generation, and the public at large (including the media), and those of us who read and contribute to blogs like this. I think most of US (as opposed to most of THEM) are academically trained; if we aren’t ourselves academics, we at least took courses in college that taught us the rules of writing term papers, including the crime of plagiarism. The sort of thing CE did is the sort of thing I used to catch college freshmen trying to get away with. I think those who are saying “no biggie” are either (1) uneducated about or indifferent to the theft of intellectual property; (2) disposed to think that swiping from nonfiction/reference works isn’t the same as swiping the creative efforts of a Nora Roberts; or (3) just plain not very good readers. I’m surprised that the differences in style between Edwards’s own prose and the stuff she lifted doesn’t just jump out at them.
The other is the generational difference between the little old ladies who like the old-fashioned bodice-ripper style of historical romance and the modern readers who are aware of such things as anachronistic attitudes as well as out-of-place details. I may be unfair to old ladies, but I can get away with it because I’ll turn 67 in less than two weeks.
There’s a complete bibliography, with dates, of Edwards’s books in the Wikipedia entry about her.
And finally: Does a kitten die every time we mention “Cassie Edwards” and “plagiarism” in the same sentence?
Random, I bow to you. Great post, and yes, a lot of the explanations make absolute sense.
I dunno. I’m not a writer, editor, lawyer, or professor, but I seem to remember learning in grade school that I couldn’t copy out of the encyclopedia for reports without citing it.
My take on the information posted on this site:
There’s just no getting around it – Cassie copied. The prose from her books is just too similar to those other books.
As others have pointed out, her copying may not have been illegal in all cases since some of those books are in the public domain. But it’s still dishonest to pass off uncopyrighted material as your own work. However…as has been pointed out, plagiarism isn’t a crime outside the academic world.
But, again as others have said, she could be guilty of fraud. And apparently, depending on the wording of her contract with her publisher, she could have violated her contract. I guess they could sue her, if they choose to.
And it appears she’s also violated others’ copyrights. I guess they could also sue her.
Hmm. I predict some high legal expenses for Cassie and her husband in the near future.
Now I’m wondering. How many authors have gotten away with this before software and the Internet made it easier to find? Something to think about next time I can’t sleep.