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
…and, well, read it yourself.
Signet takes plagiarism seriously, and would act swiftly were there justification for such allegations against one of its authors. But in this case Ms. Edwards has done nothing wrong.
The copyright fair-use doctrine permits reasonable borrowing and paraphrasing of another author's words, especially for the purpose of creating something new and original. Also, anyone may use facts, ideas and theories developed by another author, as well as any material in the public domain. Ms. Edwards' researched historical novels are precisely the kinds of original, creative works that this copyright policy promotes.
Although it may be common in academic circles to meticulously footnote every source and provide citations or bibliographies, even though not required by copyright law, such a practice is virtually unheard of for a popular novel aimed at the consumer market.
All credit due to Jane of Dear Author for ferreting out (black-footed or otherwise) the appropriate Signet representative to write to and forwarding the statement to us when she got a response.
Candy says: Here’s a refresher on what constitutes plagiarism and what constitutes copyright infringement. Here it is again in brief:
Plagiarism and copyright infringement sometimes intersect, but not always. The most famous cases we’ve seen—Janet Dailey’s plagiarism of Nora Roberts’ work, for example—do. But it’s entirely possible to plagiarize without infringing on a copyright; all that’s required is copying huge chunks of a work without attribution and passing it off as your own original efforts. If the work has passed into the public domain, or if it isn’t copyrighted, there’s no copyright infringement. It’s also possible to infringe on somebody’s copyright without plagiarizing—if somebody making a movie decides to use a piece of copyrighted music without clearing the rights with the publisher first but acknowledge the musician in the credits, they’ve infringed on a copyright but they haven’t plagiarized.
In short: plagiarism is an ethical issue. It’s concerned with what’s right and what’s not. Copyright infringement is a legal action, and is a way for somebody whose works have been infringed to say “Bitch where my money?” It’s concerned with what’s legal and what’s not.
And that’s all I’m going to say for now.
Sarah says: I’m not qualified or even interested in the legality of the situation, or whether something is within fair-use doctrines. Not a lawyer. Not even in law school.
But I do want to make it explicitly clear that on terms of ethical use, I disagree with Signet and the idea that she’s done nothing wrong.
I’m certainly not a copyright lawyer, and questions of law are not my point. My issue is the ethics of it. Further, I think the ethics of the question are much more important than the legalities. There are a lot of things that can get you failed in English class or fired from a newspaper that are not against the law.
And the idea that she’s done nothing wrong from an ethical stance? Horsepucky. She’s done plenty wrong in my book.
I don’t buy Janet Dailey’s books past or present for that reason. I don’t check them out of the library or read them used. It’s an ethical distinction on my part: as a consumer, I can vote with my wallet. As a reader I can vote with my choices. As a blogger, I can write my opinion. In my opinion, Cassie Edwards’ use of at least 6 documented sources verbatim without attribution or acknowledgment is ethically wrong. It would have been so simple and appropriate to place an acknowledgment at the back of her book. “For more information about the Lakota Indians, I heartily recommend….”
So, let me ask you your opinion, if you haven’t already stated it. From an ethical standpoint, where do you draw the line? Are the usage of passages in Edwards’ books acceptable from an ethical standpoint or not? If you’re a reader or a writer, what do you think?
Sarah Frantz just said it, but I’ll echo her here—isn’t that ferret article, at the very least, still copyrighted? It’s recent, isn’t it? The link says it’s from the 2005 issue, so that one is grounds for infringment, I would think.
Honestly, I’d e-mail the author of the ferret piece. He/She might have something to say about this.
Sara Mitchell, I do not think you have been paying very close attention to any of the posts on this topic.
Count me in as another buyer who won’t be purchasing any Signet books any time soon (quickly dashes off to see which other authors that affects).
Disappointed in a huge way. I’d personally love to see a response from Edwards herself to this issue, though. Sigh… bet it’ll never happen.
As an editor and writer of both fiction and non-fiction (and a former English 101 teacher), I believe what Edwards has done is unambiguously plagiarism and unambiguously unethical.
My suspicion, though, is that the author of the e-mail from Signet did not review the evidence and is engaged in knee-jerk CYA. The e-mail specifies “paraphrasing,” and Edwards did not paraphrase, QED.
In conclusion, *headdesk*
I’m having a rough day. Can I have whatever it is fangirlie is smoking? kthanx.
I’m among the not surprised. I think the best thing to do is to keep plugging away at finding a verifiable instance of copyright infringment. Someone here mentioned working for the ferret article people, right? (Sorry that was terribly unspecific)
If I could get my hands on a CE without purchasing it, I’d be on board with helping out. I’ll see if we have a local library.
Sara Mitchell, do you understand the meaning of the word ‘paraphrase’? It does not mean ‘copy word for word’. There is a huge difference between doing research and using the information to tell your story and copying text from another book because you’re too lazy to put it into your own words.
Oh, Sara Mitchell. Using the exact words, ““The storehouses for these beans, made by the animals, are under a peculiar mound which the untrained eye is unable to distinguish from an anthill. There are many pockets underneath, into which the animals gather their harvest…. a woman comes upon a suspected mound, usually by accident. The heel of her moccasin might cause a place to give way on the mound. She then settles down to rob the poor mice of the fruits of their labor.†… is not paraphrasing. That is stealing and copying someone else’s work and pretending as if you’ve written it for your male protagonist to (strangely) say. Adding “Running Fox said” IS NOT PARAPHRASING!
I want to hear what you say about that, so please come back and comment.
Another sigh. Not going to feed the troll this time.
I do think it’s possible for an author to inadvertently use a line or two they’ve read previously, and not realize it until later. Shit happens. But in my opinion, there are far too many similarities for that to be the case here. Seems to me like the only way to get so many word-for-word similarities is to open the book and copy from it, and if you’re doing that, you probably know what you’re doing and also probably know it’s sorta, kinda very much the wrong thing to do… I’m just saying.
I find Signet’s response is more disconcerting than any of the similarities. What are they saying, exactly? Yeah, she did it, but we don’t care ‘cause we probably won’t get sued? I’m very curious to know if Signet would be as willing to label plagiarism as “reasonable borrowing†had someone (allegedly) plagiarized Cassie Edwards and not the other way around.
She did NOT steal anyone’s story. The story is hers. She “paraphrased†the information.
Sweetheart, if you have to put “paraphrased” in quotation marks, then that means you know she didn’t paraphrase.
Let me spell it out here. She copied information from her reference materials word. for. word. That’s plagiarism. No, really, it is. If you did it in my class, you’d fail your assignment.
Edwards didn’t steal the story. That is hers. But she stole the information by *not* paraphrasing it. Had she paraphrased, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Period.
Nope, I’m so sorry Sara M, but I must disagree.
Paraphrasing means restating of a text by giving the meaning in DIFFERENT words.
Slapping, He said/she said on the front or end of a verbatim paragraph is not paraphrasing
Publishers Weekly has picked up the story.
I have read plenty of romance novels where the author puts a chapter or so at the end, discussing the anthropology/history and their research into the same. Considering the type of anthropological information being used in these books, that would not only be appropriate but necessary.
Legal? Maybe. Ethical? NOT.
Sounds like a boycott of the author’s works, and perhaps Signet Publishing, might be in order. If nothing else, can we have an address to send our individual concerns on to Signet?
Grrr. Must add… This would be paraphrasing and COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE: “Sometimes one of our women will accidentally walk on something that looks like an ant hill, but turns out to be a buried mound of beans and seeds hidden by mice for the winter.”
Not beautiful, maybe, but real paraphrasing by a real live historical romance writer.
What Cassie Edwards has done is NOT paraphrasing. It is plagiarism, and it is clearly unethical in my book.
And as much I try to drum this into college students’ heads every semester… some people still get confused!
I recently read “Love and War” by Sandra Worth, a novel about Richard III, and Worth used the Sullivan Ballou letter from Ken Burns’ Civil War doc. Whole chunks of it, and just replaced the name “Sarah” with “Isabel” and put in some ye olde language to make it fit the genre.
No attribution at all. Her website says a later edition will credit Sullivan Ballou, but it just seemed like blatant, unoriginal hackery. Apparently she couldn’t come up with a poignant eve-of-battle love letter on her own without ripping off dead Civil War soldiers.
As for Edwards, I just came upon this wank (it’s made F_W!) and I’m going back to read through the posts. CE’s books have always been gadawful and now they’re doubly hilarious because of this. LOL
Wow. Guess I can just copy verbatim 1900s encyclopedias and pass it off as my own work, even though it’s not, and Signel will have no problem with it.
What a bunch of immoral morons.
Well, see what happens when you take a few days off from the computer? (You spend a whole day catching up it seems!)
I’m not a fan of CE. Yes, I believe I read a few of her books waaaaaaay back somewhere in time, but after about #3, they became boring. Sameoldsameold if you will.
I agree with the majority here in saying that plagiarism = WRONG in any book, be it Fiction/non-Fiction. And it seems to me ( and my non-writer, massive-reader mind) that what she’s done is definately that!
But to have Signet blow it off as nothing of importance? WTF????
Now, I won’t go so far as to say I will never again buy a Signet book. That would be punishing a lot of authors for the crimes of just one. But I will do what I did when the Roberts/Dailey thing came out. I will not buy/read/get near another of her books( CE’s books- Not Nora’s, I would have to stop reading to do that 😉 ) . And I will tell all my book-loving friends about all this. And I’m sure they too will “vote with their wallets”)
rant off.
( bad65- Yes, very bad Signet! Very bad!)
Well.
As someone who has spent quite a few years doing public damage control, I truly understand the need to balance public outrage with one’s own perspective, to create a new perspective so that people can see a bigger picture, perhaps. But neither legally or otherwise could I ever imagine either choking down or spitting out that statement.
First, with over 100 novels written, how is Signet convinced Edwards hasn’t violated copyright? I’m stunned that statement was made, if indeed it was crafted by or informed by an atty.
Further, as others have said, I think Signet’s position is incorrect, completely leaving alone what is or isn’t ethical.
Despite my disappointment in the statement, I do think it’s consistent with the “money over everything” philosophy I associate with commercial publishing these days, and absolutely think that the fact that it wasn’t a Signet author who was copied (or “paraphrased” *snort*) made the critical difference, along with the sheer amounts of green that Edwards’s novels must make Signet.
Am I the only one struck by the irony of having this statement come from an imprint that is part of the same imprint that publishes Nora Roberts? Laugh or cry, laugh or cry, what a choice.
This morning I was weighing this issue against the racial segregation issue to get some sense of where I think this lands, and I gotta say, I think it’s much worse. Because at least in the race case, AA authors ARE being published by mainstream publishers, even if they are being unfairly segregated. Here, though, I see no contravening value to Signet’s position, no good to balance the bad. It’s like all bad to me.
Even if you want to debate the issue of how much was copied, etc., I’m a bit appalled at the “nothing wrong” language, because what the SBs posted here isn’t merely the “use” of historical sources, not to mention the fact that not all of it is in the public domain.
And that’s still not really touching the *general ethics* of this issue, the overall picture of whether or not we value the individual scholarship of people who are also creating original work, albeit non-fiction. I admit that I’m very saddened that so much of this source work is being dismissed as it it was the Encyclopedia Britannica, and not original academic scholarship. You know, like original fiction.
This statement merely presses me, once again, to suggest that this is an issue of community ethics that deserves more discussion. Not, necessarily, about Cassie Edwards, because IMO we’ve gone way beyond that now. But I guess I’m in this place now where I’m thinking that if I were an author I’d be really worried about how this issue is being valued within the writing community, and as a reader I’m feeling a bit disoriented, wondering how many of the books I’ve read have themselves been put together. That, let me tell you, is not a good thing.
I’ve always been someone who has valued the free exchange of ideas and very liberal copyright interpretations. I still do, because I think the community/individual balance must be respected. I love intertextuality and all manner of intertextual conversations. But it seems to me that what we’re talking about here is a very basic thing: how we do or don’t value different forms of creative expression across different communities.
I hope Signet will forgive me for not crying for them if they ever find themselves trying to enforce copyright against another author, because in this case, I don’t really think it’s fair to have it both ways. If, as publishers do, they want copyright to be enforced narrowly, it seems to me that they should feel the same way about plagiarism and basic intellectual honesty.
Edwards plagiarized. No ifs ands or buts about it. She is a plagiarist. I don’t care what bull Signet is trying to feed us.
Something that bothers me about Edwards is that she has capitalized on her “pure Cheyenne” grandmother and written book after book in which an Indian stud falls for a white woman. (I keep thinking of Cleavon Little in “Blazing Saddles” shouting, “Where’s de white womins?”)
As a person of color (the color being a sad yellowish now in the winter), I cringe at the noble savage stereotype.
It’s particularly galling that Edwards appropriated the work Charles Eastman, a man who was Sioux, and attended an Ivy League school and then medical school in highly racist times.
Edwards is a kind of ethnic cannibal.
It would have cost her nothing financially or professionally to have written a few sentences in her books to acknowledge him and the accomplished academics from whom she took text.
Thing is, people tend to sniff at “boycotts,” but I have to tell you—
I belong to a romance readers group that has grown to 47 members. ONLY THREE OF US WILL BUY AVON BOOKS. They ignored mailings requesting they stop featuring anorexic looking models on covers of books featuring “plus size” leading ladies. So help me god/dess they still give me crap for buying some of my favorite Avon authors over this. And that’s just the group—not those they bullied and guilted.
They are already rumbling over this after my email. And none of them blog, so they are the semi-visible pissed off vajority!
It isn’t just a little rumble.
You know, there just isn’t any rational response to that.
Basically, the folks that read Edwards’ books like that sort of thing and probably don’t care where she gets her pedantic infodump material from. Signet is basically saying they have the deep pockets and the legal staff and they don’t care as long as they are making money and not actually getting sued.
I am alternately infuriated and depressed by all this.
*headdesk*
As an aspiring (ie: desperate to be published) author, it’s good to know that Signet will publish my novels after I’ve “reasonably borrowed and paraphrased” several of Nora Roberts novels. In fact, my novels will be even better once I’ve used “facts, ideas, and theories” from some from J.D. Robb’s as well. (Just kidding! Don’t hurt me, Nora!)
Signet is simply wrong. Whether or not it is illegal, it is certainly unethical to steal another author’s words—no matter how long ago they were published—and claim them as your own.
Heh. court97 – yes, I hope she ends up in court, and yes, she probably plagiarized in 97 novels.
Although it may be common in academic circles to meticulously footnote every source and provide citations or bibliographies, even though not required by copyright law, such a practice is virtually unheard of for a popular novel aimed at the consumer market.
*watch the top of Barb’s head explode*
Wow. What an incredibly condescending, supercilious, ass-hatted comment. Dude, that’s what acknowledgments are for. Diana Gabaldon may not footnote everything in her Outlander novels, but dammit, she acknowledges every academic source and bit of assistance she’s received. And in the Outlandish Companion she DID meticulously notate and acknowledge and provide a bibliography.
But then again, she’s one of those academic types. And speaking as a former academic type, damn skippy you note and provide citations. For God’s sake, what does it take to even put a small list in the acknowledgments reading, “List of materials used in research include…”
And James freakin’ Frey only “embellished” his entire background but the”essential truth” of the experiences remained.
Jesus H. on a piece of burnt toast.
*headdesk*
I agree with RebyJ—they’re not taking us, as bloggers, seriously. I also think that, while it was the appropriate thing to address the publishing house of the books first, the next step is to address the publishing houses of the books abused.
As I recall, several of the books were found to still be in print, so someone holds the copyright to the material. Glancing over at Amazon should pull up most of them, with the details of those publishing houses, right? I am loathe to create more work out of what began as an exploration, but doesn’t this need to be followed through?
(Even if it is to a bitter conclusion. I don’t mind helping, if I can.)
That sort of plagiarism might not be illegal. It is certainly unethical.
It is also a sign that the author is a lazy bitch who does shoddy work. And is also not worth spending my money on.
Hmm. I wish the Publisher’s Weekly article had used one of the more clearly damning sections you guys posted, SB Sarah. The one they used, while clearly copied, is disarranged ever so slightly. This might lead some to call it a paraphrase. While I don’t agree, it leaves the impression that there may be some room for doubt. I don’t think, looking at some of the instances you guys have found, that there really is any room for doubt. Edwards clearly copied verbatim large passages from someone else’s work, without attribution. That is the very definition of plagiarism.
And shame on Sara Mitchell for either not taking the effort to understand that or for willfully ignoring it. I try not to feed trolls, but this is an important issue for me as an artist. I encourage her to try harder to understand the issues at hand before launching a knee-jerk defense of an author she clearly enjoys. This case is very unfortunate for all involved, but ignoring it is almost worse, in my opinion.
Holy Mother of….!!! I went over to check out the Pub Weekly article and whose ad was waiting to be clicked right next to it? DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE, I shit you not! I need a drink. (Quite a current source, btw.)
Funny how only prize-winning popular novels like The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay are allowed to use footnotes. Must be too academic for those foolish romance readers.
In any case: I sincerely doubt this is the last that Signet will have to say on this issue, particularly as people continue to ferret out (sorry) more instances of plagiarism in Edwards’ books. This statement may be asinine and a bald-faced attempt to cover their legal weaknesses, but the next one is going to have to acknowledge the troubling deficit of “paraphrasing” in Edwards’ work.
(I wouldn’t be surprised if this story starts showing up in small newspapers shortly, given the rate at which it’s grown on the internet so far.)
Have nothing to add that hasn’t been said 100 times already but my view on non copyright plagiarism has been noted before. It may not be actionable theft, but it’s still theft, lazy and dishonest. I mean why should any of us now write anything original, lets just start working our way through everything that’s been written before.
Signet are foolish – and that’s the most polite thing I can say.
I think we should all celebrate the new freedom that Signet has provided us with their loose view on ethical issues and the value of the printed word.
I plan to sit down at my local Barnes and Noble with a big stack of CE books I have no intention of buying and copying them, word for word. Maybe I will post them with a new title and my name on various websites. Hell, might as well submit these “new” works to publishers—I hear Signet has pretty low standards.
If we’re going to put such a low value on words and ideas printed between man titty covers, why not just use the pages of Savage Stereotype as a napkin when I snarf my cocoa laughing at the horrible, plagiarised prose?
Oh, and I’m just as Native American as Ms. Edwards, so I dedicate my acts of civil disobediance to the many tribes represented as “savages” in her books.
Maybe it’s time to hop onto Amazon, Borders and Barnes & Noble online and get some -real- reviews on CE’s books going…!
I’ve been posting over at Dear Author, but I wanted to say here that I find this very disheartening. I do think this situation is unethical, even if is not actionable. It’s about time we stopped letting the court system or legal technicalities decide what is right and wrong in this world.
Arhylda, I’m with you. I’m about to engage in a ‘review’ posting campaign at amazon. com with linkage galore.
(and I do mean “review” because I have no intention of reading a CE books anymore than I have to read a Dailey book. A thief is a thief is a thief)
I think the top of my head just blew off.
As an ex-academic I would be blowing steam out my ears if someone did this to my work – whether it was technically illegal or not. In fact, I am steaming on behalf of the authors who have been so dispicably treated as to have their work be considered of no worth (how can you consider something of worth if you’re willing to steal it).
And Signet’s response, while as others have said not necessarily surprising, is very, very depressing and makes me want to go out and find something to hit.
I started off shocked and saddened by all this. Now I’m just angry about how something as major as this is being brushed off by the publishers and CE’s fans (the ones I’ve seen comment – I hope there are many others who are very saddened about this).
If a single instance of plagarism had been found I might understand (not for an instant agree, but understand) people not being as horrified as I am, but this is multiple cases in multiple books and there are a whole lot more CE books that may be the same.
And frankly, I’ve never read one of her books and it wouldn’t matter to me what author it had been, I’d be just as angry.
This is WRONG and it is just as wrong that there are people who don’t seem able to see or acknowledge that.
Okay, I’ll stop ranting now. Part of the reason I hadn’t joined in the comments before is that I knew once I started I’d just keep on typing as I have done.
I just read the Publishers Weekly article and noticed this..
“Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books co-authors Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan found the texts using Google Book Search, and have posted 32 side-by-side comparisons of excerpts from Edwards’s books and nonfiction works..”
I’ve emailed Sarah and Candy in the past about books.google.com and as a reader I LOVE it..but if I were an author I’m not sure how I’d feel about it. Seriously, there is a shitload of books you can pretty much read in its entireity (sp).
It’s obviously a powerful research tool!
There’s a lot of pros vs cons to it but
I guess that’d be an entirely different subject to debate entirely!
Well, call me naive, but I’m appalled.
Signet’s response is complete and utter bollocks.
“Although it may be common in academic circles to meticulously footnote every source and provide citations or bibliographies, even though not required by copyright law, such a practice is virtually unheard of for a popular novel aimed at the consumer market.”
This just pisses me off. There’s an inference here I don’t like. I think romance readers can handle a footnote or two. I think we can handle acknowledgments where due.
What Cassie Edwards has done is cynical and ethically corrupt. I’m tempted to boycott Signet, at least until my indignation wanes. In the meantime, they can expect a tetchy letter.
I see Edwards’ behavior as unethical. Even when her sentences are not identical to those found in her sources, there are “statistically improbable” phrases that occur both places, rendering her paraphrasing too close. If she were one of my students, I’d tell her to set the reference book aside while she wrote so that her words would be her own (and then, because I teach history, “to meticulously footnote every source.”).
This leaves me with a very bad feeling toward Penguin/Signet. Think it’s time to write a letter so they know they have more than one disgruntled book buyer. I would not be surprised if despite this letter there is not a certain amount of scurrying around going on behind the scenes.