John Heidenry and Brett Topel are plagiarists and lawyers suck, too

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

Is this a joke? It's not worth the fight? Are you kidding me? It's the essence of what we do!!!
DO YOUR OWN WORK. I/we have heard that since the 1st grade. Why do authors/journalists have such a fucking problem with this concept!?! And we sit with our thumbs up our ass wondering why the public doesn't trust us when we can't trust eachother.
If in fact the quotes were lifted without couching or attribution, that is a problem. A real problem. It's called copyright infringement. Let your publisher know.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

My work was plagiarized a couple of years ago. Quotes from several exclusive telephone interviews wound up in this guy's book, which was printed by a major publisher. My lawyer said I could have ended up with big bucks but warned me the publisher would tie it up for years. I settled for $2,000, half of which went to my lawyer. I was still pretty happy with the outcome.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

Moron.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

OK, just to update, for those who care (if anybody) ... I got the book from the library and there is a bibliography and some footnotes which do credit my book. However, there are some paragraphs in the book which are eerily similar to mine - like one or two words changed. Is this really paraphrasing?

Anyway, I contacted my publisher .. who knows if anything will come of it; probably nothing.

But nice to know my little book is helping out a "bigger" book.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

I had quotes lifted from a story by a reporter working for one of the top-five circulation daily newspapers in the country. The quotes were from an exclusive interview. The worst part, besides the fact the editor at the paper did nothing when contacted by my paper, was that the source was someone this guy had easy access to, but the quotes I used were very telling and so he just lifted them verbatim. The reporter's a name too. It was rather sad, all in all.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

I don't know if a similarity in a couple of paragraphs would really be plagarism. If you sent 10 reporters to do a gamer on a football game, my guess is you would see similarities among some of the stories.

When people are plagarists, they usually take a lot of stuff verbatim. It's natural to be a little influenced by what you read to the point where it might sound similar. When it is very similar for more than 50 or 60 words, then it is a big problem.

The other question about a plagarism case is that your book was credited, so even if you could prove that some paragraphs were similar, the fact that your book was credited would seem to make it hard to show plagarism.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

Get advice from the guy who wrote Fridays with Red on what he did about the author of Tuesdays with Morrie.

(Kidding.)  Seriously, that sucks.  I hope you get something out of it.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

Not sure if this makes a difference - guess I'll find out soon - but I've already found seven or eight paragraphs which are nearly duplicate to what I wrote. Some of the words aren't exactly everyday vernacular - "hooting" for example, or using "spectator" instead of "fan".

Also, sorry if I equate a book differently than a game story, although I do see your point.

Again, nothing may come of this, but there are too many instances so far (I'm only on page 36) for it to be a coincidence, at least in my opinion.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

From your explanation, it's Grade A plagiarism. Multiple grafs, nearly duplicate phrasing, unusual words. Remember the (generic) definition: to take writings from others and use as your own.
Keep your publisher informed on this as you go through it. If your pub has the resources and interest, I feel a lawsuit coming on. Good luck.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

There's no way I'd let this go. You have to call these types of people out. A couple years back, a major magazine lifted some quotes that were "exclusive" to my paper. I had gotten them in a on-one-on interview. Lo and behold, they not only turn up in this magazine's quotes of the week section, they showed up in the quotes of the year issue. We contacted them and now the magazine attributes where they get their notable quotes. It gives me great satsifaction every week when I see the attribution.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

An update, for anyone who might care - my publisher says that without a doubt in his mind was my book plagiarized. He's looking into (an affordable) lawyer and a possible course of action. We'll see how it turns out. Kind of good news, bad news - good that my suspicions were affirmed; bad in that someone would do this.

 

Re: Is this plagiarism? What would you do?

Dont fret the bad news. Be flattered someone thought your work was worth lifting -- then sue the piss out of him.