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Q.R. Markham's just-published Assassin of Secrets, hailed as an "instant classic" by at least one blurber, has been withdrawn by its publisher. Why? Extensive plagiarism. The author who blurbed the book explains how he was duped.
posted by mothershock on Nov 8, 2011 - 87 comments

Yesterday, Politico reporter Kendra Marr was forced to resign her position after New York Times writer Susan Stellin alerted Marr's editors to similarities between her transportation policy story published Sept. 26 and Marr’s story published Oct. 10. An investigation by Politico into Marr's work found 7 instances of likely plagiarism. Marr, who was formerly a reporter for the OC Register, San Jose Mercury News and the Washington Post, had logged 409 stories (scroll down for list) with Politico during her time there. The outlet has issued a statement. Poynter has a thorough rundown, indicating that more of her articles may come under scrutiny. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Oct 14, 2011 - 43 comments

"I am the ghost of plagiarism. . ." Short Norwegian film addressing academic plagiarism via Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" (1843).
posted by flotson on Sep 5, 2011 - 16 comments

After Kad & Olivier sign off and the Satisfaction production logo fades, viewing audiences are oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly becomes the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Frenchman making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of... wait, *what*?! That's right. The Late Late Show's Craig Ferguson appears to have a not-so-secret French admirer -- one who's not above ripping off both his opening titles and his signature dance sequences (including the iconic animal puppets): "ABC" by The Jackson 5, "Flashdance" by Irene Cara, "On the Floor" by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, "Waka Waka" by Shakira, "Men in Black" by Will Smith, "Let's All Chant" by the Michael Zager Band, "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!, "It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls, and "Vive Le Vent (Jingle Bells)" by Tino Rossi. Luckily, Ferguson's sense of showmanship is more prodigious than litigious -- he responded to Arthur's "homáge" by booking a pair of translatlantic crossover shows, with Arthur visiting LA that week and Ferguson flying out to Paris just last month. Video of both shows (plus lots more) inside! [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Jul 11, 2011 - 12 comments

Johann Hari, British columnist for The Independent and The Huffington Post (recently on mefi), has this week been caught in a storm of controversy concerning his apparent plagiarism of interview quotes. [more inside]
posted by ArmyOfKittens on Jun 29, 2011 - 91 comments

This is a dialogue between Teach, an adjunct philosophy instructor at a public university in New York, and Cheat, who has authored over 100 papers for pay.
posted by eugenen on Jun 24, 2011 - 113 comments

University of Alberta Dean of Medicine Philip Baker is so inspired that he plagiarizes graduation speech from one last year at Stanford. He claims only parts were not cited properly as inspiration while grads at the ceremony claim it was an outright lift. The tip-off? "Velluvial matrix." The U of A Guide to Plagiarism here for reference.
posted by reiichiroh on Jun 12, 2011 - 64 comments

Judd Apatow got into an e-mail argument with the creator of That 70s Show back in 2002
posted by The Whelk on May 15, 2011 - 110 comments

In February, a political and academic scandal broke in Germany when it turned out that the defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had plagiarized parts of his doctoral dissertation, defended in 2006 and published as a book in 2009. Guttenberg, who had initially denied the allegations and maintained his popularity despite the scandal, resigned on 1 March. [more inside]
posted by daniel_charms on Mar 7, 2011 - 28 comments

Two unknown sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi have surfaced, which have collected dust and (doubtless) delighted the bugs for more than two centuries. This is the second find of Vivaldi compositions within a short time. A lost flute concerto has re-surfaced in Edinburgh and was performed earlier this fall. If we read closely, however, parts the flute concerto "Il Gran Mogol" were already known to the musical world. [more inside]
posted by Namlit on Nov 18, 2010 - 7 comments

Illadore was surprised to see her article about apple pie published in Cooks Source without her knowledge. After asking for an apology and a donation to the Columbia School of Journalism, Cooks Source editor Judith Griggs responded in an email that "I do know about copyright laws . . . But honestly Monica, the web is considered 'public domain' and you should be happy we just didn't 'lift' your whole article and put someone else's name on it!"
posted by Avenger50 on Nov 4, 2010 - 339 comments

"(Sigur Ros) have never allowed their music to be used to sell anything. And they get asked a lot. Sometimes they get asked, say 'no' and then a few months later an ad will suddenly appear that sounds strangely familiar."
posted by infinitefloatingbrains on Oct 1, 2010 - 134 comments

Cyber security consultant & self-styled “innovator, leader & visionary” Greg Evans has just written & self-published a book titled How To Become The Worlds No. 1 Hacker. Or did he? His company, LIGATT Security International, counts Philips Arena, the NBA Atlanta Hawks and the NHL Atlanta Thrashers among its clients. Or does it?
posted by scalefree on Jun 15, 2010 - 15 comments

Columbia University valedictorian steals a bit from Patton Oswalt. [more inside]
posted by moviehawk on May 25, 2010 - 98 comments

Artist Jess Fink has some crappy luck. She's found her Threadless designs co-opted by Forever 21 and by Newbreed girl for Hot Topic. And now? Thanks to Billion Dollar Babes, unrepentant rip-off artist Todd Goldman (previously) is joining in.
posted by griphus on May 19, 2010 - 65 comments

"Former Harvard student Adam Wheeler was indicted [yesterday] on multiple counts of identity fraud and larceny. According to the Boston Globe, Wheeler allegedly built a 'fraudulent life history that led to his admission to Harvard, and for using forged academic materials from Harvard when he applied for the prestigious Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships.'"* In his transfer student application to Harvard "...Wheeler claimed he got a perfect score on the SAT, straight A's at prestigious prep school Phillips Academy Andover and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...In reality, he had never attended either school..."* He has plead not guilty to the charges. [more inside]
posted by ericb on May 18, 2010 - 164 comments

Rosie Hardy is a 19 year-old photographer from Derbyshire, UK. Having first got into photography at age 16, she built a large following on flickr. She detailed her romance and ultimate breakup with another photographer through her photos. As early as 2008 there was suspicion that her romance and photography skills were more than just raw talent, drawing comparisons between Rosie and Lonelygirl15. An MSNBC profile of her relationship raised questions about the veracity of her relationship with then-boyfriend Aaron Nace, who she moved to the US to be with before ultimately returning to England. She was accused of plagiarizing many of the concepts of her photos, for which she apologized. She has regular interactions with her fans and is still featured on photography websites.
posted by achmorrison on May 7, 2010 - 49 comments

Nobody is saying anyone is ripping anybody off. They are just SIMILAR is all. [more inside]
posted by WPW on Apr 16, 2010 - 48 comments

“But I decided on the Mona Lisa, which was the smallest painting and the easiest to transport.” “So there was no chance,” asked the court, “that you decided on it because it was the most valuable painting?” - From Vanity Fair, the twisting, engaging story of how the Mona Lisa was stolen in broad daylight in 1911. (via)
posted by The Whelk on Apr 8, 2010 - 13 comments

Reading in the traditional open-ended sense is not what most of us, whatever our age and level of computer literacy, do on the Internet. Books cease to be individual works but are scanned and digitized into one great, big continuous text. The dynamics of the digital are encouraging authors, journalists, musicians and artists to treat the fruits of intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind. But what becomes of originality and imagination in a world that prizes metaness and regards the mash-up as more important than the sources who were mashed? The very value of artistic imagination and originality, along with the primacy of the individual, is increasingly being questioned in our copy-mad, postmodern digital world. Remix is the very nature of the digital. But do we now face a situation in which culture is effectively eating its own seed stock?
posted by Toekneesan on Mar 20, 2010 - 47 comments

17 year old prodigy Helene Hegemann admits that her bestseller "Axolotl Roadkill" is not as original as previously assumed. "The publication last month of her novel about a 16-year-old exploring Berlin’s drug and club scene after the death of her mother, called “Axolotl Roadkill,” was heralded far and wide in German newspapers and magazines as a tremendous debut, particularly for such a young author. The book shot to No. 5 this week on the magazine Spiegel’s hardcover best-seller list", writes the New York Times. Unfortunately, parts of it were lifted. "It's not plagiarism", says the author. [more inside]
posted by Omnomnom on Feb 12, 2010 - 111 comments

Waldo Jaquith of The Virginia Quarterly has discovered considerable evidence of plagiarism in Chris Anderson's new book, Free. [more inside]
posted by Diablevert on Jun 24, 2009 - 74 comments

In light of J.D. Salinger’s successful injunction against the publication of the subtly-nom-de-plumed J.D. California’s Catcher in the Rye followup, the NYTimes’s Jennifer Schuessler asks: How relevant is Holden Caulfield’s defiant disillusionism to the lives and tastes of modern adolescents? [more inside]
posted by oinopaponton on Jun 21, 2009 - 66 comments

Joan Crawford's Letty Lynton is currently available for viewing on YouTube. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 [more inside]
posted by pxe2000 on Jun 5, 2009 - 8 comments

What Plagiarism Looks Like. William Meehan, president of Jacksonville State University, wrote his doctoral dissertation in 1999. Carl Boening wrote his in 1996. "Jacksonville State says no substance has been found in the charges, and no action by the university will be taken against him", but, well, look at the identical passages highlighted in the first link above (and keep in mind that other parts of Boening's dissertation were paraphrased in Meehan's). Sadly, this is not the first time that this has happened where a college president was involved.
posted by Halloween Jack on Jun 2, 2009 - 56 comments

Excerpt 1: More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. Excerpt 2: More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. Can you tell which is Josh Marshall writing on Talking Points Memo on May 14 and which is Maureen Dowd writing in The New York Times on May 16?
posted by Joe Beese on May 18, 2009 - 138 comments

Guitarist Joe Satriani sues Coldplay over Viva La Vida (audio). Satriani's version: If I Could Fly (audio).
posted by starman on Dec 5, 2008 - 111 comments

Remember Laura K. Pahl, the girl who was famously humiliated for trying to buy a term paper over the internet? Perhaps she should have gone to a professional.
posted by Afroblanco on Oct 16, 2008 - 67 comments

Oasis have been accused of plagiarizing Cliff Richard. Does 'The Turning' have a certain resemblance to 'Devil Woman'? If so, it would not the first time... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Oct 7, 2008 - 65 comments

Epic Theft? Epic Fail. "Steve Bovis, Tim Croucher and Laurence Francis, all from Maidstone, have dreamt of seeing Limbo of the Lost played across the globe since they first started discussing the game 10 years ago."* Conceived in the 90s as an Amiga 1200 title, the three Kentish lads went with the PC for the decades-deferred realization of their creative dream. Unfortunately, the long-delayed release of Limbo of the Lost is leaving reviewers with a profound sense of deja vu, as if they've seen this game somewhere before ... [more inside]
posted by grabbingsand on Jun 12, 2008 - 39 comments

Masseiana - Containing the three major works of Gerald Massey and his minor work commonly titled: The Lectures. Published here in their entirety, fully revised and amended, with additional material by the editor.
posted by tellurian on May 13, 2008 - 3 comments

Illustrators up in arms. Darren De Lieto, owner of Little Chimp Society, recently received word that his work and the work of 93 other illustrators has been used without permission in a dubious 350-page book entitled Colorful Illustrations 93ºC, being sold online and in bookstores for $100. With the rise of copyright-shaky China and the revitialization of the Orphan Works Act, are artists rights becoming more precarious? (Via Drawn!)
posted by billypilgrim on Apr 19, 2008 - 30 comments

"I mean he quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate when I say -- [Paul Simon] stole the songs from us." [more inside]
posted by Sys Rq on Apr 19, 2008 - 75 comments

Most well known for his "Obey Giant" street posters, Shepard Fairey has carefully nurtured a reputation as a heroic guerilla street artist waging a one man campaign against the corporate powers-that-be. Infantile posturing aside, Fairey’s art is problematic for another, more troubling reason - that of plagiarism.
posted by dhammond on Mar 18, 2008 - 91 comments

Plagiarism scandal rocks DC's Vertigo line. A comics blogger has discovered shocking evidence of theft in Fables, Y: The Last Man, Sandman, and other major Vertigo titles. (Via Comics Should Be Good!)
posted by UKnowForKids on Mar 10, 2008 - 28 comments

Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.
... and he actually admits it.

“It is true,” Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an e-mail. “I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."

Found by Blogger (and MeFi lurker) Nancy Nall.
posted by jpburns on Feb 29, 2008 - 25 comments

"I am, of course, gratified that this sordid southern-hemisphere tale of sex, plagiarism, quantum mechanics, and printers could be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction." If that doesn't grab you maybe you are on the wrong internet. [more inside]
posted by shothotbot on Dec 16, 2007 - 30 comments

The Rubinoos recently filed a lawsuit against Avril Lavigne, claiming that her song Girlfriend (Youtube) plagiarized from their song, I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (mp3). An authorized cover version of the Rubinoos song performed by Lush and retitled "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" has even more similarities to the Lavigne song. Now that the teeming millions on the Internets have gotten into the act, YouTubers are now arguing whether Lavigne is a plagiarist, whether the Rubinoos plagiarized from the Rolling Stones, and whether Ms. Lavigne plagiarized a second time. Now that Web 2.0 has made it easier to uncover musical copycats, I'm hot on the case of Bob Marley vs. The Banana Splits.
posted by jonp72 on Jul 10, 2007 - 66 comments

Mike Tyndall is maintaining a page detailing all of the striking similarities between Todd Goldman's "art" and the original work of legitimate artists. (previously discussed on MetaFilter) Now, the image for which Goldman attracted a substantial amount of press and fame and upon which he built his profitable David And Goliath Tees company--his "Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them" work--may have been partially copied from the portfolio of Chip Wass.
posted by fandango_matt on Apr 24, 2007 - 44 comments

Please God, make everyone die. Amen. Todd Goliath, the creator of the infamous "Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them" t-shirts/paintings/flash games/etc. (previously x2) has been discovered to have a piece in a gallery show which is remarkably similar to this Purple Pussy cartoon by Dave Kelly (a/k/a Schmorky) of Keenspot and SA. Not only that, but he's got another character, Eve L. who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lenore, The Cute Little Dead Girl by Roman Dirge. (other examples in the main link -- a surprisingly on-topic thread for SA)
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me on Apr 7, 2007 - 103 comments

Two students sue Turnitin for copyright violations. "All of these kids are essentially straight-A students, and they have no interest in plagiarizing," said Robert A. Vanderhye, a McLean attorney representing the students pro bono. "The problem with [Turnitin] is the archiving of the documents. They are violating a right these students have to be in control of their own property." (via) (obligatory link to the Best. Thread. Ever)
posted by Horace Rumpole on Apr 2, 2007 - 166 comments

Timbaland accused of plagiarism Mega-popular music producer Timbaland has been accused of lifting the heart and soul of Nelly Furtado's "Do It" from a C64 SID chiptune arrangement by GRG of a MOD file, "AcidJazzed Evening," originally composed by Finnish music tracker Janne Suni. Or maybe he was just repurposing his own "original" ringtone from MSN. Nerds get angry and are dismissed as haters. The original tune is catchy, even as an MP3. It reminded me of the MOD collection I amassed in 1993, when I could fit hours of music on a floppy disk. My reminiscences took me to Amiga Music Preservation to try to reconstruct my old MOD collection from memory, but I failed. Maybe MP3 and AAC have made tracked music formats obsolete for most.
posted by bugmuncher on Mar 22, 2007 - 34 comments

Good artists copy. Great artists steal. -- Pablo Picasso
posted by borkencode on Feb 26, 2007 - 39 comments

The Ecstasy of Influence, A Plagiarism
posted by Captaintripps on Feb 24, 2007 - 20 comments

Procol Harum organist wins battle over joint authorship of A Whiter Shade of Pale. Gary Brooker is not amused, but then again it was a Bach ripoff anyway.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 20, 2006 - 31 comments

ABC Australia reports on plagiarism of Wikipedia by traditional media.
posted by jedro on Oct 9, 2006 - 39 comments

“Smithy code” The secret lies in HBHG and DVC. According to news reports the Judge who recently ruled in the Da Vinci Code plagiarism case has included his own code in his high court ruling (PDF). At this time, no one seems to have decoded it all...
posted by tiamat on Apr 26, 2006 - 39 comments

Kaavya Viswanathan is a 19-year-old Harvard student whose first novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, just cracked the New York Times bestseller list. The problem? The Harvard Crimson and SF Gate assert that the author plagiarized much of it from two books by Megan McCafferty. Of course, it's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before with young writers.
posted by mothershock on Apr 24, 2006 - 222 comments

Vladimir Putin can add a new line to his resume: plagiarist.
posted by rxrfrx on Mar 26, 2006 - 14 comments

The Columbia Law School Music Plagiarism Project is a repository of the music industry's most famous copyright infringement cases of the past 100 years. Each case contains links to samples of the original song and the alleged infringer, and there's even a song list for easy browsing. (My favorite: Gilbert O'Sullivan v. Biz Markie).
posted by Saucy Intruder on Dec 17, 2005 - 42 comments