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...
posted on Oct 7, 2008 - View this thread

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 ...
posted on Jun 12, 2008 - View this thread

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 on May 13, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

"I mean he quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate when I say -- [Paul Simon] stole the songs from us."
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Mar 18, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Mar 10, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Feb 29, 2008 - View this thread

"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.
posted on Dec 16, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Jul 10, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Apr 24, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Apr 7, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Apr 2, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Mar 22, 2007 - View this thread

Good artists copy. Great artists steal. -- Pablo Picasso
posted on Feb 26, 2007 - View this thread

The Ecstasy of Influence, A Plagiarism
posted on Feb 24, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Dec 20, 2006 - View this thread

ABC Australia reports on plagiarism of Wikipedia by traditional media.
posted on Oct 9, 2006 - View this thread

“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 on Apr 26, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Apr 24, 2006 - View this thread

Vladimir Putin can add a new line to his resume: plagiarist.
posted on Mar 26, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Dec 17, 2005 - View this thread

Plagiarism it's just about the most wrong thing you're told not to do in college. It seems even more wrong when one of your professors does it, but it certainly does drive up prices.
posted on Dec 1, 2005 - View this thread

Copyright infringement through gullibility: So, we've discussed Boilerplate previously (well, twice, actually; no, make that thrice). He's one of a handful of Victorian robots listed among the Mechanical Marvels of the Nineteenth Century. Chris Elliott (yes, that Chris Elliott) probably suspected that the robot wasn't real, but he must have assumed it to be a Victorian Era hoax and not a modern day one because he incorporated the fictional robot character into his upcoming pseudo-historical novel [NYTimes link; registration-free equivalent]. To add to the clear-cut case of copyright trouble, Boilerplate is also a character in the original hoax-perpetrator's graphic novel. Mr. Elliott says his younger brother performed the historical research.
posted on Nov 1, 2005 - View this thread

Esquivalience-n. the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities. Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled "Flags Up!" Phony entries to dictionaries and encyclopedias to catch copiers. By posting this at work I am practicing esquivalience, no?
posted on Aug 22, 2005 - View this thread

How to Recognize Plagiarism. (From Indiana University Bloomington.)
Here's some examples of malfeasance in case you, like me, flunked the test.
posted on Aug 5, 2005 - View this thread

Stripped for Parts Although the blogging community has had a hunch for some time, director Robert Fiveson has just confirmed that he's considering an injunction against the further distribution of The Island, as it, ahem, very closely mirrors his own film, Parts: The Clonus Horror. Michael Bay's film doesn't credit anyone who worked on Clonus, and press materials tout its "original screenplay". I suppose, though, Bay can always claim that he's being so deliciously meta by doing a clone of a clone picture... [A sideways-update to this post]
posted on Jul 25, 2005 - View this thread

Page 35 - a Da Vinci scholar finds himself the victim of a dastardly murder (the fourth of his kind to do so). Before he dies, he leaves a message in his own blood on his own body for our hero to find, leading our protagonist (and his heroine, complete with "flashing green eyes" and cleverly hidden links to previously wronged goddess figures) on a quest to find an explosive secret that could shake the foundations of the Catholic Church. Paintings, puzzles, keys that aren't keys, safe-deposit boxes in Zurich, stalking assassins and parchments that should be linen abound. Sound familiar? You bet your sweet bippy it does.
posted on May 3, 2005 - View this thread

Laura K. Pahl is a plagiarist. In which a blogger exacts poetic justice on a spoiled little rich girl at university.
posted on Mar 29, 2005 - View this thread

Oops. (Wash. Post Login/ Bugmenot) Jim Gibbons seems to have stolen most of his lefty-baiting, righty-rousing rambling from another crazy Republican. This is good for people who want to get rid of the guy.
posted on Mar 7, 2005 - View this thread

The New York Times' guide to plagiarism resources.
Apparently Consumer Reports is busy watching bread grow mold or something, so it's nice to see someone else addressing the consumer protection needs of today's college student.
posted on Aug 22, 2004 - View this thread

Indian Superman is a movie of questionable legality released in India in the mid eighties. Perhaps it should have had a wider release since it has a great deal of humorous appeal for Western audiences. Check out this review from Stomp Tokyo. I'm looking forward to a crossover when Indian Superman meets Indian Spider-Man. via Sepia Mutiny
posted on Aug 17, 2004 - View this thread

Shyamalan may face legal action over Village - The Village can now join the long list of films accused of plagiarism in recent years. A lawsuit may be filed against M. Night Shyamalan's Blinding Edge Pictures and Disney for alleged plagiarism. Kiddie book writer Margaret Peterson Haddix claims that the movie bears disturbing similarities to her 1995 novel Running Out Of Time. While plagiarism of any kind is no laughing matter, it must be stated that the "disturbing similarity" is a plot twist many of us once used in our own stories back in grade school.
posted on Aug 16, 2004 - View this thread

Advertising Copycats is a site where various ad prints are compared for resemblances, from odd coincidences to downright plagiarism. [in French]
posted on Aug 11, 2004 - View this thread

"The problem with this book is not that Jayson Blair told lies at the Times, but that his lies continue in this book. The book is a collection of patently ridiculous made-up fakery, with sexual escapades and other stuff that smacks of total fabrication. They are as absurd as the bogus positive reviews that Jayson slapped on a couple of days ago," an Amazon reviewer writes. After a grotesque publicity tour, with fawning interviews by Katie, Larry, Bill and Chris, war breaks out among average readers. Meanwhile, a new plagiarism charge, about the book itself.
posted on Mar 12, 2004 - View this thread

A good amount of bloggers are outright thieves. Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs found that a vast amount of popular bloggers stole ideas, topics, and content from lesser-known weblogs without any sort of attribution or crediting. The researchers created a new ranking algorithm called iRank to track the source of new ideas and topics, which you can play around with here.
posted on Mar 5, 2004 - View this thread

Exhibit A: An unattributed article on Google Bombing posted last month on the Web site of Glenn Beck, a radio talk show guy. Exhibit B: An article on Google Bombing from 2001 on Uber.nu, attributed to Adam Mathes. Compare and contrast. It's possible Beck purchased the article for reprint, but the lack of attribution, either to Mathes or So New Media, suggests against it. Assuming plagiarism, two questions: 1. After a decade of the existence of the Web, how is it that people still don't get the concept that content plagiarized from the Web is easily discoverable, particularly when posted on the Web? 2. Honestly, now, is it really that hard to rewrite? Unrelated article on the Glenn Beck site: The Death of Shame. (via Oliver Willis)
posted on Jan 9, 2004 - View this thread

Comeuppance is served: Blair Hornstine, the litigious valedictorian MeFi loves to hate, has been dropped from the Harvard class of '07 for her adventures in plagiarism. Quoting Nelson Munz here would be superfluous.
posted on Jul 11, 2003 - View this thread

If you liked the lyrics on Dylan's last album, you'll probably also like the Japanese gangster novel he lifted some of them from. Verdict: Not guilty, on grounds of prior artistic achievement. (Long article in today's WSJ not linked because the old WSJ free-linkification doesn't work anymore!!?)
posted on Jul 8, 2003 - View this thread

Blair Hornstine makes Newsweek magazine. Just not in the way she would have liked, I'm sure. An impartial look at the situation, the day before her class graduation ceremonies proceed without her. Oh, and by the way, the salutatorian will speak, and the students are trying to stay positive and don't want the subject to come up tomorrow, thank you very much. So enjoy your day, kids.
posted on Jun 18, 2003 - View this thread

Helen Keller: A Living Lie? A fascinating New Yorker piece by Cynthia Ozick that explores Helen Keller's writing career and all the questions of authenticity it raises. She was charged with being a "fraud, a puppet, a plagiarist" and she was defended by the likes of Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell. Ozick ultimately asks the question: "Do we know only what we see, or do we see what we somehow already know?"
posted on Jun 17, 2003 - View this thread

Remember Blair Hornstine? Her $2.5 million lawsuit against her high school for not naming her valedictorian resulted in an injunction and the sole possession of the title. Now it gets worse: she has a Jayson Blair problem. Several of her contributions to local papers were lifted from presidential speeches, Supreme Court opinions, and editorials.
posted on Jun 5, 2003 - View this thread

Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception The New York Times runs a long article detailing its preliminary findings in the matter of Jayson Blair, The Times' young staff reporter who made up sources, facts, and anecdotes in potentially hundreds of stories. Does this investigation help the Times avoid permanent disgrace? Or does this just confirm what you've always thought about the Times? Slate magazine is attributing part of the problem to affirmative action (Blair is black). Is AA relevant here?
posted on May 10, 2003 - View this thread

Plagiarism is an ugly word. Ung Lee, a Princeton Graduate, has one numerous awards for his writing, under the tutelage of Joyce Carl Oates. It's just that so many of those words were not his own.
posted on Mar 3, 2003 - View this thread

Dev Articles is the latest in a line of thieves who steal from free publications such as A List Apart, Digital-Web and Boxes and Arrows to pilfer content and make a buck off of other folks' generous efforts. What is wrong with these folks? Dev Articles at least credits the authors (without letting them know... even that their stolen photo is up) but not the publication that provided the edits, formatting and forum to make the article real. And they make the advertising buck. This month alone Nick Finck has had to stop Morpheous from their theft of 7 of his articles (and they claimed authorship!) What is wrong with people?
posted on Jan 20, 2003 - View this thread

Canadian novelist Yann Martel, whose novel, Life of Pi (excerpt, review), won the 2002 Booker Prize, has been accused of plagiarizing Brazilian novelist Moacyr Scilar's 1981 novella, Max and the Cats, which shares a similar premise. Martel freely admits that the premise of Scilar's work, which he discovered via a half-remembered (and scathing) critique, inspired Life of Pi, but he has not read it. The issue is whether a premise is intellectual property or whether such ideas are recycled all the time. While this would ordinarily be a literary tempest, Canada and Brazil have had a shaky relationship over trade in recent years; this may not help the situation.
posted on Nov 7, 2002 - View this thread

Ah, that back to school feeling is in the air. More papers to plagerize, more ways to beat that test. With some evidence that cheating is on the rise, and that the Internet makes it much easier, it might be time to review alternate ways of making the grade. All credit to this Mefi member.
posted on Aug 29, 2002 - View this thread

Stealing from the "real" President? In a bit of a follow up to a thread last week whereupon Bush joked that he'd only go into deficit spending if he hit the "budget trifecta" of war, recession and national emergency. Well, nobody could ever find proof that he'd said any such thing during the campaign. As it turns out, it's because it was Gore who said it. In related news, it turns out that Bush "borrowed" his June 24th Tough on Palestine speech from Natan Sharansky, Israel's deputy prime minister, who published almost a word for word version of the speech back on May 3rd.
posted on Jul 2, 2002 - View this thread

Doubling The Annoyance Factor: The Instantly Recyclable Column. Spot the differences between Taki's High Life column in this week's Spectator and his Le Maitre column in this week's New York Press. Obviously, all columnists recycle their stuff, specially when they've been on the job for more than 25 years like this guy, but there's generally a time-lag and a modest attempt at hiding the self-plagiarism. No such bloody luck with Taki.[ To my mind, the most objectionable, reactionary, trumpet-blowing, futile, deeply annoying (but, alas, not unreadable...)columnist in the English-speaking world.]
posted on Jun 30, 2002 - View this thread

Web Snatcher - when Web users go mad Andrew Wiseman began investigating someone called Dave Van Staveren when he ripped off his 625 Television Room site and several other TV fan sites. What follows is a descent into absolute lunacy. Who is Van Staveren? What does he want?
posted on May 17, 2002 - View this thread