Just change a few words here and there. . . NOT.

(Updated 22 May 2022; Originally blogged 23 January 2013)

 

Few things make me angrier than cheating.  And in today's writing game there are two main ways to cheat.  I've already written more than you probably want to read (or for that matter have read!) about fake reviews and sock puppet "fans."

And I've written about potential/apparent copyright infringement, complete with the evidence.

As I wrote on my (now vanished with the demise of Booklikes) review of Sylvie F. Sommerfield's Fires of Surrender, this is one of the more blatant cases of copyright infringement I've ever come across.  How Ms. Sommerfield thought she could get away with it, I will never know.  Perhaps the tale of having an "assistant" who did the copying from Jan Westcott's The Hepburn was true; we may never know.

Here's what I wrote in that 2013 review:

After the 1990 RWA National Conference in San Francisco, I was riding to the airport in a taxi with fellow authors Connie Flynn and Patricia Potter. Ms. Potter mentioned that there had been some gossip going around the final hours of the conference regarding an accusation of plagiarism leveled at popular Zebra Books author Sylvie Sommerfield. Her latest book, Ms. Potter said, was rumored to contain verbatim passages from something called The Hepburn. I literally gasped and said, "Oh my God, The Hepburn by Jan Westcott is one of my favorite books of all time!"

Upon arriving at my destination, I headed for the nearest newsstand and found a copy of Fires of Surrender for sale. Long before I'd reached the baggage claim area, I found passages -- they begin on page 15 -- that echoed with painful familiarity. Once home, I retrieved my copy of The Hepburn and began making notes. The next morning I called Romantic Times magazine and gave them the details over the phone, then mailed photocopies of numerous pages for comparison. And by numerous, I mean 20+ from various sections throughout the books.

Eventually Ms. Sommerfield made a variety of confessions, including that under deadline pressure and personal issues, she had hired an assistant who did the actual copying. I'm not sure now, 20+ years later [and now 30+ years later!], whether there really was an assistant or if Sommerfield, who has now gone to her ultimate reward, did the work herself and created a ghost of a ghost.

It was not merely that text passages were copied; the main plot was lifted virtually in toto.

Supposedly, some kind of financial agreement was reached between Zebra/Kensington and Ms. Westcott, who outlived her infringer by more than a decade, but as far as I know, no details were made public.

I have copies of both books within arm's reach as I write this. If anyone wants to challenge this, I can scan and post representative pages.

But for anyone who wants to see the evidence, I present it here.  I have copies of both books within five or six feet of where I sit at my desk.

I've highlighted some of the pertinent passages in the Sommerfield book; I tend to resist marking even duplicate copies of books I love.



From The Hepburn, by Jan Westcott, (c) 1950, Crown Publishers



From Fires of Surrender by Sylvie F. Sommerfield, (c) ? 1990, Zebra Books/Kensington Publishing Corp.

Is a stolen picture worth a thousand stolen words? UPDATED

I am VERY pleased to report that the following situation is in the process of being rectified.  As you'll see in the comments below, author Jillian Eaton is correcting the photo credit for the cover of her book.  I thought about taking this whole post down, but decided to leave it as a reminder to ALL AUTHORS that the people who create our covers are artists, too, and deserve full credit for their contributions.  I'm also leaving it as an example of how gracious someone can be in admitting a mistake.  We all make them; the first step to fixing them is to admit it.

Thank you, Jillian.





This breaks my heart.

Please note the dreamstime.com watermark at the bottom of this photo.  If you go there, you'll find that the photo is copyrighted by Konradbak.  A little bit of research will tell you Konrad Bak is a Polish photographer.  His pictures are available at Dreamstime, at Shutterstock, at iStock, at 123rf, and a bunch of other royalty-free stock photo sites.

Now look at this:

That pretty much gives you the information as to where this is from.  I don't think I need to add the link.

And if you "look inside" that Kindle edition, you'll find this:

"Cover art photography courtesy of Helena Beumer.  All rights reserved."

Well, at least it didn't say (c) Helena Beumer. . . . .

Photography is covered by copyright protections, too.  I know most writers don't want their words stolen, but shouldn't they be a little more respectful of their fellow artists?