The author is Rachel Ann Nunes. Get her account of the bizarre events here.
When is it okay to copy/paste an author's work, change the point of view to First Person, add a lot of smut, send out tons of ARCs to get glowing reviews, and schedule the book to be published? Actually, I must qualify that to say "published in the US," because the fraudulent work was already for sale in the UK (See Rachel's blog post for evidence).
I answer: NEVER!This is never okay.
Adapting an idea or a story from Shakespeare or Jane Austen to give it a contemporary update or to add a twist aka the mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith, is totally different.
Stealing an author's work is criminal behavior. We must take a stand against such corruption. Author Danyelle Ferguson has posted avatars/buttons in her photo album "Awareness" that you may use on your Facebook profile and elsewhere. Many Facebook inhabitants and bloggers are spreading the word about this theft of intellectual property. I urge you to help in quashing malevolent tendencies and/or outright ignorance by sharing your opinions about plagiarism on your blogs, Facebook, or whatever social media you employ.
Thank you!
Everything about this situation is just so sad. It's one thing to do something wrong...and then own up to it, apologize, make amends, and learn from the mistake. It's quite another to refuse to even acknowledge the wrongdoing. That's the part that I really don't understand. How can that person deny what he/she did to Rachel?
ReplyDeleteAs the bard would say though Aye there's the rub. What was just simple I heard somewhere and liked it. Hard to pin down malicious intent in plagiarizing. I'm not endorsing it or excusing it, just wondering about the malicious intent.
ReplyDelete