NPR's 100 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

[Deb]

John wrote: "It works both ways. I recall an author telling a story about his US publisher being contacted by an irate fan of the the author. A book that had been published in the US as by Marilyn Ross had had ..."

That is a funny story; it seems these cases are diminishing with internet which I am grateful for having fallen into some of the pitfalls in the past....

[Rion]

So I have a question to pose to this group and perhaps even the author of this review about Baxter's Voyage book. I recently was looking for new books to read as I often do and came across this review. H. Honsinger's review After reading the review I thought to myself, how dare Baxter plagiarize to such an extent and it immediately made me think, boycott the bastard. Then I found the book said to be plagiarized called Apollo: The Race To The Moon and immediately realized that it was non fiction, where Baxter's book is clearly fiction. It seems that Baxter most likely read The Race To the Moon, either while doing research for his book, or came up with the premise for his book while reading this historical account of the Apollo mission.

The question is this. If in the interest of making his story seem as real as possible, how far over the line did Baxter go by paraphrasing the actual events according to Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox. Would a simple acknowledgement by Baxter that he used their book to make his story as real as possible be enough? Or do Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox have cause to sue Baxter over the plagiarism? Provided, it already hasn't happened and my research is inadequately presumptuous.

[Deb]

I don't think it is plagiarism if he used a factual account of real events as a basis of a work of fiction. It could have been breach of copyright laws if 'Apollo' was under copyright.

A local university has issued a formal statement about academic integrity "Plagiarism is the act of misrepresenting as one's own original work, the ideas, interpretations, words or creative works of another. "

So if he was using a factual account for factual information it would not really be a creative work. Although, that said, at the very least it would at least have been the courteous thing to do to give credit to the book if it was a serious research tool in writing the novel.

[Kirsten]

Deborah wrote: "Anna wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Question.... 'Kraken wars'? Really? I have always known it as Kraken Wakes?"

Typo. I am forever over-caffeinated and sleep-deprived 3:-)"

AH! I sympathise with the sl..."

I remember hearing once that Wyndham was the first environmental disaster novelist.

[Trike]

Rion wrote: "So I have a question to pose to this group and perhaps even the author of this review about Baxter's Voyage book. I recently was looking for new books to read as I often do and came a..."

If those quotes are accurate, that's a plain case of plagiarism. It's not WHAT happens in the story, it's the SPECIFIC EXPRESSION of what happens that is protected by copyright. Those paragraphs alone would be the basis of a lawsuit.

That said, winning the case all depends on the lawyer and the judge. Dan Brown clearly used the ideas of the non-fiction book Holy Blood, Holy Grail for his bestseller The Da Vinci Code, but he didn't copy what they said or how they phrased it, therefore he wasn't punished.

[Anna]

Rion wrote: "The question is this. If in the interest of making his story seem as real as possible, how far over the line did Baxter go by paraphrasing the actual events according to Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox. ..."

[*putting on lawyer hat*]

One book is non-fiction, researched and drawn from the actual mission reports from the Apollo missions. The mission reports themselves are public information, freely available under the Freedom of Information Act because We The People already paid for those reports with our tax dollars (or our parents did).

It all depends on whether Baxter was inspired by that book to do some of his own research into those mission reports, or even used the chronology to come up with his own fiction story. Both would be okay. However, if in the course of his book he cut-and-pasted entire paragraphs out of that book of the authors ORIGINAL material (not the citations from the mission reports themselves or the chronology, but their own unique interpretation of what those mission reports meant) then it would be plagiarism.

i.e., if you want to write an alternate history novel about time-travelling aliens touching down in Valley Forge with George Washington to alter the course of the American Revolution, you are free to crack open your old U.S. History & Government textbook from high school and copy away the chronology of everything George Washington did as the outline for you novel to then have the aliens muck it up. You are writing FICTION. However, if the U.S. History textbook has impressions such as "we think this was a major turning point because... blah blah blah original concept about why the authors think George Washington's horse throwing a shoe altered the course of the American revolution" and then you cut and paste that lengthy paragraph, verbatim, into your fiction novel, you might be liable for a copyright infringement. But if you restate that same idea in your own words, you are clear.

You cannot claim ownership to a CONCEPT. I'm taking a screenwriting class, and one of the things they tell us is to keep our concepts held close to the chest because if somebody decides to write about it, there is no copyright. It's the execution of the concept which is copyrightable.

[*throwing boring lawyer hat back in the drawer*]

Hope this helps?

[R.]

Anna wrote: "Rion wrote: "The question is this. If in the interest of making his story seem as real as possible, how far over the line did Baxter go by paraphrasing the actual events according to Charles Murray..."

An interesting sidelight on this is that, to demonstrate what happens, Holly Lisle threw out a an idea on the old "Forward Motion" writing site and asked as many people as possible to post a treatment of it. No two were even vaguely similar.

Incidentally this happened in the early days of the Jane project, and the end result of the idea was "Arcturian Grand Opera" which occasionally turns up in the stories.

[Trike]

Anna wrote: "then you cut and paste that lengthy paragraph, verbatim, into your fiction novel, you might be liable for a copyright infringement. But if you restate that same idea in your own words, you are clear."

You should read those selections. He straight-up copied the exact words. If it were me, I would've sued him. And won.

[Anna]

Well if it was -that- egregious, then by all means, sue and win. There's no need to plagiarize. I haven't read that particular book, so I wouldn't know.