iCon Plagiarized?
from the and-so-it-goes dept
Last month there was some talk about Steve Jobs bizarre over-reaction to an unauthorized biography, that wasn’t actually that unkind to him (leading some to think it was all a strategy to boost sales of the book). Still, the Guardian Online’s blog points out that the author of a previous unauthorized biography is accusing the author of the latest book of lifting large sections of his book, and maybe shifting the words around slightly. While it does sound like the new author should have credited the earlier book for large sections, it reminds me of the recent discussion by Malcolm Gladwell when he discovered someone taking large portions of an article he wrote and using them in a play. It raises a lot of questions about intellectual property, and how people “build” on the work of others. That’s not to say plagiarism is okay — but the issue isn’t always as simple as it seems.
Comments on “iCon Plagiarized?”
Cite Cite Cite
People should always cite their sources. Unless you are saying something like, “I talked to [so-and-so] and they told me that…” then you need to say where you found the information.