The Little Book of Plagiarism (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not all plagiarized authors will agree with Posner's conclusion that plagiarism is an "embarrassingly second-rate" offense, "its practitioners... pathetic," and that plagiarism should remain an ethical rather than a legal offense, punished by public shaming. But in a fascinating historical tour of the subject, he dismisses the idea that good art must be totally original. Shakespeare stole the plot of Romeo and Juliet, and Manet's Olympia is a reworking of Titian's Venus d'Urbino—both examples of what Posner calls "creative imitation." But focusing on Kaavya Viswanathan novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, Posner (Uncertain Shield), a judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and expert on intellectual property, says this was a particularly modern, market-driven form of plagiarism: Viswanathan was attempting to compete against Megan McCafferty in the chick lit market by appropriating her competitor's own words. Posner focuses a lot on student plagiarism and seems to think all students should be considered suspect; schools that don't subscribe to detection software like Turnitin, he says, are "naïve." Indeed, he believes publishers should, and will, begin to use such programs, concluding, optimistically, "We may be entering the twilight of plagiarism." It's unfortunate that Posner briefly brings politics into this important and timely discussion, superciliously accusing the so-called academic left of being "soft on plagiarism." (Jan. 16)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Legal scholar Richard Posner has written books on many newsworthy issues, including President Clinton's impeachment, the 2000 election, and 9/11. The Little Book is trademark Posner: smart, concise, elegant, topical—and a little smug. Although he never exactly excuses plagiarism, Posner does illustrate how in Shakespeare's and Rembrandt's times, the public condoned copying since it considered art a more collaborative venture than we do today. Posner, who delves into the legal, economic, and ethical implications of plagiarism, entertains with smart, pointed examples. But some of his arguments—for example, that plagiarism must be materially harmful to be considered a crime—raised questions.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (January 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037542475X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375424755
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #184,690 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Subject, Small and Accessible Book, February 8, 2007

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Plagiarism is not a legal offense in itself. Thus, you might think that Judge Richard Posner might not be the best of guides to it, even though he has written books about non-legal issues before. But plagiarism does sometimes include fraud, copyright infringement, theft, and unfair competition, issues that are clearly legal in nature. In _The Little Book of Plagiarism_ (Pantheon), Posner has turned a legal view onto the very gray areas of plagiarism, an offense that everyone thinks is bad, but which comes in many forms, each with variants that are not offenses at all. Plagiarism has been in the news a lot lately, with famous (or potentially famous) people damaged by the charge. In the digital age, plagiarism is easier, and so Posner has written a useful volume to guide logical thinking on a hot issue. It is indeed a little book, 109 pages of text, but there are plenty of big ideas here, expressed in pithy prose that calls out for re-reading just to appreciate its clarity and lack of superfluity.

People weren't always so picky. One of Posner's examples is that of Shakespeare's use of Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's description of Cleopatra's barge, which shows up in blank-verse paraphrase in _Antony and Cleopatra_. Posner includes both passages here, and it clear that Shakespeare really did borrow North, and also clear that Shakespeare's description is more colorful and fun to read. ("If this is plagiarism," jokes Posner, "we need more plagiarism.") If Shakespeare were writing today, he'd probably be in trouble for all his borrowed plots and characters. Plagiarism changes depending upon time, locale, and profession. So, how do we know when something is plagiarism and when it isn't? Posner suggests, among other things, that we evaluate the harm done. An example Posner returns to repeatedly is that of Kaavya Viswanathan whose novel _How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life_ came out in April 2006. She was a sophomore at Harvard University (Posner gives many examples from Harvard here, and maintains that plagiarism is no more common in that estimable school, just more conspicuous, and more enjoyed by the public when revealed). She got a half million dollar advance for her work and a film deal with DreamWorks. Attentive readers, however, found that there were passages that had been lifted from the work of a fellow "chick-lit" author Megan McCafferty. Viswanathan didn't do her readers any real harm; her book is as good as they found it. She didn't harm her publisher (until she was caught), and she herself brought any harmful consequences to herself. The harm is done to McCafferty, and not simply because McCafferty's words were lifted and re-used, but because by doing so, Viswanathan boosted herself up as a competitor within the chick-lit field, an unfair advantage.

So a key for finding plagiarism is finding that harm has been done, but Posner does not wish to see it among the harms dealt with by the criminal courts: "The harms it causes are too slight to warrant cranking up the costly and clumsy machinery of the criminal law", and often the harm is insufficient to crank up the civil courts, either. Viswanathan got her measure of "... disgrace, humiliation, ostracism, and other shaming penalties imposed by public opinion on people who violate social norms whether or not they are also legal norms." So did Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, and Alan Dershowitz, whose cases are examined here. That high-profile authors would risk getting caught in such thefts is something that Posner cannot explain, but he does make the case that the digital technology which makes plagiarism particularly easy these days is also going to make it more detectable. There are programs on the market like Turnitin which are doing better sleuthing for plagiarism than any professor or general reader. Thousands of colleges license the program; Harvard doesn't, and Posner accuses it of being naïve. Turnitin looks for similar passages in previous works, especially those on the web (and remember that many quotations from modern books are found on the web, even if full books are not). The program also looks for similarities within papers that have been submitted to it for inspection before. Publishers aren't themselves using such programs much yet, because they would simply rather not know beforehand, but Little, Brown lost plenty on the Viswanathan affair. Posner says, "We may be entering the twilight of plagiarism." It is a rewarding intellectual amusement to share Posner's thinking about the subject, which presents plagiarism with penetrating originality.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Plagiarism as a culturally conditioned reaction to Enlightenment individualism and market driven economy (see pgs. 64-75), January 18, 2007

By	Shaun King.com - See all my reviews

Posner is an accomplished federal judge and author. As a judge Posner adeptly distinguishes subtle differences in the way ideas are copied. What is plagiarism? - Posner asks. Posner give his full answer at the book's end: "Plagiarism is a species of intellectual fraud. It consists of unauthorized copying that the copier claims (whether explicitly or implicitly, and whether deliberately or carelessly) is original with him and the claims causes the copier's audience to behave otherwise than it would if it knew the truth" (pg. 106).
Posner not only discusses contemporary plagiarism but gives a history of the topic that places the modern version in its context. The first recorded usage of modern sense of plagiarism was in the Roman Empire by the poet Martial who claimed his work was plagiarized, Posner continues by giving additional examples which complicate our notions and require distinctions on terms such as "copy", "fraud", "plagiarism", "imitation", "copyright infringement", etc. Gathering together his ideas in the last chapter, Posner writes, "The vagueness of the concept of plagiarism should be acknowledged and thus a gray area recognized in which creative imitation produces value that should undercut a judgment of plagiarism - indeed an imitator may produce greater value than an originator, once 'originality' is understood, as it should be if we are to understand plagiarism in properly relativistic terms, just to mean difference, not necessarily creativity. In modern commercial society, which places the stamp of personality on goods both physical and intellectual for economic reasons unrelated to high culture, a verdict of plagiarism is pronounced without regard to the quality of the plagiarized original or, for that matter, of the plagiarizing copy" (pg. 108-109).

This book is short, fun, written clearly, intelligent, and a challenge. It challenges the definition of plagiarism as "literary theft" and instead emphasizes "reliance, detectability, and the extent of the market for expressive works as keys to defining plagiarism and calibrating the different types of plagiarism by their gravity" (pg. 109). Unfortunately, Posner gives us only one court case in his brief history of plagiarism (Rogers v. Koons).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Originality vs. creativity, February 6, 2007

By	hrladyship (Las Cruces, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This book is meant for a variety of readers: writers (beware), legal eagles (what is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement?), students (don't copy that Wikipedia article), professors (be careful about your student's research), etc. It is brief and to the point, yet raises several interesting questions. Do we most value originality or creativity? Posner defines the difference, although some readers may disagree with a a few bits here and there.

According to Posner, the concept of plagiarism as a bad thing is a fairly recent attitude. Shakespeare and others in the past -- from the Egyptians to the writers of the Bible -- have copied earlier works, improved on them or not, expanding the ideas and the discussion.

One concept is missing from the present discussion, however, that of "work for hire." For instance, writers are often paid to write works, fiction in particular, in a specific milieu, often under another name, without receiving public credit for that work. This may include students who do the research for a scholarly book that the professor writes (but I would not think the same holds true if the student does the actual writing and credit should be given, of course). Posner also states that plagiarism is more of a problem for students than professors. Given the "publish or perish" mentality of universities in hiring and granting tenure to professors, it would seem that plagiarism could become more and more of a temptation.

Beginning with the young "chick lit" author whose work was full of copied sections, working through scholarly writers, many instances of being caught are cited. Posner, like the news media, places greater emphasis on the fiction rather than the scholarly. The young Harvard student was virtually pilloried in the press. The only plagiarism in scholarly work that came close to being so condemned, was that of Stephen Ambrose. Most professors caught plagiarizing are forgiven by their institutions and, it would seem, the public.

It is important to consider this problem especially in light of the new software being used by universities that can identify plagiarism, access to virtually any written work via the Internet, and the ability for the news media and others to identify stolen work. There are some who espouse the idea that all creative work should be "open source." The possibilities are numerous.