In Warren's Words

Plagiarism

For any writer, plagiarism is a nasty word. It is an accusation that you have stolen someone’s creative work and inserted it verbatim into your own, passing it off as your own original creation. 

Somehow that concept has been skewered by lawsuits that have expanded the plagiarism idea to include descriptions of places, observations and processes cited by others in books and publications. Thus the novelist Ian McEwan is accused in a lawsuit in the UK of plagiarism, for using observations and descriptions of surgical procedures that appeared in another person’s book. Indeed, he acknowledged in the book in question titled “Atonement” that he had used the writer’s book in his research.

The implications of such a lawsuit are chilling to those of us writers who research for the observations, backgrounds and authenticity written in works by other authors. We are not even talking about wholesale lifting of word-for-word material here; authors who write fiction, biographies, and non-fiction works of history must be panicked.

Of course anyone can sue anyone, especially if there is money involved, and the author being sued has struck it rich. Most of these suits seem to be about getting a piece of the action, meaning money. I will acknowledge, of course, that an author has every right to protect the integrity of his word for word composition and the originality of his expression.

An author has every right to protect the integrity of his word for word composition and the originality of his expression.

I believe implicitly in the integrity of the copyright system. Creating original intellectual property is hard and exacting work. One should own the fruits of one’s labor for a period of time and should be allowed to pass this possession on to one’s heirs.

But some have argued that since creative artists and writers do not create in a vacuum, they are more like gatherers than originators. Thankfully, this is a minority view, and I hope it stays that way.

Unfortunately, it is not only published original material that is at risk, but also the ideas spawned in the novelist’s mind through normal conversation and social intercourse. I offer my own experience as a cautionary tale:

During my six-year stay in Los Angeles, I was friendly with a number of old-time comedians who had come up through the Catskill Mountain “tummler” route. A "tummler” is a Yiddish expression that denotes someone who was employed by the Catskill resort owners to keep the guests laughing. They put on shows, mingled and kibitzed with the guests and created the fun and hilarity that added to the pleasure of the mostly Jewish patrons of these resorts.

As a child, I had gone with my parents to these places, and as a parent, I took my children. It was part of the vacation routine of that era, and holds a rich and happy place in my memory. Most of the stand-up comedians that later became famous on television and the movies had started out as Catskill tummlers, and during my stay in Los Angeles I met many of them. One or two became friends. Indeed, they never tired of telling anyone who would listen about their experiences tummeling in the Catskills during the thirties, forties and fifties. Since I knew the turf, I loved hearing the anecdotes. It was a marvelously colorful period and had long been nourished in my mind as a possible subject for a novel.

It is not only published original material that is at risk, but also the ideas spawned in the novelist's mind through normal conversation and social intercourse.

Another germ of an idea that had bounced around in my mind was to write a book about gangsters that were legendary in the neighborhood in which I spent my formative years – Brownsville, Brooklyn. I lived around the corner from what was reputed to be the headquarters of “Murder Inc.,” a candy store in which a telephone call would dispatch a hit man.

For whatever reason, I decided while I lived in LA that the moment was ripe to write a book that combined the story of a tummler with Murder Inc. The plot line was based on the fact that many of the Jewish gangsters of time would park their wives, girlfriends and children in a Catskill resort during the summer, leaving them there for the week while they pursued their gangster activities in the city, returning to the resorts on weekends to be with their families. In my story, the tummler falls in love with the hit man’s girlfriend.

Using the facilities of the Santa Monica library, I spent hours of research on backgrounds and events of the era, and wrote the book.

It was immediately optioned as a manuscript for very high numbers by a Hollywood producer connected with a major studio, and was featured on the front page of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. I hadn’t even submitted it a publisher.

Then, splat. One of many people with whom I had associated with who had tummler experience contacted a high-powered, mean-minded lawyer, and threatened to sue me for – what else – “stealing his life.”

I was appalled. This was serious business. The lawyer, on behalf of his client, was asking for half the proceeds of whatever was earned from the book, movie and beyond. There is nothing worse than being the victim of such an obvious fraud, except that defending such a travesty in court would be time consuming and expensive. I had neither the time, inclination nor resources to go through such a trauma. Nevertheless, for a modest settlement, a form of legal blackmail, I got this man to stand down.

The experience took the wind out of my sails, and when the movie option expired, never produced, I made little effort to get the book published. This was fifteen years ago. It has taken me all that time to get up the energy and enthusiasm to finally submit the book to potential publishers.

The issue here is a challenge to originality and creative freedom. I can understand word-for-word, deliberate stealing of another person’s work, but observations and ideas that are triggered in a writer’s mind by reading and social intercourse, and transformed into original art by a unique mind, must be protected at all costs. 

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