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Dave
Master of the Domain



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  		   Posted 5/3/2006 11:16 AM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Not sure if anyone has been following the saga of Viswanathan and How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a LIfe, but here's the final result:
 
 
If you don't know the background, news is easy enough to find by doing a few searches.
 
I chalk it up to youthful stupidity, but it's a pretty damn big stupid thing to do.

Dave
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy



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  		   Posted 5/3/2006 11:21 AM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I read about this a few days ago. What's funny is her old newspaper editor now saying they are going to go through all of her articles to make sure her sticky fingers weren't in play.... Exposing plagiarisms in writing is fun, and apparently, a new media fad?

Daniel
 

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STForstner
Acolyte



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  		   Posted 5/3/2006 11:42 AM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

The company declined to comment on whether Ms Viswanathan would have to return her reported six-figure advance.

 

I would think the answer to that is without question.

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Dave
Master of the Domain



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  		   Posted 5/3/2006 6:11 PM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Depends on teh contract. I would bet that if they didn't explicity put in something about returning in in the case of plagiarims, they'd have to take her to court. They they would probably have to prove she INTENTIONALL and WILLFULLY copied.

I bet she keeps it.

Dave
SFReader Webmaster
 
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Dragon Angel
Lord Dragon



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  		   Posted 5/3/2006 11:30 PM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
If it makes you feel any better, I seem to recall hearing that book advances are given in three different pieces. One before, one at publication, and one after. So she probably doesn't have all the money (1/2 million?)

read free fiction and poetry at http://www.geocities.com/davidolson22/index.html

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erazmus
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  		   Posted 5/4/2006 2:41 AM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
David,
No, I think that is wrong. One third on signing the contract, one third on turning in the completed manuscript and one third on turning in the complete accepted manuscript, is industry standard for a contracted novel. The book is out, so she'd have all of any advance at any rate. Thats why its called an advance.
A first novel would normally be half when the buy the manuscript and half when your editor is satisfied with the changes and its ready to go to the proofreader.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9 Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises

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nathan
Sage



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  		   Posted 5/4/2006 4:00 PM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

Somehow I don' think this is what TS Elliot meant when he said:

"Bad poets borrow, Good poets steal."

 "Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews

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STForstner
Acolyte



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  		   Posted 5/7/2006 3:41 PM (GMT -5)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
For those wishing to know more about "How Opal Mehta Got Got Kissed, Got a Book Deal and Ultimately Got pulled from store shelves", here is the Harvard Newspaper. From, what I can see, there are a couple of passages that could easily be accidental. There are several that may not be so closely defined by the term 'accidential'. Some of the stuff probably would never have been noticed if it wasn't for a couple of apparently blatant passages.
 
At least the rest of the student body seems to be having fun with it.
 
Student’s Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy

At one point, “Opal Mehta” contains a 14-word passage that appears verbatim in McCafferty’s book “Sloppy Firsts.” --Harvard Crimson
 
 
 
Go here to read the actual passages.
 
Examples of Similar Passages Between Viswanathan's Book and McCafferty's Two Novels
 
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