How to sell your writing without getting sued

Plagiarism is tough to define, but an easy accusation to hurl against writers. Right now, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is accused of stealing her wizardly ideas. A cookbook scribe is suing The View’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck, claiming Hasselbeck pinched her words about Celiac’s disease. But try to find a definition of plagiarism.

What a plagiarism accusation looks like

The family of an obscure writer says Rowling modelled Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire after their relative’s original work about Willy the Wizard.  A Reuter’s wire release reports that Bloomsbury, Rowling’s British publisher, retorted, “The allegations of plagiarism made today…by the Estate of Adrian Jacobs are unfounded, unsubstantiated and untrue.”

As for Hasselbeck, cohost of ABC’s The View, cookbook author Susan Hassett claims she provided a copy of her self-published book to Hasselbeck a while back. Reuters quotes Hassett saying Hasselbeck is guilty of “word-for-word regurgitations.”   That’s a close approximation of plagiarism definitions.

Check Roget’s Dictionary to learn plagiarism is, “The unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own work.”

How plagiarism is interpreted and how it relates to copyrights

Researching plagiarism and copyrights, you will become confused. It depends on the setting, who’s making the call, and what remedies are assigned. Read U.S. copyright law, its specifies what constitutes violations of and how to prevent violations.

Facts from the Feds:

• Copyright does not (emphasis added) protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work.
• Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
• A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.
• Copyright law does not protect domain names.
• Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

But look into academia and you’ll find more interpretation and embellishment – words like imitation or ideas and themes creep in. Educational institutions create their own standards. You might expect that enrolling at such an institution or being hired by a company with its own plagiarism standards obligates you to abide by them or risk expulsion or dismissal. Could you fight in court if  borrowing someone else’s concept smacked you in the posterior? Only a lawyer would know.

Admonishments from academic circles:

• “Simply put, plagiarism is the use of another’s original words or ideas as though they were your own.” –Plagiarism.org
• “In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledg­ing its source.”–Council of Writing Program Administrators

Note the references to ideas, language, or other material. These don’t appear in copyright laws.

How plagiarism is defined in paid and freelance writing

According to an article called, What Is Plagiarism: Plagiarism takes many different forms in…the world of freelance writing. Here are some of the most common forms of intellectual property theft.

• Tweaking sentences so they appear to be different but represent the same ideas
• Presenting work as your own that should be cited, like results from studies
• Patching together the content from several different sources without changing the sentence structure
• Copying work from yourself and rewriting it for a separate writing assignment –What Is Plagiarism

A guide from About.com says this — ” Simply put, plagiarism (in journalism) means claiming someone else’s work is your own by putting it in your story without attribution or credit.”  — (Note the similarity to statement above from Plagiarism.org, coincidence?)

To plagiarize or not to plagiarize

In the end, the only sane thing for a writer to do is to be scrupulously ethical. If you intend to sell or submit your writing, take time to write so the material will stand the tests of time.

• Quote accurately and cite all quotes, even partial quotes. When in doubt, cite.
• When you need a source, find a principal or primary source and contact them directly. Listen to what they say.
• If you love someone’s idea or storyline, pass it on to another avid reader. Don’t adapt it to your own style and farm it off as you original work.
• If you aren’t an expert on Celiac’s disease, or you don’t know several direct experts, write about something else.
• Proofread everything you write.

If a writer must borrow extensively from others, she might consider a job in another field, like picking pockets. It’s true there’s nothing new under the sun and all plots derive from a handful of situations. But since you’re not a Rowling or a Hasselbeck and don’t have an army of lawyers, isn’t is better to know if you get sued you won’t be found guilty?

Additional reading:

All about copyrights – a three part series

How can writers make money on the web?