> Yesterday, stories came out with citations from other authors that had the same problem. And it wasn't just a turn of phrase but several sentences just modified a bit. A paragraph from the Princess Diaries was pretty closely mimicked. It seems that several publishers/authors are checking to see if they are being ripped off, and justifiably so. Now her publisher has had enough and dropped her and a newspaper she had an internship with is going back to vet her pieces to see if that was on the up and up.
>
> At first, with just the one author in the picture, I sided a lot with Dave's feelings but now that it seems to be beyond the single author, I believe there is something decaying in southern Scandinavia. One way or another, she dug herself a pretty big hole.
>

Without even going back to look, I can name at least three authors and one freaking country singer I ripped off in the novel I wrote at 17. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. There's one entire scene that I still think is (unfortunately) the best scene in the novel that I knowingly ripped off from a Stephen King story. I can read through that scene today and it *still* pisses me off that it's not really mine, because dammit, Steve-O had a great piece of work there and it really works well in the context of *my* story! Hell, I'd even go so far as to say it actually works *better* in my story because of the different relationship between the characters involved compared to the relationship between the corresponding characters in his book.

I don't think anybody should forgive and forget because she's young, or because she's a beginner, or really for any reason. What she did was wrong. What *I* did was wrong. The levels of wrongness only change because she got published and I didn't. As long as my novel remains forever buried at the bottom of a drawer somewhere, the wrongness of it is contained. If it had ever been published under my name, Stephen King would have every right to call me up and say "Yo dude, I read your book here. I couldn't help but notice that this one scene here was taken almost word-for-word from my novel _The Long Walk_. Anything you want to say to me before I sue your fat ass?"

Bottom line is that I can still empathize with what her situation *might* be. I think the "punishment" she'll inevitably get from this is harsh but ultimately fair. But I still can empathize.

-- Dave