Plagiarism

Writing in the Observer in 1980, Martin Amis took to task a young New York-based writer, Jacob Epstein, for plagiarising him. In Wild Oats, Epstein had taken not just plot structures or character ideas from Amis's debut, The Rachel Papers, but had duplicated whole sentences.  Read more

American authors are hurting. Surveys done by the Authors Guild show that the median income of authors from writing has declined 42% in the last 10 years. Well over half of full-time, published authors now earn below the individual poverty level from their writing.

Nora Roberts is one of the world's most popular authors. She's written more than 200 novels, tackled topics from romance to murder and sold more than 500m books around the world. And now she's really, really angry.  Read more

Plagiarism is always aspirational. In a wish to have someone else take their place, or supply their words, plagiarists generally steal something better than they might write themselves.  Read more

For years scholars have debated what inspired William Shakespeare's writings. Now, with the help of software typically used by professors to nab cheating students, two writers have discovered an unpublished manuscript they believe the Bard of Avon consulted to write "King Lear," "Macbeth," "Richard III," "Henry V" and seven other plays.  Read more