Soon after the court settled a claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh that Dan Brown had plagiarised from their books The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, comes news that our own southie hotshot novelist in Harward was neither novel nor original. She had filched heavily from Chick Lit (imagine a Chick Lit [that juvenile writing genre] writer being copied) writer McCafferty's novel "Sloppy First."
The court ruled that copyright only applied to the expression of an idea and not the idea itself. Meaning Dan Brown could write about the secret life of Jesus as long as he didn't directly steal words from Baigent and Leigh.
In the Kavya example, McCafferty writes on page 6 of her novel “Sloppy Firsts” :
“Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart. Guess which one I got. You’ll see where it’s gotten me.”
See how Kavya Vishwanathan twisted it:
“Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart. Guess which one I got. You’ll see where it’s gotten me.”
More similarities in the passages can be found at The Crimson.
Nice case of plagiarism isn't it? Now before I contribute my mite to the plagiarism controversy, I must confess I got this through Zigzackly and Hurree the Grumpy Old Bookman.
Kavya Vishwanathan | Dan Brown | Da Vinci Code |
1 comment:
Ok. For those of you who haven’t heard yet Kavya Vishwanathan is a 19 year old Indian author of ‘ ”How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” . She made news all over the world a couple of years back when she got picked up at 17 for about half a mill. This young Harvard graduate could do no wrong. That is until her book got published. Turns out Kavya is extremely good at using copy and paste on her keyboard. Yes ,she plagiarized (thats stole for you non nerds) entire passages from Megan McCafferty’s books.
This is just plain wrong and disturbing. Not only did she did a disservice to herself but to the entire community. This sets us Indians back a few years but then we are pretty resilient people. We will bounce back.
Here is the more interesting parts of the fallout from dear Kavya’s story. Newscasters all over the world picked up the story and started banging on this . THAT is where my frustrations come in.
I saw a story on BBC usa and on a German channel which says that ’stealing’ is wrong.
OK.
Did I fucking miss something ? Since when did the brits start telling Indians that stealing is wrong ? Did you guys give back the Mayurasana ? You guys still owe us the receipt on the Kohinoor ? What about all the spices that you borrowed from us ? Do I even want to talk about how you fueled the Chinese opium dens ? So excuse me when my blood boils when I hear an English accent go on and on about the sins of stealing. All I have to say is ‘Hey Limey, practice what you preach or SHUT THE HELL UP’.
Next is the Germans. Listen Gunter , give me the swastika back first. You guys as a race took what was a holy symbol of welcome in India and turned it into one of the MOST HATED symbols in the world. Listen Gerhard Scrotum, let us see you make an effort to replace the swastika with a smiley face - then , maybe then would I take a page and write about Kavya.
I am NOT defending Kavya . What she did was wrong and hurtful . I bust my ass at a day job and try to do standup at night all the while trying to take care of my lovely wife and oncoming child. Try writing a joke at lunch when the supposed office clown tries to peer in your notebook and offer suggestions hoping for a wee bit of fame that escapes his pathetic lonely life. Try doing a controversial joke and see the audience wince as the filter of political correctness annihilates the funny . I work hard and I guess Kavya did too. I haven’t personally read the book but I hear its 200 pages long. Not ALL of it could have been stolen. But will it matter. Sorry Kavya baby, you have just above the required level of melanin content for it not to matter.
Sincerely,
Tapan Trivedi - www.indiancomedian.com
http://tinyurl.com/omelp
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