By Sharon Leach at the Jamaica Observer
It’s always regrettable when an artist is sued, or threatened with a lawsuit, over his or her art. By this, I don’t mean when plagiarism is justifiably established. I’m referring to those frivolous motions brought by wannabes claiming the established artist has ‘stolen’ aspects of their work.
Hence, some obscure two-bit hack who never quite made it to the big league can claim a novelist of considerable pedigree included in his or her latest work scenes closely similar to something written by the lesser writer and published in some backwoods publication most people have never even heard of, let alone read.
Another case in point: the woman who recently sued popular Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer, also for copyright infringement. Jordan Scott alleged that she wrote a vampire book, The Nocturne, while she was a teenager, passages from which, years later, she posted online. Scott alleges in her lawsuit that Meyer’s 2008 Breaking Dawn shows similarities in language, plotlines, characters, among other things. There’s something that leaves a funny aftertaste in my mouth here. Or, several things. I’ve not read either book, let me say right away. But I’ve read a couple of vampire books in my time, while I was trying to find my reading footing, I guess. It’s a genre I don’t really care for – I’m a spineless coward, a nervous Nelly; I’ll ‘see dead people’ when I turn off my lights at night – but it’s just that: genre writing.
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It’s always unfair when writers have to pay for their success this way. But there’s no such thing as bad press, and everyone tries to get in on it, unfortunately.
What do you think of these lawsuits? What would you do if it was you being accused of plagiarism?
