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I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

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Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#111

Post by j4yav »

spuz wrote: post #54
tussa wrote: post #40

I still don't see how this is a crime though, I mean sure, he has a sense of inspiration and borrows sentences and phrases from somewhere. But, that doesn't mean the entire plots of his books, or the primary reason they sell is because of him stealing a few sentences from others.

There are two questions at play here: 1. How much of other people's work did Mark Dawson plagiarise in each of his books? 2. How much of other people's work would someone need to plagiarise before you consider it to be unethical? We can't answer 1. just yet, but if you are going to make a judgement about him here, at least try to give your answer for 2. The first question is a question of fact and the second question…

I guess it would be the point where it reaches copyright infringement, since plagiarism isn’t really a thing as far as I know outside of academia.

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#113

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

w0de0 wrote: post #86
tompccs wrote: post #15

Not defending the practice, but this guy writes the modern equivalent of pulp fiction. I doubt his readers care much, and he has no publisher to tick off. So what it comes down to is whether or not the people he stole from have a strong case to sue him for copyright infringement.

“The modern equivalent of pulp fiction…” is pulp fiction. It isn’t some antique term connoting a dross sui generis (as that’s an oxymoron). Pablum is literacy’s unalterable, insuperable attendant.

If we're going to be pedantic: No.

Pulp fiction was fiction written for the popular pulp magazines of the 1900s through roughly the 1960s. Those magazines don't really exist anymore. The "modern equivalent of pulp fiction" -- which is to say, the modern equivalent of writing for the pulps, writing to earn a quick buck -- is self-publishing low-effort fare on Kindle Unlimited or something similar. So the guy you were responding to made an apt comparison, IMO.

Interestingly, the pulps that are still hanging on -- like Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and like various other fiction magazines -- are today characterized by a very high standard of literary quality. On average, miles better than the self-published Kindle Unlimited stuff that rates highly (for some reason) on Amazon.

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#114

Post by kamranjon »

One of the really interesting comments in the books subreddit chain was someone who was kicked out of his 20 books to 50k group. Apparently the group was discussing the idea of using Fivrr to get content for free - I think this context makes some of these examples much more clear - someone strapped for time just copy and pasting whatever they can in to get a gig. Here is the comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/18n3wej/comment/kf...

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#115

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

j4yav wrote: post #111
spuz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two questions at play here: 1. How much of other people's work did Mark Dawson plagiarise in each of his books? 2. How much of other people's work would someone need to plagiarise before you consider it to be unethical? We can't answer 1. just yet, but if you are going to make a judgement about him here, at least try to give your answer for 2. The first question is a question of fact and the second question…

I guess it would be the point where it reaches copyright infringement, since plagiarism isn’t really a thing as far as I know outside of academia.

Genuinely asking: so if he basically copied the entirety of a Stephen king novel except he switched subject and verb ordering for all of the sentences, you don’t consider it at all unethical?

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#116

Post by ufocia »

plagiarist wrote: post #91
gigatexal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh these guys are so exhausting. My favorite was Grant Cardone — the real estate mogul who’s said he’d be ashamed if he made 400k a year. All of them and his ilk peddling this you can get rich fast stuff are disgusting.

Aren't some of these schemes actually possible but only if you are a scumbags? It's somehow always get a ballon mortgage to buy multi-family housing and raise the rents by 100%, or buy dilapidated shacks and get section 8 money while putting nothing in to improve squalid conditions.

I thought that Section 8 housing has to meet some minimum standards. Are they really that minimal?

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#117

Post by quesera »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #42
isoprophlex wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2020, Dawson's book The Cleaner reached number 8 in the Hardback Fiction section of The Sunday Times' bestseller list after he purchased 400 copies of the book, seeing it to have previously been in position number 13 The scumbaggery is endemic, not isolated to creative repurposing of other people's sentences!

That sounds more serious. That's literally fraud, unlike taking random sentences you liked from other books, which is quite benign, in my opinion.

Buying your own book is deceptive, but it's not illegal. Just sketchy gamesmanship.

This happens in the US too (esp nonfiction, and political stuff).

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#118

Post by dash2 »

burnished wrote: post #44
MattGaiser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in high school/university, they taught us that plagarism was taking even ideas and reusing them directly. Copying a sentence like that was an explicit example, even if generic. We were told that it gets suspicious at even 4 more complex words that are the same. Even reusing your own work between classes was an example of plagiarism. Plagiarism, at least as presented to me, is a very strict standard.

I know that definition of plagiarism exists in schools (how broadly I couldn't say) but it's completely incoherent and unused in any other context.

The underlying concept is using other people's ideas as your own. It's coherent and there's good reason for using it in academia, and probably also in journalism and creative writing.

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#119

Post by ufocia »

drxzcl wrote: post #31
Simon_ORourke wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in a court of law it may be more of a charge of plagiarism than outright fraud, but I get your point. And like you said, anyone who makes a career out of "how to be rich and successful at doing whatever", would probably be better off heeding their own advice and become rich and successful at doing whatever rather than yakking unendingly about it.

Plagiarism is not a legal thing. Copyright infringement is, but that’s a different beast.

Different but overlapping.

Re: I believe bestselling author Mark Dawson is a serial plagiarist

#120

Post by dash2 »

Erratic6576 wrote: post #56
MattGaiser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in high school/university, they taught us that plagarism was taking even ideas and reusing them directly. Copying a sentence like that was an explicit example, even if generic. We were told that it gets suspicious at even 4 more complex words that are the same. Even reusing your own work between classes was an example of plagiarism. Plagiarism, at least as presented to me, is a very strict standard.

I’ve heard that about self-plagiarism and I think it’s idiotic. You should be able to reuse your own sentences or ideas. Specially ideas. Which cannot be copyrighted (yet). Somebody show cage Michael Tomasello right now. Open any of his books and you’ll see a series of self-plagiarism sentences. I now think he’s just a genius because he’s investigated his field in depth

Self-plagiarism is not the same as stealing someone else's ideas, but it is still ethically wrong if you are e.g. selling an academic article to one publisher, when it is really just an already published article of yours with the title changed.
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