Adding Criminal Law and Procedure to Your Fiction: Part III
The Courtroom—Guilty Plea and Trial Welcome to Part III of Adding Criminal Law and Procedure to Your Fiction. See Part I for a discussion of search warrants and exceptions to the warrant requirement, and Part II for stop &...
Creative Theft – Plagiarism vs. Copyright Infringement
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.” The quote is widely attributed to Picasso. Most likely, the idea existed before Picasso made it famous. The literature is littered with much older discussions of how artistic theft...
Prose, Plots, and Plagiarism — How To Avoid Literary Theft
Steal a plot. Crib a phrase. Imitate someone’s prose. I often hear this advice in my writing communities. And every time, that old high school taboo stored in the rafters of my brain screeches, “That’s plagiarism!” I understand...
Plots, Prose And Plagiarism In Fiction – Four Things Every Writer Should Know About Literary Theft
In my writing circles over the years, I often heard advice encouraging writers to steal a plot, use a phrase, or mimic someone’s prose. And every time, that taboo I learned in high school and stored in the rafters of my brain...
Do-It-Yourself Copyright Protection
Sooner or later, every blogger and writer suffers that dreadful moment of finding his work stolen. Either websites are offering free downloads of his books or blog scrapers are reposting material without permission. Content theft...