Plagiarism

History

The word plagiarism is derived from the Latin word for kidnapping, and thus carries connotations of literary theft. It was applied to writing gradually after the European discovery of move-able type facilitated the notion of authorship. Early American newspapers liberally copied from European periodicals and from one another, although often crediting their sources. Plagiarism did not become an issue until the mid-1800s, after newspapers became major commercial ventures that fought for scoops and promoted the value of their individual writers to differentiate themselves from competitors, at a time when most U.S. cities of any size had multiple newspapers. As appearance of originality created market value, newspapers had a financial incentive to minimize attribution, camouflage copying through paraphrasing, and steal if necessary. Pinching was so rampant that in the late 1800s, as Fedler retells, a Chicago newspaper set a trap by publishing a story with a fictional proclamation in an obscure language that, read backwards, said, “The McMullens will steal this for sure.” They did, and the plagiarism was exposed. In reaction to the excesses of cutthroat sensationalism, journalists banded together to create a training school at the University of Missouri in 1908 and formed the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1922 in part to establish ethical principles. As professional standards were applied to the craft of journalism, plagiarism became unacceptable, though not eliminated. Time magazine began in 1923 by rewriting stories clipped from newspapers, before adding its own correspondents. Even in the 1970s, a cadre of newspaper columnists across the nation regularly sent copies of their published writings to each other with the understanding that they were free to reuse as they pleased. Foreign correspondents cribbed from local papers into the 1980s. But generally, these were notable exceptions to plagiarism prohibitions.

The Supreme Court addressed journalistic plagiarism in 1918. The Associated Press complained that a rival news organization, William Randolph Hearst's International News Service, was filching AP copy and distributing it as its own. The court ruled that a news organization could not claim property rights simply by being the first to report on an event. Instead, the court ruled that the AP was a victim of unfair business practices because International News Service was “endeavoring to reap where it has not sown.” The justices concluded that using a competitor's story as a tip to independently produce a new version but systematically rewriting someone else's work was misappropriation. The decision did not use the word plagiarism and its practical effect was to establish a relatively [Page 1075]high bar for when copying became illegal. Still, the ruling established the “quasi property” value of journalism and affirmed the prevailing idea that plagiarism was wrong.

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