Quote:
Originally Posted by sunflowergirl68
I definitely agree and understand everything that you said, but just one question: wouldn't they have to prove that Meyer had actually, in fact, read The Nocturne? Because if she hadn't read it, then she couldn't have plagiarized from it. If it was a popular book, I think it would have been easier to prove.
Not at all, because how exactly would one prove she has read any book, even a very, very popular one?
In essence the proof is in the number of similarities. Can coincidence explain the similarities or are there so many similarities that coincidence is not a likely explanation? Whis is the most reasonable explanation, coincidence or having access to the source material.
Of course the source material being obscure makes coincidence more likely, but how much more likely? Again, it will depend upon how many and how striking the similarities, and that will all have to be taken into account. Now, if they find the book at the local library in the town where the newer author resides, that is a piece of evidence that would work in favor of the possibility of plagiarism. If they subpoena library records and find out the newer author checked out the book, that's more evidence. If she wrote a fan letter, or belonged to a book club that discussed the book, or if she told a friend or blogged about the book...... countless pieces of evidence can come into play that she had access to the book - but it can boil down to how many similarities are there. Are there too many similarities to reasonably conclude that she did not in any way have contact with that book?
For example, if I write a relatively long poem that's published in my high school literary magazine (about 1200 students each year, and only a small fraction buy or read the literary magazine/ When I was a student we rarely broke 200 copies) and an identical poem shows up on a teenager's website 20 years later, what is the most likely explanation - that the 19 year old came up with an identical poem coincidentally, or that she somehow had access to my poem?
The number of similarities is actually part of the evidence that she did in fact have access to the original work. The jury (or judge) has to decide which is the more logical explanation. Of course the liklihood that she had access to the book is considered, but it's only one factor. There doesn't have to be proof that she read the book, only that it is a more reasonable explanation for the similarities than coincidence.
As a one-time vampire-fiction fan myself (actually I now prefer werewolf fiction), and having met many vampire-fiction fans as fanatical (pun intended) as myself, I know that there's a large number of us who hunt down the books in our genre. About 20 years ago, I was so into vampire fiction, that obscure or not, if it was a vampire romance, I was more likely than not to have read it, and 90% likely to have the plot summary in the database I used to compile a listing of vampire books I had read, and wanted to read. I even bought out-of-print issues of "Romantic Times" magazine as resource materials (and copied the plot summaries into the listing). It printed out to about 30 pages, and I'd take the listing with me to used bookstores in search of the ones that I wanted most (I used a five star system).
Sound crazy? Yeah, well I got the idea from other sci-fi/fantasy/paranormal fans (and even bought another woman's list to add to mine). I also subscribed to several fanzines and romance review magazines. Again, it will boil down to which is the more likely explanation coincidence or plagairism. It's not at all impossible, or even unlikely that an obscure out-of-print novel (especially one that was actually published) would not be well-known by a fan of the genre. In fact, I knew many people who also voraciously read material submitted to writer's groups, fan fiction groups, fanzines (in print or online).... Obscure doesn't mean what it used to.
By the way, the poem incident did happen to me, though the girl didn't try to pass the poem off as her own, she listed me as the author of the poem (I only found it by googling my own name).
I emailed her, because I thought it was so cool, and asked where she'd read my poem, because there weren't that many options (I thought maybe she'd found it in her parents' stuff and that one of her parents might be an old friend), but it turns out that she had been a student at the high school I graduated from, and was on the literary magazine staff (as I had been) and that the mentor for the magazine was the same teacher I had had, and she'd read all the old literary magazines and had loved the poem and illustration (the illustration was drawn by a boy I was dating at the time, brought back a lot of memories).
Sadly, I may have creeped her out, because she removed my poem from her website soon after. Or she may just have outgrown the poem. It was a really dorky poem (the title was "The Unicorn," and I don't remember all of it, but it was five or six stanzas and the first line was "Out of fantasy he's born, the proud and valiant unicorn," and the last line was "Who dwells in reality, is it I or is it he?) Yeah, super dorky (anyone wanting to plagiarize is free to, blegh).