Plagiarism and the Law

This is making me angry, so I have to get it off my chest. Here is a blog about one author’s struggle with a plagiarist http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/11/prweb12348653.htm and the part I find hard to take is this statement by New York Times bestselling author David Farland, “The legal system considers plagiarism to be a civil matter rather than criminal.”

Why isn’t it a criminal offense?

We’re not talking about some lazy kid slapping their name on someone else’s term paper or essay for an easy A, we’re essentially talking about a forger stealing someone else’s hard-earned paycheck and cashing it. How is that not criminal?

I mean honestly, if a man took a log in one hand and knife in the other and spent hours, days, weeks, months, maybe even years little by little turning that log into a sculpture then once it’s in its final form the man sands all the rough places. After that he takes a palette of paints, adding color to his creation, and finally he takes the time to add a layer or two of varnish to make it shine, only to have someone else come along, take the piece, change the paint job a little, claim it’s his creation and sell it.

Would anyone argue that wasn’t a crime? Of course not! It is a crime.

So how is that different from a man sitting in front of a computer and spending hours, days, weeks, months, maybe even years word by word filling the screen with a story of thousands of words. Then after all that, he goes through the whole manuscript several times, first fixing the grammatical errors, next tweaking the details, and other times to fix problems with the characters, and another time to work on the story flow, and on and on for up to a dozen or more revisions.

Only to have some unscrupulous cretin take all that work and effort, make a few minor changes, slap his name on it, and sell it! How is that not the same crime as stealing a sculpture and selling it as your own work? 

Do you honestly think authors don’t go through all those steps to create a novel?

Think again!

And I’d like to see any creative person have their creation stolen by someone else, and that someone then sells said work as their own and not cry foul. It is wrong. It is stealing. I mean, really, just look at the words the Thesaurus says you can use instead of plagiarism.

Stealing

Bootlegging

Piracy

Fraud

Theft

Thieving

And finally:

Illegal use

Those are all crimes! Why isn’t plagiarism?

I think every artist in the world will agree with me that this is not right and needs to be changed. Do you?

I would also hope everyone who agrees would help Rachel Ann Nunes pay her legal fees. This just isn’t right.

DOUBLE VISION

Last week I was on Facebook and saw a couple of videos of young kids, toddlers or younger, reacting to seeing twins for the first time. One was a little girl, toddler, reacting to meeting her father’s twin brother.

Since my sister and I can’t see each other every day because of distance, we’ve had some experience with this reaction. I had two daughters, both under three, when my sister and her husband were able to come visit us at my house. (We’d seen each other a couple of years before at our Dad’s place.)

When my sister walked in it was fun watching the kids look back and forth between the two of us trying to figure out what they were seeing. My older girl, who was pushing three, had actually met my sister at our Dad’s place. Her eyes got big but she accepted my introduction. She was then and always has been a very friendly girl, though a bit shy at first. She had no problems with her Aunt Bonnie.

Now, my younger daughter hated strangers. In fact if she couldn’t see Mommy well then she better have Daddy, or Grandma Sharon (all of which she lived with). Anyone else and she’d scream like a banshee until I picked her up again, and I mean for hours on end without stopping. And she’d probably start screaming for both Sharon and her daddy if I didn’t show up fast enough. So I held her for her first meeting with her Aunt Bonnie. And like all babies, the sight of two faces so similar confused her, but she had mom and was fine.

Then at one point during Bonnie’s visit I needed to run errands and left Bonnie with the kids while my baby was asleep, but I hurried concerned she’d wake up and start her banshee impersonation. However, when I got home I found my kids on the couch with their aunt Bonnie reading a story to them, and my baby was fine.

I avoided the couch and did some chores that needed done while I had the reprieve. And it lasted until my daughter got hungry. At which time she got really upset when she realized the woman holding her didn’t have anything to feed her.

But, besides the people she lived with, Bonnie was the first person who could take care of that particular daughter without earplugs. The next person who walked into her life who ever managed that ended up becoming her favorite uncle.

Anyway, it’s fun watching kids react to seeing two of the same person for the first time. And their confusion can be hilarious if one of those twins is someone they see all the time and the other one isn’t. Kind of reminds me of the incident in eighth grade when the Neilson boy, started talking to me outside our fourth period classes (which were across the hall from each other) and while I was trying to figure out why he would even talk to me Bonnie walked up all happy because we were actually being nice to one another.

He gasped. “There’s two of you!”

At which point I saw the Neilson boy walk into his fourth period class down the hall. “That’s nothing. There’s two of you too.” Which solved the problem of why Bonnie liked him and I didn’t, and apparently solved the same issue for the two of them.

Happy Holidays

Dang, I have been so busy writing, finishing my Christmas shopping, and wrapping presents, I totally forgot to write a blog.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Tribute

I know I normally write about twins and being twins but as I sit down to write this I’m thinking about the loss of someone near and dear to my family. Rusty walked into our lives several years ago when my husband spotted him walking the streets near our son’s school, clearly homeless. Jerry called him over to the car and he hopped right in and into our lives.

He walked into our house and greeted all family members, with and without fur, with an attitude of, “Oh, you live here. Well, I live here now too.” He wasn’t domineering. He didn’t try to boss or take over. He recognized Lani, our oldest and only female pet, was the leader of the fur covered family members, and he took an immediate shine to Jerry, understandable since he is the one who rescued him.

We called him Rusty Bear. Rusty because of the color of his fur and Bear because he sure looked like one. But he was the sweetest, gentlest one in the bunch, unless you got his paws. He had no collar and we had our vet check him for a chip. He had none. We posted notices everywhere and no one called. We tried finding him a home but before long we knew, he was ours for good.

He loved long walks and the kids said people in the neighborhood would move to the other side of the street when they saw him coming and often ask the kids, my girls especially, if they were sure they had a firm grip on his leash. The thing is, if you dropped his leash he’d stop in his tracks, unless he could see our front door, then he’d just go home. The only person he ever terrified is my sister-in-law and I half suspect he barked at her like that because she was drunk.

And even though all the pets are allowed on the furniture, he never did. He’d get on the couch for maybe two seconds. His preferred place to sleep was by the front door.

He loved human food and eating meant getting a wet nose nudging your arm as he asked for his share. We tried to get him to learn “Sit”, but he was never very patient and it had to be repeated several times during a meal. More than once I got frustrated with him and had him banned to the back yard so I could finish in peace.

Then again when he just wanted attention you could end up with a wet nose on you or he’d rub his head against you. Other than Lani, the one pet he got along with the best was Tiger, our cat. They were always rubbing against each other and he was the one dog Tiger got along with the best.

From the start He’d have problems with throwing up occasionally, then recently Jerry noticed he wasn’t as energetic as usual. He took Rusty on a short walk and it was too long for a dog who normally loves going for at least an hour. Then he threw up several times in one night.

A trip to the vet showed he lost a great deal of weight over the last month. After several tests we finally found it was a large tumor.

So on Sunday November 30, 2014 Rusty Bear Enos peacefully went to sleep in the arms of his dad (Jerry). He will be greatly missed by his whole pack (with and without fur).

Yin and Yang 2

My memories of grade school were of always protecting Konnie, however, I never thought her shyness would cause me any difficulties once we entered junior high. Though honestly, I didn’t really experience any glitches in seventh grade, since that year, the only guy who ever talked to me in the halls was the president of the student body who, for some strange reason took a liking to me on sight.

He just didn’t realize until around the middle of the year that two girls were ignoring his come ons. But I didn’t have a problem.

The first time I realized I had a problem with Konnie’s shyness was in eighth grade. That wasn’t until several months into the school year when I entered my third period class and a ninth grade boy in that class didn’t say hi to me for the first time all year. For next several days, every time I tried to catch his eye, he looked away.

I so wanted to know what was wrong, but my fourth period class was completely at the other end of the three-story building, I barely had enough time to make it to class before the tardy bell rang, and I never saw Greg (the guy in third period) at any other time during the day.

Then, a few days later, instead of fourth period, there was an assembly. Since there was no fear of a tardy bell, I stopped him before he left the class, and asked why he was mad at me.

He told me that he’d seen me in the halls the other day and he said hi, but I ignored him. I looked him in the eye and said, “When and where?” worried I had inadvertently not seen my friend.

He told me between sixth and seventh period down by the gym. I sighed with relief. “That wasn’t me.”

“It was too. I swear!”

I told him exactly where my sixth and seventh period classes were, both on the opposite end of the building as the gym. He repeated that he was sure he saw me; I smiled and said, “I’m a twin. And she has gym seventh period.”

He groaned and apologized.

After school that day was the first time I gave Konnie my, “If a guy says hi, say hi back because I might know him,” speech. And I really enjoyed moving to that smaller school in ninth grade simply because everyone knew both of us, there was no chance of her offending some guy friend of mine, and I didn’t have to worry about Konnie roaming the halls. Then we moved.

Fortunately, none of the guys at this school took offense by me apparently ignoring them. They asked me why sometimes I smiled and said hi while other times I looked down, blushing.

I told them, “That wasn’t me.”

They didn’t want to believe me, but a couple of friends who knew us from church were present for that conversation, and they backed me up, which started the discussion on how to tell us apart. I said, “If the one you see says hi back, it’s me, if she doesn’t say hi —”

And on of our church friends said, “You both say hi to me!”

“She knows you!”

“Well, how do I tell you apart?”

“Jeez, you see us together first thing in the morning. Figure it out!”

Anyway, despite it being a bigger school, I didn’t notice any huge problems with how shy Konnie was, but all that taught me one thing. If someone I’m sure I don’t know says hi as if they know me, I ask them how they think they know me.

And I’ve got a few fun stories of doing just that.

Anyway, that’s what being a twin is like for me.

Yin and Yang

The one saving thing for me growing up was having my twin by my side most of the time. Then we hit middle school, with different classes and very few of them together. For the first time in my life I had to navigate the halls of school on my own.

And this is where we first ran into a big problem.

I would walk down the hallway blithely ignoring greetings from strangers, guys, because I was far too shy to talk to them only to have Bonnie later come up and bop me on the head because I’d ignored a friend of hers.

I don’t remember such incidences in eight grade then in ninth grade we moved to a small school. The minute we walked in the entire student body knew there were two of us so we had no problems with mix ups until we moved again.

This last school was the largest yet. Here I handled it the same way I had in seventh grade, much to Bonnie’s dismay. I simply ignored greetings from any guys I didn’t know. So when her friends asked why sometimes she ignored them she had to respond. “Those times it wasn’t me.”

Of course by then she’d already given me the ‘if a guy you don’t know says hi to you he’s probably my friend so say hi,’ lecture several times. I never did.

Then there was the previously mentioned incident in P.E. class where my friend asked how to tell us apart.

After thinking about it a moment, I said, “Well, if you know her and see one of us in the hallway and say hi and get no response you have me. And if you know me and see one of us in the hallway,” I paused. “Well, you still don’t know which one you have.”

“That doesn’t help me. I know you.”

Bonnie always figured if she didn’t recognize someone saying hi to her than they must think she was me so she was friendly back. Me? There was no way I was talking to a stranger, especially a strange guy, so Bonnie’s friends got ignored. A lot.

But that is the yin and yang of being twins. One tends to be the quiet shy one and one tends to be the outspoken one. For us, I’ll gladly accept that I’m the quiet one.

I’m the one who quietly accepted walking past a guy friend of mine every day between second and third period passing at the drinking fountain so close I could touch him without ever saying a word.

I could end the story there but actually one day, at an after school drama activity, he mentioned to me that he hadn’t seen me in a couple of weeks and asked where I’d been. I told him where and when I saw him every day, saying, “Look down once in a while.” The next school day he was looking down as he came around that corner. He didn’t miss me anymore.

You would think I’d learn to speak up after that, but I’m still the quiet one. And though I’m not as shy now, I’m still the quiet one. I think it’s a twin thing.

Staying Connected The Twin Way

Okay, each year in the month of November is the online writing challenge http://nanowrimo.org  and I participate. Now Nano (as it’s called) is a well-organized event that even includes real time meetings in the real world called Write Ins, and this past Saturday I attended one such event.

As the meeting was winding down, and everyone was gathering their equipment, the leader of our local group said, “Now don’t forget to backup your work on a flash drive,” then went into a story, which happened to a guy in our group a couple a years ago where, near the end of the month, he lost his entire manuscript.

While the other ladies present all promised they had flash drives, but my first thought was, “Dang, I need to email K.De,” (my twin’s nickname) and the next second it struck me how out of place that would have sounded had I said it out loud.

But it wasn’t out of place. As loving sisters, we want to help each other, so we save copies of each other’s manuscripts on our computers as a backup.

It is also why a few days ago as it neared my bedtime and I hadn’t seen Konnie online all day, I called her, just to make sure everything was okay. And she’s done the same for me.

Back before we entered the modern internet world we kept in touch with periodic phone calls, which we never planned or expected, but I can’t tell you how many times I was busy when the phone rang and I told my husband something on the lines of, “Tell her I’m busy.”

The first time this happened, he stared at me. “Tell who you’re busy?”

“Just answer the phone!”

Of course, when he did answer, it was Konnie. I knew it was.

I can even remember a couple times when I asked my husband if he thought we could afford me calling Konnie when the phone rang and I said, “Never mind,” then answered her call.

My husband rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered, “Oh brother.”

And I drove him up the wall a few years ago when some work our landlord did at the back of our house knocked our phone line down. We were without phone or internet for four days and that whole time I fretted, “Konnie’s trying to get ahold of me!”

Of course, by this time we’d been married long enough that Tom didn’t try to tell I couldn’t possibly know what Konnie was doing clear in another state. He simply kept reminding me we’d done everything we could. The phone repair people would come on Monday. But, boy, that was one miserable weekend!

Now days I have cell phone, and I programmed her number with a special ring tone. If you hear music coming from my cell, it’s Konnie. But I do still have a landline. This is a fancy job that will vocally tell me who is calling, but even before that system kicks into action, I already know when it’s Konnie calling. Technology can’t trump genes! :)