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Re: [GWL]: trends/plagiarism


> Either she was truly clueless or just trying to pass herself off as 
> such to
> avoid a problem.<

Whether truly clueless or trying to act that way would be irrelevent if
you pushed the point. She is not released from liability just because she
doesn't understand the copyright laws.

I don't think the web is to blame---although the "borrowing" that goes on
there is incredible. What we have is a field that is dominated by
hobbiests. For every professional writer, there are a dozen or more MG
newsletter writers satisfying their volunteer points; nursery operators
writing articles because it's good PR; and just plain gardeners who get
an ego boost seeing their names in print. These, and similar groups, do
not understand the rules of the game, and don't care to learn them. 

Since getting involved in garden writing I've noticed that this sort of
thing is much more widespread here than  any other field in which I've
worked.  And it goes both ways: some gardening editors seems to have as
much (or as little) ethical sense as the writers you cite.

Recently, for instance, a rather well known garden writer told one of my
writing students that she'd gotten several assignments from editors who'd
recieved queries from other freelancers, then passed the story assignment
on to her instead of the person who'd sent the query. I can't figure out
which is more unconscionable: the editors who do such things, or the
writers who knowingly accept such assignments. 

I've been freelancing fulltime for 22 years, and was a staff writer,
editor, and magazine consultant for 15 years before that. In all that
time I have never run in to that sort of thing before. But it seems to be
widespread in the gardening press.


Brook
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