1/23/2018 5 Great People Who Plagiarized - Plagiarism Today However, Goodall herself has always been somewhat divisive among scientists. Though wellregarded as a public figure, her approach to science, which included naming chimpanzees rather than number them, has always been controversial.
Considering that this is the first instance of plagiarism in an otherwise long and ethically spotless career, it makes sense that this incident would not destroy her reputation singlehandedly. Though a half century of prominent research doesn’t buy one the right to plagiarize, it does buy additional forgiveness, especially for a problem that was caught early.
It also helps that the plagiarism is not in her core field. Seeds of Hope is a departure for Goodall, discussing plant life rather than primates. While relevant to her message of environmentalism and conservation, it has little to do with her work as a researcher.
3. Johnny Cash
One of the biggest names in music history, Johnny Cash is primarily thought of as a country musician but has actually been inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll and Gospel Music Halls of fame.
Cash’s many hits include songs such as I Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, A Boy Named Sue and Jackson, a duet with his wife June Carter Cash.
Known as much for his black attire as his music, “The Man in Black” enjoyed a career spanning nearly five decades that earned him countless awards and his music continues to influence multiple genres of music to this day.
The Plagiarism
In 1955 Johnny Cash recorded the song “Folsom Prison Blues”, the tale of a convicted murder being tortured by the sound of a passing train while stuck in prison. It was released that year and rereleased again in 1968 after he performed the song at Folsom Prison.
However, Cash had lifted the melody and much of the lyrics from a 1953 song “Crescent City Blues” by Gordon Jenkins, about a narrator hoping to get out of a small midwest town. Though Cash had changed the song fairly drastically, turning it into a piece about regret and imprisonment, the similarities were still more than glaring.
The plagiarism resulted in a lawsuit, which was quickly settled with Cash paying $75,000 to put the issue to rest. That amount is worth about $660,000 today.
Aftermath
The lawsuit and allegations didn’t seem to impact Cash’s career at all. He went on to release countless other hits, have his own TV show and find success nearly everywhere he went.
The incident seems to be an isolated (and expensive) one from Cash’s career and it seems both the music industry and the public have forgiven/forgotten. This is compounded by the fact that musical plagiarism seems to be extremely common. After all, the Beach Boys, George Harrison and most recently Sam Smith were all involved in plagiarism disputes.
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/02/10/5-great-people-who-plagiarized/ 3/5 1/23/2018 5 Great People Who Plagiarized - Plagiarism Today Of course, Led Zeppelin is probably the most famous serial musical plagiarist and their name hasn’t suffered much as a result either.
It seems that, while copyright lawsuits are expensive, music plagiarism rarely kills careers.
4. Helen Keller
Born in 1880, at 19 months old, Helen Keller became blind and deaf due to an illness. After being educated by Anne Sullivan, a story immortalized in the play and film The Miracle Worker, Keller went on to be the first deaf blind person to earn a bachelor or arts and went on to be a prolific author, public speaker and political activist.
Today, Keller is best known from The Miracle Worker and from her autobiography, The Story of My Life. In 1961 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States’ highest civilian honors and in 1965 she was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
The Plagiarism
At age 11, Keller was already a celebrity. She penned a short story entitled The Frost King that was, picked up by The Goodson Gazette, a journal about deafblind education. However, after its publication, it was noticed that the story bore a strong resemblance to another short story entitled Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby.
Initially, the blame was put on the people around Keller on the theory that she was being exploited. Keller though, repeatedly stated that she had never been exposed to Frost Fairies, did not own a copy of it and she had no recollection of the story.
According to Sullivan, her investigation into the matter found that a copy of the story was in the house that Keller stayed at while Sullivan was on vacation and it was read to her there. Keller claims to have forgotten being read the story though she retained much of the plot.
The case is often cited as an example of Cryptomnesia.
The Aftermath
Keller’s plagiarism tale is a pretty unusual one.
Her career had not started when the incident took place. At just 11 years old, she was still a child, even if she was already a celebrity, and blame never really fell on her. Instead, it was Sullivan and others around Keller who were accused of the misdeed.
Still, the incident had no lasting effect on her career and is more of a bizarre footnote than anything. This is further driven home by the seeminglycredible allegations of cryptomnesia and this case becomes more a “strange incident” than an ethical misstep.
No other significant allegations of plagiarism were made against Keller for the rest of her career.
5. T.S. Eliot
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