Literary Theft?Pervasive or Avoidable

Regret, yes. Apology, no.

What's more, on May 3, 2006, The Boston Globe's Jay Fitzgerald revealed that Swanson also pirated some rules without attribution from Donald Rumsfeld and Dave Barry, a humor columnist syndicated in 500 newspapers.

So why doesn't Raytheon simply get rid of this embarrassment by firing Swanson rather than docking his pay $1 million? The answer may lie in a small announcement in the "Earnings Roundup" section in The Boston Globe on April 28, 2006:

Raytheon Co. said first-quarter earnings surged 73 percent as weapons sales and improved results at its business jet unit fueled the biggest profit gain in more than five years.

Even more bizarre is Viswanathan's excuse after conning Little Brown out of a six-figure advance and Steven Spielberg out of a movie contract. She told Dinitia Smith of The New York Times that the cause of the plagiarism may have been her photographic memory. "I remember by reading," she told Smith. "I never take notes."

Forty verbatim passages from a photographic memory?

Later in the interview she said, ""I really thought the words were my own. I guess it's just been in my head."

The Ivins Approach

Syndicated columnist and NPR contributor Molly Ivins was accused by humorist Florence King of plagiarism. Ivins's letter of contrition is a classic. She wrote in part:

I owe you an apology and I hereby tender it. I am deeply ashamed. I regret not giving you credit, and devoutly wish the matter had been brought to my attention earlier so it might have been corrected in subsequent editions and the paperback edition of the book.

I hope this does not sound too defensive to you, but there was no intention on my part to deceive anyone into thinking I had not read the many funny things you have said about the South. I hope my good faith is evidenced by the fact that I did cite you directly six times in the piece and praise one of your books as "definitive" on the peculiarities of Southerners as well.