Publishing Plagiarism Payback

Plagiarism payback burned Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson and Harvard sophomore Kaayva Viswanathan this past week. Swanson's company produced a booklet of business advice that turned out to have been lifted from a 1944 book, and Viswanathan's Little, Brown & Company published book about how to get into Harvard (of course) turned out to have lifted from two previous coming of age novels.

Swanson had garnered accolades for his business acumen, Viswanathan for her eye popping advance of $500,000. Swanson said staff compiled material he had collected in a file for years. Viswanathan said she "internalized" the other books as a fan.

Raytheon stopped distribution of the 300,000 run booklet and will not give Swanson a raise this year as a result. Viswanathan's 100,000 print run has been pulled from the shelves, the second book in her contract will not be published and a movie deal has fallen apart.

After Enron, WorldCom, et al, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley law that required business executives to vouch for their company's financial statements.

We now need Sarbanes-Oxley for writers.