Tag: plagiarism

What Trevor Noah’s plagiarism tells us about Comedy Central’s racism.

It’s rather… cosmopolitan racism on Comedy Central’s part, actually.

Trevor Noah has been telling a joke that sounds remarkably similar to one that Dave Chappelle told nearly 20 years ago.

The new “Daily Show” host has been accused of stealing joke in the past, but The Hollywood Reporter pointed to a standup routine he performed Saturday that was closely similar to material once performed by another Comedy Central star.

OK, let me admit it: Dave Chappelle has made me laugh – but uncomfortably, because the man is rather good at poking at taboos.  This gives him a certain power, because American culture gets to be rather antsy when it comes to admitting that we even have speech taboos. Nonetheless: Dave Chappelle is a ferociously good comedian, and that’s really all that The Daily Show needed to replace Jon Stewart, right?  So why did they hire instead a guy who just rips off Chappelle, instead of Chappelle himself? Continue reading What Trevor Noah’s plagiarism tells us about Comedy Central’s racism.

Plagiarist Mary Burke plagiarized in turn by South Dakota Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

…Wait, the Democrats are running somebody for South Dakota governor?

Democratic gubernatorial South Dakota nominee appears to have plagiarized parts of her issues page from Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, who herself is embattled in a plagiarism snafu of her own.

Oddly, Susan Wismer actually copies from a biographical section of Burke’s campaign material, placing her name where Burke’s appeared.

Well, isn’t that a thing!  Did she lose a bet?

Via Instapundit.

Yet MORE plagiarism from Mary Burke (D CAND, Wisconsin-GOV).

It’s apparently quite the pattern for her.

Sections of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke’s veterans and rural communities plans appear to copy text directly from a variety of sources.

The sources include, but are not limited to, academic journals and reports, and a local newspaper column.

In other instances, the sources are linked in plan’s footnotes, though Burke’s plan makes little effort to indicate that not just the source, but the words themselves were taken from the sources.

…It astounds me that the Democrats thought that nobody would check.

Mary Burke (D CAND, Wisconsin-GOV) plagiarized her jobs plan from literal losers.

I am using the word ”literal’ literally, by the way.

I don’t know what’s sadder here: that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke can’t even write her own meaningless economic drivel…

Large portions of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke’s jobs plan for Wisconsin appear to be plagiarized from the plans of three Democratic candidates who ran for governor in previous election cycles.

Burke’s economic plan “Invest for Success” copies nearly-verbatim sections from the jobs plans of Ward Cammack, who ran for Tennessee governor in 2009 before withdrawing from the race, a 2008 plan from Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, and John Gregg who ran for governor of Indiana in 2012 and lost to Mike Pence.

…or that she stole material from two guys that lost.  John Gregg couldn’t beat a Republican in a year where Barack Obama was on the ticket; and Ward Cammack never even made it to the primary election. I’ll grant you that Jack Markell did win: but, hey, it’s Delaware.  The jobs plan for that state is ‘see how much we can siphon off of I-95.’

Buzzfeed(!) has much more, including a list of all the substandard material that the Burke campaign ripped off and their admittedly more original excuse (Erm, yeah, it was a… staffer! From outside*!).  And, actually, I kind of hope that the excuse holds up: it’d mean that the Burke campaign knowingly hired an ‘expert’ whose ‘expertise’ was apparently two-thirds in ‘watch your candidate crash and burn while you get paid for it.’ It’s nice to think that the Other Side has those kinds of people, too.

Note: the plagiarism charge will still stick, in that case. Still, you’d think that Mary Burke would have stolen from people who won.

Via

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Well, more original by comparison.

#DSCC endorses John Walsh’s plagiarism. I wonder what other candidates’ sins they’ll forgive?

Who am I kidding? The DSCC will forgive ALL of their candidates their sins.  It is not in their nature to do otherwise.

So, remember: the Democrats don’t think that lying and misrepresenation are necessarily deal-breakers for one of their candidates.

NYT: Senator John Walsh of Montana plagiarized his senior thesis.

And I will give the Old Grey Lady this: They didn’t play NAME! THAT! PARTY! with the title.

Montana Democrat’s Thesis Presented Others’ Work as His Own
Senator John Walsh of Montana Confronts Questions of Plagiarism

…Shocking, isn’t it?  And, here: let me give my readers an idea of just how serious this is. Continue reading NYT: Senator John Walsh of Montana plagiarized his senior thesis.

Duane Lester and the Assertion of Copyright.

I got to meet Duane Lester of All-American Blogger last week at the Breitbart Awards thing.  Duane’s a good guy who won the Breitbart Blogger Award ; but what may be more of immediate interest is this post from last month entitled “How to Assert Copyright Over Your Work When It’s Been Plagiarized.”  Which happens far too often, albeit not as drastically and/or comprehensively as it did to Duane.

As the video below shows, Duane ended up getting paid for his work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YAtOs5yzVus

…and I recommend that people read the original article, too: it will walk you through putting together an actual cease-and-desist letter, should you ever get stuck in this situation.  Check it out.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Let me introduce you to Cooks Source.

It will be today’s Don’t Let This Happen To You!

Here’s the timeline:

  • Somebody wrote up a couple of medieval apple pie recipes for a website.  Being a medievalist, this writeup included the original recipes, which means that they included the original spelling.
  • Cooks Source went onto the Internet, pulled the recipe, and printed it in their magazine.  No, they didn’t get permission.
  • When the author found out about it, she emailed the magazine.  Her – very reasonable – demand?  Apologies on Facebook and in print, and $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism (well, it’s her call).
  • Instead, she got… this. Continue reading Let me introduce you to Cooks Source.

Argentine anti-plagiarism bill rips off Wikipedia.

I don’t care who you are, this is funny:

Techdirt reported recently that a politician in Argentina who introduced an anti-plagiarism bill has come under fire for apparently copying some of the language he used without crediting the source, a practice some have called “plagiarism.”

What makes it funnier is that the parts that got ripped off were from the entry on plagiarism itself.  I believe that the technical term for this is “You’re doing it wrong…”

Rooting for Injuries Watch: The AP vs. that annoying trace artist guy.

Obama PosterYou know: Shepard Fairey, who took time out from cosplaying a graphic artist for Minitruth and plagiarizing everything that moved to trace out the iconic image of our new President.

Oh, well, it’s America, so it’s not like we really know what to do with irony, anyway. Might as well just shoot in the head and leave it dead in a ditch somewhere; seems more honest, really. Anyway, the AP finally noticed that they got ripped off. Amusingly, they did not see this as merely the logical extension of their already-quite-obvious policy for 2008 (i.e., getting Barack Obama elected any which way that they could that didn’t involve actual weapons), and thus a humorous quirk of the election. We just shot irony, remember? There was a loud explosion and everything.

No, they lawyered up instead.

Continue reading Rooting for Injuries Watch: The AP vs. that annoying trace artist guy.