Was Another New York Times Bestseller Plagiarized?

I’m not one to read popular business books, but on a recent trip I decided to pick up Tim Ferriss’, The 4-Hour Workweek. With all of the cultural momentum around the book, it’s #6 on the New York Times Hardcover Advice Bestseller List and such a provocative title who wouldn’t pick it up?

As I started to read Chapter 14 on page 230 something sounded familiar. There was a story about a Harvard MBA visiting a Mexican fishing village. This almost sounded too familiar.

Then it came to me: “Hey, wait a minute. I used that story in my book.”

As I flipped open my 2nd book, Beyond the Brand, there it was on page 60. It was the same, exact story. I also published it in a blog post in 2005.

In 2002, when I started writing Beyond the Brand, I had heard a very similar story that I had received via email. The email was lost and after much research, I couldn’t find the source so I prefaced my story in the book by saying, “Last year, there was a story cruising around the Internet about how out of touch American business people with the environments they enter.” Growing up in the publishing business, I’ve always been very sensitive about acknowledging sources.

Now, six years later, the story is all over the Internet with many permutations. I found over 75 with a quick search. It’s amazing how Google has made it so easy to see the history of a story not only online but also how it’s told in other books using Google Book Search.

Check out the similarities from this passage:

Beyond the Brand: “Then you would retire and move to a small costal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, then stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”

One of the Many Examples from the Web: The American said slowly, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos..." (http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/fisherman.html)

The 4-Hour Work Week: “Then you would retire and move to a small costal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos...”

So, the question is, did Ferriss or his editors just forget to fact check or did he intentionally take credit for the story? He sure makes it sound like it’s his story in the book and doesn’t give credit to anyone. And, the idea of “borrowing some ideas” does fit with Ferriss’ theme in The 4-Hour Workweek. My hope is that it was an innocent mistake. Maybe it just got lost in the cultural shuffle of our informational overloaded society.

As Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists copy, Great artists steal.” Today, in our digital world, what is plagiarism? What is stealing? Is there really such a thing as an original idea when everything is digitally searchable?

In my mind, plagiarism is still plagiarism. If you’re going to be bold enough to try it, you might want to type in www.google.com before you take credit.

Comments

[DS]

Intriguing and somewhat troubling story, John. Let us know what comes of it.

Take a minute to read Paul Tolme's fantastic piece about being plagiarized by a romance writer...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/94543

[Jonathan Bailey]

Please let me know how this turns out and what, if any, action you decide to take. I will be very interested to hear.

[Heidi]

So what did you decide to do?

[John]

I decided to not worry about it and move on. Unfortunately, these things are all to commonplace today.

[Govind]

I wish I had done more of this. One thing my mom and the kids used to do was paint a nativity scene. We'd buy the aclriyc people and paint them. I had such a good time with that. My mom was really good at it actually.

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