It is not very different case but ……

Guo Jingming ¹

Brief Focus:

He is an Author ^1,2 in China who completed his study from Shanghai University.²

Success Story:

Young author (26 years now) got place in the list of 2004 Forbes Chinese Celebrity 100 ^3,4 after a great sale (over 1.5 million copies) of his novel "City of Fantasy" in the year 2003. He was “top earning writer”⁵ of China in 2009.

Case of Copyright Infringement:

Plaintiff Zhuang Yu, author of a novel "Inside and Outside the Circle” made complaint to Beijing intermediate court against Guo Jingming regarding his novel “Never Flowers in Never Dreams”.^1,3

Court Report:

The court observed around “12 major plot elements and 57 paragraphs” in the book ‘Never Flowers in Never Dreams’ were resemble with novel of Zhuang Yu.³

Result:

Guo Jingming and corresponding publisher fined $ 24000 as well as written apology should published related to this case. ^1.3

Conclusion:

Accused was accepted fine but not willing to apologize.⁶

Moral of the story:

Crests and troughs are always come in one’s life (it might be due to its fate or due to its character) but time gives everyone an opportunity to improve and learn for the betterment in life. So keep learning from mistake of yours as well as others.

Comments are invited if any..

References:

1.      http://www.famousplagiarists.com/popfiction.htm (accessed on 14 Feb’2010)

2.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Jingming (accessed on 14 Feb’2010)

3.      Bestselling Novelist Must Pay Up for Plagiarism.  China Daily December 8, 2004 http://www.china.org.cn/english/2004/Dec/114345.htm (accessed on 17 Feb’2010)

4.      Guo Jingming Succeeds in "City of Fantasy”. CRI September 10, 2004 http://www.china.org.cn/english/NM-e/106691.htm (accessed on 14 Feb’2010)

5.      Jing Bartz. A Brief Introduction to the Chinese Publishing Industry - Updated statistic, new trends and digitalization. August 2009 http://www.peking.buchinformationszentrum.org/imperia/celum/documents/Introduction_ChinaBookmarket_2009.pdf (accessed on 14 Feb’2010)

6.      Joel Martinsen . Plagiarism, apologies, and circulation numbers. June 28, 2006 http://www.danwei.org/ip_and_law/plagiarism_apologies_and_circu.php (accessed on 17 Feb’2010)

As I observe from many blogs of learners and comments on their blogs one common point I found that problems in referencing so, as per my understanding, I try to put proper way of citation (improvements are welcome if any) especially when you take something for online source.