At 1:05 PM -0400 9/20/06, Wallace J.McLean wrote:
> > > If I take a bunch of sonnets by Dryden, Shakespeare, Donne,
>> Owen, and
>> > others, and publish them in a chapbook, under my name, as if I were
>> > the poet, I have committed plagiarism. Really stupid plagiarism.
>> > Really, spectacularly stupid plagiarism. But I have done nothing
>> > illegal.
>>
>> Well, not quite. Passing off and fraud are illegal so you may have
>> done something illegal. But you haven't violated copyright law.
>
>
>Where's the "passing off"?
I'm not sure whether the consumer has standing, but the perp is passing off someone else's product as his own. If there isn't a preempting copyright claim, then the real author has an analogous unfair business practice claim in most states.
>What's the fraud?
The consumer definitely has standing, and if he purchases the work in reliance on the misrepresentation of authorship, he's got damages because the works are in the public domain and available for free.
John Noble Received on Fri Sep 22 2006 - 20:05:30 GMT
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