The fact occurred from a book published in Mexico, the publisher became aware of the situation once the book was already printed.
The writer Hernan Casciari He shared a hilarious event on his social networks that occurred when two Mexican publishers contacted him with the suspicion that the book they had published with short stories that had won a contest contained a plagiarized text of his: far from litigating, the Argentine devised a more ingenious way out considering that more than a copy it is a “tribute” and gave them the go-ahead to continue with the edition of the volume.
The story went like this: a publisher called for a contest and the winning stories were compiled in a volume. Once printed, the Mexican publishers realized that the first winning story -signed by Arturo Méndez Osorio- was a copy of a Casciari story, “Diary of love during a catastrophe”a 2006 text that is in his book “The advice of my facho grandfather”.
The publishers contacted him asking him to please not sue them and that they were going to take the batch of books out of circulation, even if that meant absolute losses. But the Argentine gave them an unexpected answer, as he recounted on Twitter. “I told them that plagiarism is, in reality, a secret homage that some do without realizing it, and that I would send them a card with an ‘Errata’ so they can include it in the book.. And that’s how the publishers, with relief, didn’t lose money and everything had #HappyEnding”.
In the “Fe de errata” that accompanies the edition of the book, Casciari writes that the story signed by Arturo Méndez Osorio is very similar to his, “both stories have the same number of words and they are all located in the same order”, he writes and concludes: “I am excited to think that it was just a coincidence”.
In dialogue with the Télam agency, the writer explained the reason for his decision: “What happens to me is that I have a different perspective on copyright. So, much less could I be outraged by something that is traditionally called plagiarism. It seems to me even funny and I see it as a tribute because plagiarism is, in reality, a kind of envious honor that a third party does to one’s own work”.
It is that in reality, almost all of Casciari’s work does not have copyleft or copyright, that is, it is released (it is only a matter of entering his blog where you can read a lot of texts from him). “Anyone can do, with any of my stories, whatever they want, even derivative works, even commercial use of my works, as long as they name me. In other words, the only limit is to appropriate it as this guy did, but it doesn’t bother me either “.
The antecedent of plagiarism to Hernán Casciari
It’s not the first time this has happened to him. Something similar happened to him with a film produced by none other than Hollywood in 2011 and which he defines as “possibly the most paradigmatic case” because since it was plagiarism with a giant, there were many interested in moving forward with the lawsuit. It is about the 2011 film “In Time” that contains ideas from his story “Flat rate for joints and other advances” (https://hernancasciari.com/blog/tarifa_plana_de_porro_y_otros_avances) published in 2005. “In fact -remember-, It is a very litigious country, so there were many American law firms that contacted me indicating everything I had to do to fill myself with money filing a lawsuit. And, obviously, I did not take any precautions or say anything, because my work is absolutely free of be used by whoever wants, and I’m not very fond of doing litigation or things like that either”. Casciari hasn’t seen the movie yet.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
