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Viswanathan's Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy
Although this case doesn't involve a lawsuit yet, allegations that a recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, called How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, contains several passages that are extremely similar to a pair of works by Megan F. McCafferty are very likely to lead to some kind of legal action, the story from the Harvard Crimson can be found here.
Here are a few examples of similar passages:
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/04/24/opal_mehta_vs_sloppy_firsts/
If wonder if the link to Viswanathan (whose book is a New York Times bestseller) might ironically end up leading to more sales for McCafferty. (Not that this would excuse the copying, if it occurred, of course). On the other hand, perhaps she could end up like The Verve, the band whose. successful single "Bittersweet Symphony" truly was bittersweet - akin to the Anderson v. Stallone case we discussed in class.
Thoughts?
Posted by Owen Lipsett at April 24, 2006 12:47 PM in Current Events
