Geraldine McCaughrean Quotes

While I am not a journalist, I have, myself, written more than one thing that has been plagiarized in the past.

Too afraid of plagiarising someone, so I stopped reading fiction in 1981.

It seems like every few years a big name author will holler something about how evil, heinous, and morally wrong fan fiction and fan fiction writers are, and then the Internet gets all upset and shocked, and then the author is shocked that people could get so upset.

In regards to The Haunting, people compared it to the old movie, which is unfair. We didn't have the rights to the movie. I couldn't duplicate a single thing because that would have been legal infringement.

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

There's a difference between hiring writers and stealing jokes.

The story and the characters of 'Girl Online' are mine.

I've never actually directed anything I haven't made up. I've never adapted anything.

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

Nothing in the television show 'True Detective' was plagiarized.

It may be tripe, but it's my tripe - and I do urge other authors to resist encroachments on their brain-children and trust their own judgment rather than that of some zealous meddler with a diploma in creative punctuation who is just dying to get into the act.

Creativity in copyright law only means that you didn’t copy it from someone else …. Most works that are protected under copyright are not creative in the colloquial sense of the word.

I'm a big fan of Nora Ephron, who believed everything is copy, and I agree.

There's nothing sacred about the book you've written. The Bible says there's safety in a multitude of counselors. The movie is the movie, and the book is the book. They're different critters, and each must stand on their own merits.

From what I understand about Shakespeare - which isn't a lot - there was no copyright law when he was writing. He sampled at will, and it wasn't seen as a bad thing.

Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow" - I'm sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I'll kill you if you quote it!

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

Most authors steal their works, or buy.

Everyone plagiarizes me. Ever since I wrote my autobiography.

I'm not reading currently because I'm getting revisions of a novel. If I read while I'm writing I will unconsciously plagiarize and go to jail.

And I don't want people to think that I make movies based on other films.

Copyright and Trademark are completely different things. Copyright prevents anyone from copying this article and posting it somewhere else. Copyright happens instantaneously the moment I write something down that is unique and from my brain. Trademarks are far more restrictive.

I firmly believe in copyrights and am put off by plagiarism.

People either fall into two camps, where they're pro-fanfic, or they're anti-fanfic. I would not have had the skills to write and publish my first novel if I hadn't been writing fanfic.

Why don't people just open... my works instead of accusing me?