WORLD did a story on plagiarism in the Christian publishing industry, which gave them occasion to remind readers of Douglas Wilson’s latest plagiarism eruption. It also gave Randy Booth another opportunity to twist and grind on his sword to protect his fellow author, and it gave the fine folks who run Canon Press another opportunity to simply grind. Here’s an excerpt:

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Consider the source

Recent plagiarism scandals have persuaded some Christian publishers to work harder at keeping unoriginal writing out of print

By Emily Belz

Every few years, a major plagiarism scandal visits the Christian publishing world. In 2013, pastor Mark Driscoll acknowledged problems with a Bible study published by Mars Hill, Trial, that lifted material from InterVarsity Press’ New Bible Commentary. In early 2015, BuzzFeed reported on instances of plagiarism in then-presidential candidate Ben Carson’s book, America the Beautiful, published by Zondervan.

Most recently, at the end of 2015, Canon Press pulled A Justice Primer, by pastors Douglas Wilson and Randy Booth, after the publisher determined that Booth’s sections of the book contained plagiarism. Canon CEO Aaron Rench said his organization now uses software to check its manuscripts for plagiarism before publication. . . .

Canon Press began using software for its own manuscripts as a direct result of the Justice Primer plagiarism discovery in December. CEO Rench said he believes the publisher has run all of the new manuscripts this year through the software. Before the recent plagiarism came to light, the issue “wasn’t really at the forefront,” Rench said. When Canon looked at its manuscript process, it decided on software “for our own sake.”

It was actually a software check that first unearthed the plagiarism in A Justice Primer — but not Canon’s software check. Rachel Miller, the blogger who found and reported the book’s citation problems, bought a copy of A Justice Primer on Amazon, and then noticed sections that seemed plagiarized as she was reading. She typed up the sections and ran them through Grammarly’s plagiarism detection software.

Upon finding what looked like uncited material, Miller asked a professor whom she had worked with before, Valerie Hobbs at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, to check her work with a more rigorous program, Turnitin (the academic version of iThenticate). Hobbs ran the text Miller sent through the program and confirmed what she had found: In several instances Booth did not cite work from at least four authors, a finding Canon largely confirmed with its own research later. In several spots Booth unintentionally copied paragraphs of text from other sources, but he also forgot to include citations for certain phrases and ideas. Booth acknowledged all the instances of plagiarism were his own, not co-author Wilson’s. . . .

Canon Press has significantly tightened its plagiarism-checking process at significant expense, said Rench, from running all manuscripts through software to spending time discussing the issue with authors in the early stages of a book. Rench noted another precaution: Wilson will not have co-authors collaborate on his future books.

One thing is for sure. Canon won’t be the last Christian publisher to confront a plagiarism scandal. . . .

A disputed Primer
Blogger Rachel Miller and University of Sheffield professor Valerie Hobbs ran sections of Canon Press’ A Justice Primer through two different plagiarism programs, finding instances of plagiarism. Miller published her findings in December.

Canon CEO Aaron Rench took issue with how they went about their work. He says individuals who want to run a copyrighted, published book through plagiarism software should first get permission from the publisher, because they would have to create a digital copy of the book to do so. He also says Miller and Hobbs should have informed Canon of their findings before publishing them.

Rench took the unorthodox step of contacting the dean of the English department of the University of Sheffield, Adam Piette, and accused Hobbs of piracy. Piette vigorously defended her. Miller’s perspective: “Published material can be legitimately scrutinized publicly. . . . That’s not an inappropriate use.”

Could a journalist get into copyright trouble for copying sections of a book to run through plagiarism software? Turnitin, citing several court rulings, says its software falls under “fair use” in copyright law. A federal appeals court also last fall ruled that Google’s practice of scanning and indexing copyrighted books was “fair use” and did not violate copyright — a practice that appears several steps beyond what plagiarism software does.

Still, the law in this area may not be settled. Lawyer Brian Flagler, whose firm Flagler Law Group works with Christian publishers, wasn’t sure whether plagiarism-checking qualifies as “fair use.”

Rench said he wants to focus on producing well-sourced books and isn’t pursuing the matter any further with Miller and Hobbs. —E.B.

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