WRITER’S WAR OF WORDS
Roberts sues author, cites ‘multi-plagiarism’ on a ‘scandalous’ level
Bestselling novelist Nora Roberts is suing a Brazilian writer for copyright infringement, alleging that Cristiane Serruya has committed “multi-plagiarism” on a “rare and scandalous” level. In papers filed Wednesday morning in Rio de Janeiro, where Serruya lives, Roberts called her romance books “a literary patchwork, piecing together phrases whose form portrays emotions practically identical to those expressed in the plaintiff’s books.” Citing Brazilian law, Roberts is asking for damages at 3,000 times the value of the highest sale price for any Serruya work mentioned in the suit.
“If you plagiarize, I will come for you,” Roberts told The Associated Press during a recent interview. “If you take my work, you will pay for it and I will do my best to see you don’t write again.” Roberts said she would donate any damages from the suit to a literacy program in Brazil. Efforts to reach Serruya were not immediately successful. Her novels, all apparently self-published, include the series Shades of Trust, Shades of Love and Ever More.
The court papers cite six Serruya books for including lifted passages: Royal Love, Royal Affair, Unbroken Love, Hot Winter, Forever More and From the Baroness’s Diary. The lawsuit alleges Serruya copied passages from Roberts’ Unfinished Business, River Ends and Whiskey Beach, and includes examples of close similarities between their books. Roberts’ suit also alleges that Serruya has copied passages from dozens of other authors. Roberts also criticized Amazon. com for not being more vigilant about the books sold on its site. Roberts and authors have complained that Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited ebook subscription program, for which royalties are based on how many pages are read the first time the customer reads them, is an incentive for unscrupulous writers to quickly throw together material from other sources. “Amazon didn’t find any of this,” Roberts said of Serruya’s books, noting she had been tipped off by readers and fellow writers. “And that strikes me as a problem.” As of earlier this week, most of Serruya’s work had been removed from Amazon, although many books remained available on Barnes & Noble.com, Google Play and elsewhere. In a recent statement, Amazon said it takes “violations of laws and proprietary rights very seriously.”
“We use a combination of teams of investigators and automated technology to prevent and catch the vast majority of bad actors who attempt to violate our policies before they publish,” Amazon said. “In the rare instance where one gets through, we investigate and remove violating books. Additionally, all Kindle product pages contain a link for anyone to flag suspicious titles and the team investigates all titles that are flagged.” Serruya has faced allegations from several other writers and even inspired the Twitter hashtag #CopyPasteCris. In February, author Courtney Milan titled a blog posting “Cristiane Serruya is a copyright infringer, a plagiarist, and an idiot,” and cited numerous passages from Serruya’s Royal Love that closely resemble Milan’s The Duchess War. Serruya apologized on her Twitter account, and called allegations she had plagiarized “distressing.” She has since left Twitter and the Romance Writers of America has withdrawn Royal Love from consideration for the RITA award for best fiction. (The prize is named for the RWA’s first president, Rita Clay Estrada). Allegations that Serruya copied from Roberts emerged around the same time. In correspondence shared by Roberts with the AP, Serruya emailed Roberts’ publicist, Laura Reeth, insisting she would “never intentionally plagiarize anyone” and blaming part of the problem on ghost writers.
“I made a mistake,” she wrote in February. “I was fooled by some ‘mentors’ and ‘coachers’ who told me that ‘More, more, more, fast, fast, fast.’”
In an email back to Serruya, Roberts demanded that she “immediately, unambiguously, acknowledge — without excuses” her “unauthorized taking” and “immediately and permanently remove” and pull every novel in question. Roberts said she decided to sue after Serruya failed to respond.
Roberts is one of the world’s most popular and prolific authors, with hundreds of millions of copies sold worldwide.
She was initially known for her romance books, but also writes mainstream fiction and publishes crime novels under the pen name J.D. Robb. On her blog, Roberts has repeatedly attacked Serruya and strongly hinted she would sue. “She’s a blood leech sucking on the body of the writing profession,” Roberts wrote last weekend. “Arranging for a truckload of salt to dispense with her has been taking up a lot of my time, energies, sanity. Hopefully, once that’s in place the frustrating and infuriating distraction of her will fade, at least a bit.” On her website, Serruya is described as a late bloomer, having worked as a lawyer for more than 20 years before she “decided to give writing a go.”
“And — amazingly — it was just the piece that was missing from the puzzle of her life,” her biography reads. “Now that she’s hooked, she can’t free herself — and doesn’t want to be freed.” Roberts has taken legal action before. In 1997, she sued the popular romance writer Janet Dailey. Dailey, saying she was under “immense stress” because of her husband’s health problems, acknowledged that her novels Aspen Gold and Notorious included ideas and passages from Roberts’ books. The case was settled out of court.
If you plagiarize, I will come for you, If you take my work, you will pay for it and I will do my best to see you don’t write again.