It is easy picking content from so many sources available today. This often motivates people to escape making their own efforts in writing and taking the easy way out. Here is a list of some of the famous people who plagiarized.
Nicki Minaj
Image Source : Img.Wennermedia.Com
The famous singer has been accused of copying some part of her popular song “starships” from a song written by Clive Tanaka. Minaj also has other copying accusations against her made by Terrence Davidson who sued her for$30 million stating that she has stolen the wig designs from him.
Jane Goodall
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Jane Goodall is one of the experts studying chimpanzees in Tanzania. Known as a staunch fighter for animal rights,she has written several books, research papers and monographs. However, in 2013 when Jane released her new book “Seeds of Hope” it instantly became controversial as Steven Levingston claimed that the book had many passages that were plagiarized.
Stephen Ambrose
Image Source : Cloudfront.Net
Stephen Ambrose, a popular biographer and historian was charged for plagiarism in 2002 for having copied some sections of his book “The Wild Blue” from Thomas Childers’ book “Wings of Morning”. His other works such as Crazy horse and Custer were also charged for having plagiarized content.
Barack Obama
Image Source : IndiaTimes.Com
During his presidential campaign, the rival of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton accused him for delivering a plagiarized speech that she had once delivered in Wisconsin. However, this controversy did not affect the campaign. But Barack vowed to not taking ideas from any other politician in future to avoid such scandals.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Goodwin was accused for using some copied phrases in her books including the famous The Fitzgerald’s and the Kennedys. However, Goodwin called it accidental and made corrections in the unsold copies.
Alex Haley
Image Source : NydailyNews.Com
In 1977 Alex won a Pulitzer Prize for his book “Roots” related to an African-American family.But in 1978, Harold Courlander sued him for copying the text from his book “The African”. Later both of them settled the matter out of court.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Image Source : HoughtonmifflinBooks.Com
Tolkien is one of the iconic authors of the generation who wrote the successful trilogy – The Lord of the Rings. The author courted controversy for having allegations of plagiarism against him. It was claimed that the epic was borrowed from Richard Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung”.However, these allegations only remained debates among the fans and did not create serious literary bubbles.
History has been witness to many cases when writers, musicians, singers etc. plagiarized their works. By doing so, some plagiarists dashed their careers on the rock, while for others the allegations became little more than a footnote in their great careers.
