Recently, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail sued DaVinci Code author Dan Brown. Dan Brown won the lawsuit because it was clear to anyone who had read the books that the two were quite different from one another. However, Kaavya Viswanathan had her books pulled from the shelves, when it was discovered that the Harvard sophomore had borrowed heavily from books by Megan McCafferty.
Similarities to McCafferty's books, which include "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings," were first spotted by readers. They alerted McCafferty, who in turn notified her publisher. Crown alleges that at least 40 passages "contain identical language and/or common scene or dialogue structure."
Originality is one of those things that can make you in any industry, and plagiarism is one of those things that can definitely break you in whatever field you are in. The reason being that whatever field you are in, there are experts -- people who know the niche and who can spot the copycats. And while sometimes copycats do manage to get away for a little while (see Rob Liefeld), they are eventually discovered, and their reputation goes down the toilet after that.
It's not irrecoverable (after all, Rob Liefeld still works) but as an artist or a writer, do you really want to be known as that person that copied some other famous person's work? At the end of the day, your reputation is the thing that follows from one work to the next.
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