STC Does Not Condone Plagiarism - Official
A reader has responded to our story about the Sydney Theatre Company's program note plagiarist (click here to read more) and is the winner of a bottle of bubbly for his efforts.
In our first story - where we revealed that some notes for The Bourgeois Gentleman and Reunion had been cut and pasted from online source Wikipedia - we asked readers to let us know if they spotted other instances. In particular a suspicious patch of purple prose in the Reunion program. It bore no relation to the rest of the material (always a dead give-away) and read:
"The tail gunner had the lowest survival rate of all crew positions. The tail gunner was the first line of defence against enemy fighters, and the first point of contact for their bullets. He was isolated from the rest of the crew and spent long cold hours alone searching the black sky."
A reader with, he says, a few minutes to spare Googled the passage and quickly discovered its origins: www.valourandhorror.com. It's a site devoted to a Canadian TV documentary series about WW2 and Bomber Command. On the site is the script of Bomber Command - Death by Moonlight in which veterans reminisce about their experiences including:
"The tail gunner had the lowest survival rate of all crew positions. The tail gunner was the first line of defence against enemy fighters, and the first point of contact for their bullets. He was isolated from the rest of the crew and spent long cold hours alone searching the black sky."
Rob Brookman, general manager of the STC was, until today (December 19), unaware of the program note homagist. In response to an email request for his views he wrote:
"Our clear policy is to seek approval from any copyright holders and to then credit the author of the material properly.
"It would appear that this has not happened in the case of the Tail Gunner material and I will ask why. I think, however, that this is a rare occurrence."
He also added that he is "Happy that people are reading their STC programs so closely!"
Our reader doesn't see it quite so light-heartedly, however, writing: "For an $8 program stuffed with ads, they could have done much better. Maybe they'll be more careful next time."
