Untrodden Path wrote:
But no publisher (yet) has the ability to check an authors work line for line against everything that has been published. I worked for a publisher in the early to mid 90s. According to our editor, more books were published in the latter half of the 20th century than had previously been published in all of history. That does not include periodicals.
Couple that difficulty with the financial windfall a publisher knows will be coming their way by publishing the work of someone such as Bob Dylan and its easy to see why they might choose to not be bothered with verifying the author's work. Seriously, what person would take their time to go back through every issue of Time Magazine for the last 50 years to see if Dylan, or any other author, had routinely stolen content without citing it. (Okay, apparently someone has now done just that.)
I'll admit, I was too lazy to check it. I read the book and enjoyed it for what it was.
Bingo.
The problem here is that 1. We're talking about Simon & Schuster.
Simon & Schuster, who employs, one assumes, a huge bevy of fact checkers, and who, while researching the autobiography of a man many consider to be the greatest living wordsmith of the 20th century, an autobiography that many would've said would never be written, and consequently a book nor only greatly anticipated, but certain to make the New York Times best seller list, couldn't (and more likely didn't) even Google some of these phrases and get the necessary permissions for reproduction? Funny too, that they know they've got 2 more to look forward to releasing. Money doesn't talk, it swears.
And 2. We're talking about a man who is renowned for playing loose with the term "borrowing", who was run out of Colorado, Dinkytown and his fraternity for "borrowing" records, cash, etc., who, when told that an image he'd chosen for a RTR poster would need to be checked for copyright permissions said "Let 'em sue us", and who has accumulated a lifetime's power and prestige, the likes of which have earned him the answer "yes" to any question because yes means money in all pockets, including those of the employees of one of the most respected publishing houses in the world.
Don't get me wrong, I love the guy but not blindly so. He's always been an artist who has suffered from lengthy creative droughts, who has a very hard time admitting to them without the buffer of time to ease the admission, and who has benefitted from allowed laziness due to stature.
And let's not forget, he's a very smart man who has
always known exactly what he was doing and/or getting away with.
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