chilling effects -- colin purrington case

[Karen Lunsford]

Hi all,

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting on yet another case
where a cease-and-desist letter appears to have been used for its
chilling effects. According to the article, Colin Purrington
discovered that the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research had
'borrowed' a 1,200-word, almost verbatim passage from his online guide
on how to do scientific poster presentations. (I've used the site
myself.) He wrote to the Consortium to ask them to take down the
passage. The Consortium's lawyer responded by threatening a $150,000
lawsuit, claiming that the Consortium had developed the materials in
2005. Purrington can prove that he started the guide in 1997 and
posted it in 2001 (thanks to the Internet Archive).

Purrington is having to pay lawyer's fees to handle the correspondence.

I'm thinking that this is a situation to follow.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/adding-insult-to-plagiary-scientist-who-complained-of-copying-got-legal-threats/32525


--
Karen Lunsford, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Writing
Coordinator, Writing in the Disciplines
Director, Ph.D. Emphasis in Writing Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
klun...@writing.ucsb.edu