Guo Jingming - The Plagiarism Controversy

The Plagiarism Controversy

In the year of 2004, Guo Jingming published his second book named Never Flowers In Never Dream while he studied in Shanghai University. The book portrayed a triangle love “featuring harmless forays into the Beijing underworld”. Never Flowers In Never Dream has sold 600,000 copies in the first month after releasing. However, soon after, a court found that the book has “shared 12 major plot elements and 57 similarities with another author”. The novel that Guo was accused to plagiarize is named “In and Out of the Circle” written by Zhuang Yu. In 2006, the court made the final judgment, which announced that Guo Jingming has violated Zhuang Yu’s copyright, and ordered him to pay Zhuang Yu 200,000 RMB (approximate $25,000) as compensation and apologize Zhuang. Guo Jingming has paid the damage fee; however, he refused to apologize or admit the plagiarism, or talk about this case.

Guo’s success was muted by the controversy of plagiarism. After the affair of plagiarism, Guo has been called “Super Plagiarism Boy”, “out-and-out thief”, and “no sense of decency” by outraged people; however, it did not affect the supports of his fans. Guo’s next musical album and novel still sold very well, so that Guo responded that “I felt upset but soon realized that selling well was where strength lay". Guo Jingming’s attitude to plagiarism was positive, he said people criticize him because they never read his book, so he would not pay any attentions to their false judgments, though he hates to be misunderstood. Guo also announced that he would prove to people they were wrong even if it would take ten years to clarify.