[/floatr]Mainichi: Kyushu University professor accused of copying British book
A Kyushu University professor has been accused of plagiarism over an acoustics book he co-wrote, with some saying it bears too close a resemblance to a British physics book. The 57-year-old professor under a cloud admits using the book for reference, but denies plagiarizing...."I acknowledged the book as a reference. Graphs and formulas I used are fundamental ones, and the same ones are also being used in other textbooks. I'm truly harmed by the accusations of plagiarism"...Kyushu University officials said the book at the center of the controversy is "Kiso Onkyo Gaku (Basic Acoustics)," which was published by Kodansha Scientific in 2002 ...In December 2005, several academics of the same faculty as the professor said that the book bears a remarkable resemblance to Cambridge University Press's "Vibration and Waves in Physics." The accusers said the overall composition of both books was similar, with some parts apparently translated directly into Japanese and graphs and formulas in the English book reproduced in the Japanese work...However, in July last year, more claims of plagiarizing began flooding into the university. Officials learned that during a three-year period from 1999, the professor had also instructed about 120 students to buy photocopies of parts of the English book, which he charged them 1,000 yen apiece for...more...
This isn't going to be as easy for the layman to judge as the case of the copycat painter.
