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Plagiarism in Facebook account by Mazrich? Summers, again.

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Aaron Greenspan (who wrote ?Authoritas: One Student?s Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era??) has accused Ben Mezrich (who wrote ?The Accidental Billionaires?? ) of copying from Aaron's book (plagiarism) AND of mischaracterization and embellishment of the Facebook story. Certain text about Lawrence Summers comes up. Mezrich's style sometimes goes under the term dramatic narrative.

The Boston Herald describes the matter with Summers:

[Greenspan] alleged similarities center on Greenspan?s meeting with then-Harvard President Larry Summers where he accused Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing his idea - a Harvard-based social networking site with a feature known as ?The Facebook? or ?The Universal Facebook.?

IPBiz notes the many levels of irony associated with Harvard people accusing one another of idea-stealing! One must recall the text in the 2005 article in the Harvard Business Review: Plagiarize with Pride! At least they practice what they preach.

**

See Boston Globe Local author denies plagiarism in Facebook story

**Recall Summers was the Harvard Prez while the Laurence Tribe plagiarism problem was "disappeared." Summers later made some very troubling and politically incorrect statements about women's aptitudes, departed from Harvard, but found a home in the Obama administration.

Full post as published by IPBiz on August 14, 2009 (boomark / email).