COPYCAT REDUX

What's the difference between a plagiarist and a copycat? Nothing really -- except one admitted it and the other didn't, one is a writer and the other is an artist, one had her novel withdrawn by the publisher and the other had his layout in The New York Times Style Magazine defended by a Times editor as a case of copycat "coincidence."

Consider Kaavya Viswanathan's plagiarism vs. Vik Muniz's copycatting.

Here's a widely cited example, one of many borrowed passages in Viswanathan's recently published novel "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life": "He had too-long shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were always half shut. His mouth was always curled into a half smile, like he knew about some big joke that was about to be played on you."

Which bears a striking similarity to this passage in Megan McCafferty's 2001 novel, "Sloppy Firsts": "He’s got dusty reddish dreads that a girl could never run her hands through. His eyes are always half-shut. His lips are usually curled in a semi-smile, like he’s in on a big joke that’s being played on you but you don’t know it yet."

Here's an example, on the right, of what Muniz produced last December for a NYT Style Magazine fashion spread.