Plagiarism?

[muskrat26]

I have just received a copy of a funeral service (hymns, prayers etc) that has a special page devoted to a poem written and signed underneath the poem by the Deceased's Daughter. I have no wish to burst her balloon but I am sure I have seen this poem on the www - also I was interested seeing she has signed it personally as being the author if this is plagiarism?

 

 

                    Letting Go ....

"God saw you getting tired; when cures were not to be

He grasp you in his arms and said "come and be with me"

In tears we saw you sinking, we watched you fade away

Our hearts were nearly broken; you fought so hard to stay

But when we saw you sleeping,so peacefully from pain

We could not wish you back with us to suffer yet again

So keep your arms around her Lord;and give her special care

Make up for all she's suffered and all that's seemed unfair

I cannot understand, why you took my Mom away

But as she always said; we'll walk again someday" 

                           

 (signed: deceased's daughter)

 (dated March 2005)

                       

 

 

[lodekka]

Possibly a little harsh there, muskrat26.

A brief search found it on the web on various sites in many different forms after the first few lines.

Obviously you have the advantage of  knowing the people involved, but I'd say that the verse was dedicated to the mother because the daughter found them comforting and personal, rather than anything else.

 I would be very surprised if somebody were to claim such words as their own in circumstances like this.

[muskrat26]

Thank you for your reply. I am afraid the daughter has claimed them as totally her own and her name has been printed as author.

However, as you say there are similar forms of this poem and that is all I wanted to know.

[jno]

There's an old saying about nobody being under oath when writing an obituary (this probably applied more in the old days when you didn't speak ill of the dead than nowadays when death merely frees obituarists from the effect of the libel laws). I should think much the same applies here: plagiarism laws don't apply at funeral services, and muskrat26 should keep his/her mouth shut about his/her literary discovery.

[Peter Pedant]

Yeah, all the poems and translations at my mothers funeral were written by someone else first

I am not sure if finerals are the place to do anything except join in the service and say how sorry you are that whoever is dead, has died

[kick3m0n]

why do you care?  She sure ain't making money out of it.  Who is she hurting?  Why are you being a self righteous pain in the posterior???

[RevShirls]

muskrat26, this exact poem and various versions of it seems to have been around for ever. I think I first saw it in the late 1980s. In many newspaper announcements about funerals, you can often see this same poem (or extracts and variations) in the same column so I'm sure many people will recognise it. There isn't too much problem here as the author is anonymous and in the circumstances (funeral) people will be fine about it.

Lodekka, you say you'd be surprised if somebody were to claim such words as their own in similar circumstances. This is something that happens quite frequently and causes problems. Churches are always advised to be very careful  when they print poems in Order of Services and Newsletters as a few have run into legal battles over wrong attribution.and it can and has caused problems, . One church was nearly sued for giving a wrong attribution in a church. One family wanted me to include a poem in the Funeral Order of Service that the daughter (similar situation) had supposedly written. It was the well-known "All is well" ("Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped into the next room") by Henry Scott Holland. I really had to speak to the daughter on her own. For several minutes she insisted she had written it until I took a book off my shelf and showed her it and showed her 2 little cards with the same verse on.

She told the family and they were fine about it.

[natalie_1982]

When I was seven my granddad died and I wrote a poem about it - it got printed in the local paper and I have since seen it printed in the obituary collumn on behalf of other children to their grandfathers. 

I didn't have my name in there and simply left it "your granddaughter", but I certainly wouldn't dream of claiming anything and feel proud that someone else felt that they could relateand use it.

[Dark Angel]

Personally I think its alright if the deceased's daughter uses the poem authored by someone else for her mother's funeral, but its not correct that she should pass the poem off as her own. I wouldn't bother about it though, would just think to myself, "that's not right".