Was Ellen G. White A Plagiarist?

Ellen White’s Use of Sources

Washington copyright lawyer concludes that Ellen White was not a plagiarist and her works did not constitute copyright infringement.

Ellen G. White is not guilty of copyright infringement or plagiarism. This is the opinion of Vincent L. Ramik, senior partner of Diller, Ramik & Wight, Ltd., a lawyer who practices patent, trademark, and copyright law in Wash ington, D.C. EGWPlag 2.1

Mr. Ramik undertook to research Mrs. White’s writings after Warren L. Johns, chief legal officer of the General Conference, retained the services of Diller, Ramik & Wight last April because of allegations made against Mrs. White by Walter Rea, at that time pastor of the Long Beach, California, church. EGWPlag 2.2

Ramik, a Roman Catholic, spent more than 300 hours researching about 1,000 relevant cases in American legal history. He concluded his 27-page legal opinion 1 with an unequivocal declaration: EGWPlag 2.3

“Based upon our Review of the facts and legal precedents ... Ellen White was not a plagiarist, and her works did not constitute copyright infringement/piracy.”

The legal report was delivered to Johns’s office late last month. It responds specifically to six questions: EGWPlag 2.4

1. Was there a Federal copyright law between the years 1850 (when Ellen White first published) and 1915 (the year of her death) granting literary property rights to authors? If so, what was the essence of such law? Did it substantially differ from copyright law in 1981? EGWPlag 2.5

2. Was the payment of royalties by publishers a standard legal and business practice at that time? EGWPlag 2.6

3. Were licensing agreements for the use of literary property standard business practice at that time? EGWPlag 2.7

4. Was there a standard literary practice to use quotation marks, footnotes, and bibliographical citations in literary works that utilized the literary property of other authors? EGWPlag 2.8

5. What case law is available between 1850 and 1915 that might suggest the extent of an author’s protection against literary piracy? EGWPlag 2.9

6. Is there anything within the published works of Ellen G. White that would suggest literary piracy (Federal copyright infringement) within the standards existing between 1850 and 1915? EGWPlag 2.10

Ellen White’s literary output reportedly approximated 25 million words during a writing career spanning nearly 70 years. A number of the 90-plus books, including compilations, from her pen in print today have been translated into as many as 100 languages. EGWPlag 2.11

The fact that Mrs. White incorporated quotations and paraphrased materials from other authors (principally historians of the Reformation era and contemporary nineteenth-century devotional writers) in her books and articles has itself never been at issue. She, during her lifetime, and church officials, subsequently, have repeatedly acknowledged such use. But Walter Rea undertook the task of identifying the various sources of that literary borrowing. This study demonstrated that Mrs. White had borrowed more extensively than had been estimated previously. EGWPlag 2.12