Talk:Ghostwriter

Make Wikipedia better by backing up the information in this article with sources. I am especially curious to see some sort of verification that certain major authors have used ghostwriters, as mentioned in the article. --DeanoNightRider 06:48, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Article seems to have an unreasonable bias against ghostwriting

I added the notice about the article being biased because the article has a strong tone against ghostwriting when I don't think it's appropriate. In academia it's a severe academic offense. However in other forms of writing it's (in my opinion) perfectly fine to hire, or be hired, for the purpose of paying for content where the author isn't getting credit. They are getting paid for their work and typically know this is what's going on. Can someone go through and clean up the tone? If others disagree about the ethics of using a ghostwriter for general use we should state the controversy immediately after the introduction.

Freelancer1234 (talk) 19:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I just skim-read it again and I have to see I don't detect a particularly hostile tone toward the topic - it's not one of Wikipedia's best articles for a number of reasons, but it seems fairly objective and descriptive. Could you quote some of the particular passages that you think are questionable? Barnabypage (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

--- I'm referring to the bias against ghostwriting in some of the sections past the intro. I corrected some of it in my prior edit, but I think it's there still.

Freelancer1234 (talk) 13:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Last edit by 68.169.242.117

I revert an valuable yet controversial contribution (see difference) made by the user 68.169.242.117 (signed Claudia Suzanne) becouse:

• It is not written in encyclopedic style
• It removes mindlessly a big part of work of previous contributors (not in Wikipedia spirit)
• It is done from IP guilty of vandalism
• It is signed in a way that looks like a publicity of her ghostwriter services

Still I suggest editors of the article to look at her contribution, because of maybe some valuable ideas -- DariuszT 04:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

This article is very unencyclopedic, and looks unprofessional. The large edit made by "Claudia Suzanne" didn't look much better (From what little I read), but should probably be merged in without the advertising.

Cecil Adams

Obviously some decision needs to be made on whether Cecil Adams should be included in the list of ghostwriting teams. I say he should be left out, precisely because there is disagreement on the subject: there are enough uncontroversial examples without struggling over the inclusion of a controversial one. --Paul A 02:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I forget all the details, but at one point his staff started signing some articles in a way that made it clear Adams was not always the main author. Was some ghostwriting going on before then? It seems likely, even reasonable. Notice that the Cecil Adams article doesn't even mention this in passing. Piano non troppo (talk) 18:42, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

"Novilization" of Star Wars books

Unless my memory is faulty, I seem to remember a different author for every Star Wars movie-turned-book, seeing as Terry Brooks wrote the novel Star Wars: Episode I, based on the movie, and another author wrote Episode II. I can't seem to find these books anywhere, though, to confirm my memory... I'll check amazon.com or some place later. [unsigned]

Ghostwriter status in the Star Wars series only applies to Star Wars Episode 4. If I recall correctly, this book, like the movie was originally tiled "Star Wars". The other movie novilizations along with all of the expanded universe ones were directly corrected to their authors. Joncnunn 18:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

"Essay mill services do not violate the law"

I have removed the statement that "Essay mill services do not violate the law by providing ghostwritten papers; the act of academic fraud and misrepresentation only occurs when the student submits the ghostwritten paper as their own work."

This is a very bold and sweeping interpretation of the law, not only for one jurisdiction but for the entire world. I don't think that it is possible to say with confidence that, in every country, there is no offence of conspiracy to commit fraud when the paper is commissioned and/or provided - i.e. the ghostwriter knows full well that his essay will be used fraudulently and he conspires with the person who commissions him to produce that essay to be used for fraudulent purposes. As a lawyer, albeit not a criminal lawyer, that looks like conspiracy to commit fraud to me.

If it is true someone could say 'there have been no reported cases where a ghostwriter has been charged with fraud or conspiracy to commit fraud, but I think it would take more than a quick search on Google to be able to make even that statement with confidence... WeAreSilver (talk) 09:23, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Quality of Indian ghostwriters on a par with US, UK or Canadian ghostwriters

The statement "Outsourced ghostwriters whose qualities are at par with US, UK or Canadian ghostwriters" is a value judgement rather than a statement of fact and should, if it is true, be changed to something like "Outsourced ghostwriters whose qualities are considered by [?] to be at par with US, UK or Canadian ghostwriters", with a source quoted. I have not amended it because I have no idea whether this statement is actually true. WeAreSilver (talk) 09:23, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Ghostwriting in music

Why does the article make no reference to ghostwriting in music - specifically rap music? Is there a similar page for that?Illuminattile 21:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Ghostwriting in music should be mentioned somwhere. Especially in rap, it's kind of the hip hop industry's dirty little secret that a lot of big time rappers employ ghostwriters for their rhymes (and remember, it's not like most of these rap guys play instruments or produce their own tracks, so if they are not writing their rhymens what exactly are they contributing?) Royce Da 5'9 publicly stated that he wrote tracks for Dr. Dre's album Chronic 2001, after which Dr. Dre and Eminem dissolved their relationship w/ Royce (presumably because he let the cat out of the bag that Dre doesn't write his own rhymes). The Onion AV Club just ran a blog post about this issue : http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54276

Hi, there was a hip hop section, but someone discreetly removed it, and/or it was erased by accident. I have put it back.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 01:18, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Pen Names

The section on pen names doesn't really look like it belongs to this article. Wouldn't it be more logical to put this in the Pen name article and link to it from here? Anguis 03:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking more closely at the Pen name article, it looks like everything in this section is already there, so I'm going to go ahead with just removing it, and putting a link to that article instead. Unless someone has a good reason to want it here as well. Anguis 19:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Archive of fake reference from mainpage

"Essay mills and ghostwriters providing customized essay-writing ask for the course outline, topic, number of sources, and the mark that the student hopes to get for the essay (e.g., an "A-", "C+", etc.). While some select a high grade on the ghostwritten paper to boost their average, other students with poor grades may choose to purchase a paper that deliberately contains errors, which will receive a grade of "C+", because this will reduce any suspicions that they have committed academic fraud."

Removed b/c it was masquerading as a reference, and it's not sourced.

Janet13 03:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, why do you call it a fake reference? It is called a footnote. It provides extra information. I am being polite here, but your language is arguably offensive, with the words "fake" and "masquerading". I put it there to provide additional info for readers. There was no attempt to pretend that it is a reference.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 01:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Blog Ghost-writing

The section on ghost-writing blogs seems confused. A ghost-writer should be the one writing the blog posts; hiring people to post comments and votes to simulate support of the post is an example of astroturfing. As a freelance writer, I hire out to assist with blogs - by writing the posts for the bloggers themselves - but spamming a bunch of comments under several fake names is something I wouldn't do for any money.

The difference is that one is a collaborative effort of creating content, while the other is nothing but paid marketing, and very deceptive at that. Am I biased by my work point-of-view, or do I have a valid point? hosiah 03:10 28 June 2007 (EST)

I want to add that the sentence "Blogs are sometimes rated according to how many web 'hits' they get from users viewing the page, and this rating is used by advertisers considering paying for ad space on a blog website." is way to vague, shows a distinct lack of knowledge and precise terms, lack of sources/citation and is potentially wrong anyways, due to the latest Google updates. Furthermore "sometimes rated", by whom? I assume the editor meant Google? But if so, it is not "sometimes" rated this way, it is (either) rated like that or NOT ! I hope some SEO- & Google expert can provide more proven, to-the-point information, as I myself don't have it, I just know that the above is wrong. Most advertisers "pay per click" (or rather by conversion %) by the way, traffic or (hard to measure) "views" don't really do it anymore in 2012. --Philipp Grunwald (talk) 04:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Any use?

http://www.caslon.com.au/ghostingnote.htm 195.68.89.135 (talk) 14:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

John McCain's Book

John McCain's book The Faith of My Fathers was written by him and his administrative assistant, Mark Salter. Salter received co-authorship credit. Unless someone has a citation to indicate a third, un- or undercredited author, it appears that this work doesn't fall into the definition of "ghostwritten" as stated above. 131.96.47.8 (talk) 19:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

ghostwriting

'Ghostwriting' is a predominant business-domain activity that fuels major organized crime, such as routine manufacturer music-album piracy and illegal copyrights. 'Ghostwriters' write what others could and should be able to write themselves (and are in fact trying to write), many times writing nonvoluntary information elicited from intimidated people. Ghostwriters also assemble in print many different inputs from many different people under one or a few names; ghostwriting is how one person's or many people's original experiences and thoughts are published under a narrator's name. The more language-proficient a ghostwriter is, the more capable of 'perfect' crimes are their controllers/clients.

Demand-networking operations are a continuous interference that feed ghostwriting activities and cause reactionary crimes of violence; often, the ghostwriters are not visible to their victims, or can be easily transported to evade identification. The word 'earnings' is perceived to be the impetus for such offensive strategies that also generate propaganda and use companies such as International Paper as claimed backers with reference to the phrase "freedom of the press" as rationale. beadtot66.217.68.90 (talk) 20:10, 23 May 2009 (UTC) A good article.. continue?Prisms and rain (talk) 05:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Scientific American article on proposed medical ghostwriting ban

Scientific American article, Feb. 4, 2010, By Katie Moisse

"Ghostbusters: Authors of a new study propose a strict ban on medical ghostwriting"

RE: The opinion that a scientist who takes credit as an author on an article secretly written by a pharmaceutical company should face punishment like any other plagiarist

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ghostwriter-science-industry

DonL (talk) 19:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Copyrights

Who owns the copyrights, the ghost writer who actually wrote the whole book or the person the book is said to be written by? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.226.156.150 (talk) 06:02, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

In general (and non-fraudulent circumstances), copyright is established by the writer, but the ghostwriter is usually commissioned by a contract or agreement, which should stipulate who the copyright holder is (usually the person or organisation who commissions the ghostwriter). Note that copyright law varies from country to country. Ezeebooks (talk) 11:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Legality

Why is this legal? Shouldn't it be the same as lieing or false advertisement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.251.190 (talk) 04:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

John Barry / Monty Norman

I will remove the reference to John Barry and Monty Norman: "John Barry claims to be not only the orchestrator, but also the original composer of the James Bond Theme, which is credited to Monty Norman, possibly due to a ghostwriting assignment or a "work-made-for-hire" contract.[28]"

as in many news stories, and Wikipedia's own Monty Norman page, it explains how Norman has won two libel actions to prove that he was the writer of the 007 theme, against John Barry's claims. It's not a good example for this page. SpaceHistory101 (talk) 21:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I dont think this article can be fixed.

There is so much wrong with it, from formatting and style to bias...citation needed tags, inconsistent linking to other wiki articles... It often reads like more of a guide on how to hire ghostwriters, with unsourced price schemes instead of information thats useful...I just think at this point, it would be better to discard all or most of it and start over. 74.132.249.206 (talk) 06:58, 30 September 2012 (UTC)