It seems that 2008 is shaping up rather dubiously as the year of the plagiarizer. Or rather, the accused plagiarizer, as many of the cases brought to light thus far have not been substantiated with any sort of real punishment. Obviously, all this dirty copying is going to be easier and easier to catch as new technology surfaces.

The most high profile cases of supposed plagiarism, are, of course, in politics, as both Democratic candidates have been brought to task for some of their rather heavy-handedly copied speeches. Hillary Clinton pointed the finger at her rival Barack Obama first, claiming that he had borrowed lines from Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.

Obama shrugged these reports off at first and then fought back, responding that Clinton had stolen ideas from Obama himself, namely his trademark slogan, “Fired Up! Ready to Go!”

They’ve gone back and forth this way for almost a month now, Clinton bringing up Obama’s alleged plagiarism somewhat unsuccessfully at debates and Obama and other Clinton critics responding with more instances of Clinton’s supposed borrowing from her husband and from former Democratic candidate for president, John Edwards .

Plagiarism has reared its ugly head in the arts as well, most notably in the case of Romance novelist Cassie Edwards. In January, the ladies from SmartBitchesTrashyBooks, a wonderful blog on Romance novels, broke the story that their least favorite author, Edwards, had some strangely similar passages to other books that the bloggers found by doing a simple google search.

One of the articles that bore a striking resemblance to a section in an Edwards novel was about the endangered black footed ferret written by a member of the conservation society, Defenders of Wildlife. Other parts of various Edwards novels matched up almost word for word to various Native American texts.

After some fairly ridiculous shuffling of its feet, Edwards’ publisher has pledged to look into the subject, but almost three months later, little progress has been made. Edwards has responded feebly, claiming that, as an author of historical romance, she wasn’t aware that she had to cite her sources.

The most recent accusation of plagiarism comes from the fashion world, where Swede Göran Olofsson has claimed that popular designer Marc Jacobs stole an idea for a scarf from Olofsson’s father. The scarves are almost exactly similar, so unless Jacobs has somehow acquired to rights to the design, this seems like a fairly open and shut case. Jacobs hasn’t commented on this issue yet and its getting so little publicity that he might not have to.

What I want to know is, how did little Mr. Olofsson even see Marc Jacobs’s version of the scarf in the first place? I can’t imagine that he is any more of a fashion aficionado than I am, and I never would have seen the ugly thing if not for this story.

It’s fairly discouraging that all of these cases have made a relative splash upon their immediate discovery and then faded right back into obscurity. It follows, then, that 2008 isn’t the year of the plagiarizer so much as the year in which the greedy little plagiarizer will be caught. And then forgotten.