Author admitted plagiarism. Supervisor asked for retraction. Publisher: “nah”

Admittedly the article is a little hard to follow, but even a quick perusal of the content would inform you otherwise.

In summary:

- someone found out that a postdoc plagiarized their paper. The postdoc had actually put several other author’s names on the plagiarized paper too which makes the situation a little hairy

- the original author emailed the associate editor of the journal that published the plagiarized paper

- editor gets in contact with the postdoc who says they’re really sorry and to please not ruin their reputation, their daughter was in the ICU. Postdoc apparently subtly implies that they will award original author with an authorship if they let this slide, which is also incredibly unethical if not outright fraudulent

- editor sides with the postdoc’s sob story and pressures original author to resolve without reporting

- Original author says sorry you should have known better. Either retract the paper or I will report you which can basically kill their career. He emails the other authors of the plagiarized paper and asks them to retract it too since it can actually kill their career as well

- one of the other “authors” of the plagiarized paper realizes how big of a problem it is and emails the journal asking them to retract it.

- Journal looks and says actually this is fine

- original author understandably says “wtf” because under the journal’s interpretation it’s totally ok to just take someone else’s paper and paraphrase it and submit it to a new journal as long as you cite the original