Plagiarized!
Aug. 10th, 2005 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantWeird -- this has never happened to me before. But an alert reader just informed me that someone has taken chunks of Transfigurations and worked them into her own story on fanfiction.net, here.
I haven't been able to bear to read the whole thing, but the theft is most obvious in Chapter 2, where the first three paragraphs are lifted directly from Transfig. There's some in Chapter 1, too.
It's a very odd thing to do, studding the story with stolen paragraphs; it's a different setup and a different pairing and goes off in a totally different direction, and she even has the same dialog I wrote spoken by different characters. So all in all it seems like it wouldn't be significantly less work than just writing it yourself.
I've sent an e-mail to the ffn abuse team. We'll see what happens next.
Edited to add: Oh, this is great -- evidently large bits of Chapter 4 were lifted from the script of "Dead Poets Society."
I still say it's less work to write your own.
I haven't been able to bear to read the whole thing, but the theft is most obvious in Chapter 2, where the first three paragraphs are lifted directly from Transfig. There's some in Chapter 1, too.
It's a very odd thing to do, studding the story with stolen paragraphs; it's a different setup and a different pairing and goes off in a totally different direction, and she even has the same dialog I wrote spoken by different characters. So all in all it seems like it wouldn't be significantly less work than just writing it yourself.
I've sent an e-mail to the ffn abuse team. We'll see what happens next.
Edited to add: Oh, this is great -- evidently large bits of Chapter 4 were lifted from the script of "Dead Poets Society."
"To fully understand potions, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the potion been rendered, and two, how important is that objective."
I still say it's less work to write your own.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:39 am (UTC)Did they think people just wouldn't notice?
Really, this beggars belief. I guess the only consolation you can take is "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" - but this is actually the height of laziness and disrespect. Grrrrr!
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:13 am (UTC)Especially as Transfig is one of the best known HP fics on the entire net!!!!
Stooooooooooopid people! :D
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:40 am (UTC)I wonder if it's the same weasel... it was the same MO, and the website owner defended her until Connie sent a Xerox of the original story and the editorial, with copyright date and the table of contents. Ms Plagiarism said that oh, she'd read the story and it must have impressed her. Right. To the extent of memorizing large segments of dialog, verbatim. The site owner took down all her work, which the bitch claimed was ok since "her agent" had advised her to take down her fannish work before her novel was published.
If so, I hope somebody checked out her novel, because I'll bet it wasn't her own work.
Who is this paragon of pestilence, anyway?
(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:43 am (UTC)Um. I'm probably being more depressing than helpful; sorry about that. This just boggles me.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:47 am (UTC)Unconscious borrowing does happen--but deliberate theft? Run the critter outta town!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 04:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:16 am (UTC)*is stunned by blind stupidity*
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:23 am (UTC)Hence the hypothetical case in which they imagine themselves not plagiarizing serves as a rationalization for why they did.
I know this, of course, both from the research in English Education and also from experience working with professional writers myself.
Respected fans, even very highly educated ones have plagiarized (and even published and attempted to publish plagiarized work), as I'm sure you know. Yet in most cases, they aren't caught, or if they're caught, their editors give them more credit than they perhaps deserve, and thus the world ends up assuming that it's only the worst writers who commit intellectual theft, which actually serves to further protect those who do it out of laziness and without shame.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 05:55 am (UTC)And, yes, it is odd how she took your work in a completely different direction, but then again, I had one of my CSI stories turned into a Good Charlotte RPS fic. Who knows what goes on in their brains.
(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 06:17 am (UTC)Way to honour your dead friend's memory.
"I know, I'll become a THIEF and dedicate it to his soul."
*is boggled*
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 06:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 06:24 am (UTC)Write a note saying that you are pleased as pudding, and criticise her other pieces, and pick apart the spelling and word choices.
That's what I would do!
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 07:21 am (UTC)(I'm also sorry if she's deleting angry comments - when this happened to me a couple years ago, I saved the whole thread of flame comments my plagiarist got, because they were full of really rapturous praise for my story.)
I don't get it, I really don't. Why? Why do people do this? Do they really think no one will notice ever?
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 09:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 09:14 am (UTC)At least on ff.net it can be reported, have you checked where else it's been posted?
(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 09:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 10:09 am (UTC)Ooo, a summary!
Harry and Hermione ogle over their sons and unborn daughter.
*collects summary and flees, shrieking*
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 11:28 am (UTC)Um, potions has a figure of speech? Who knew?
I don't understand why people do that. :(
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 01:18 pm (UTC)I mean, it's not like anybody *read* your story, or committed several sections to memory, or quotes its dialogue frequently.
*headdesk*
(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:47 am (UTC)Or maybe just with someone who doesn't care if she gets caught because she doesn't think she's doing anything wrong?
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 01:30 pm (UTC)Hey, think I can sue the writers of "Duet" for plagiarism? Heh.
(no subject)
Date: 8/13/05 02:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 02:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/05 02:24 pm (UTC)