If You're Going to Plagiarize, Here's How to Do It.

[liz_marcs]

First off, an apology for not being online and responding to the comments in my journal. RL has been busy as hell. Plus, this weekend got taken up by a shift at Borders, cleaning the apartment, watching Babylon 5 Season 2, and kicking the crap out of the next part of Water Hold Me Down. I'm not happy with it and I keep wrestling with it.

The big problem is that it's something of another information dump, and it involves Rupert vs. Giles with Xander caught in the middle for most of it. So, the part is mega long. Plus, I have to keep it interesting.

Now, the source of my current fury.

Ye gods! I'm so angry I'm shaking.

mara_sho allowed me to judge a plagiarism case for her over on I Need a Parrot.

Now, it's true, I was asking for it and I did volunteer. However, upon seeing both fics, my hate buttons were pressed:

• Fucking Xander-centric 'Halloween' stories. *stabbity stabbity stab stab* Haaaaaaate! Have I mentioned that seeing 'Xander' and 'Halloween' and 'costume' in the summary is enough to make me run the fuck away? Do you know what I want to see? Do you? I want to see a Halloween story where Xander DOESN'T wear a costume and he and Ghost!Willow are stuck running all over town trying to keep a lid on things. But noooooooo. The power of Power!Xander! compells you. GAAAAHHHHH!
  
• Obscure crossover involved. Fucking anime. Fucking bad crossover. Fucking Halloween stories.
  
• Bad grammar, painful grammar, the kind of grammar where you have to walk away from the keybobard because you're thisclose to sending a nasty note to one or both authors. Hey, here's a hint: Buy Strunk and White's Elements of Style. It's cheap (less than $8 new). I'm a professional writer in RL and I've got multiple copies at home and at the office. If I'm not above having multiple copies that all look like they survived World War III after 15 years as a professional writer who makes a damn good living at it, than you sure as hell aren't.
  
• Spelling that makes you weep. I'm not the world's greatest speller. I make typos, sometimes multiple typos in one chapter. But CONSISTENTLY BAD SPELLING makes my eyes bleed. Fine. You don't want a beta. You don't like pulling the dictionary down off the shelf. BUT DO THE WORLD A FAVOR AND SPELLCHECK!
  

Now comes the cream in the coffee, so to speak.

Within the first 15 pages of both fics, I found at least five instances of a direct cut and paste from Story A to Story B. This cut and paste involved preserving the bad spelling and grammar from the original in many cases.

Because this can't be said enough: What. the. Fuck?!?

mara_sho has removed the offending story and warned the plagiarist in question. Since she has not revealed the name of either the wronged author or the plagiarist, I can't do so here, simply because the author's and plagiarist's names were blinded.

Now that I've calmed down from volcanic to merely furious, I thought I'd offer a Plagiarist's Guide to Plagiarism for whatever ignorant fucker decides that it's easier to stand on the shoulders of people who actually put a little thought into their work instead of earning the right to post fanfic the hard way.


Here's a thought: DON'T DO IT!
I've pointed out in other plagiarism forums that this shit has happened to me three times professionally and in RL.

Do you know what happened in all three cases? In all three cases, my employer at the time sicced a lawyer on the other publications. In one case, the radio station in question was forced to start acknowledging the source of the story whenever they "re-worked" a story from the local newspaper. In another, a publication printed an apology. In the third case, the offending writer was fired and I got an apology with a promise that they'd watch the other people on the staff more closely in the future.

In RL, plagiarism has consequences.

In fanfic, we don't have a lot of legal recourse, since we are playing with other people's toys. Buffy-verse fandom is lucky in that Whedon and his pack of writers give fanfiction a wink and a smile, along with many disclaimers that they don't read it (hell, they claim they don't even read the tie-in novels ). So, although there's shaky legal ground, it's semi-sanctioned by the creator and FOX is willing to turn a blind eye to it.

The only thing that surprises me is that plagiarism doesn't happen more often in the realm of fanfic. In fact, I'm pretty confident it happens a hell of a lot more often than many people realize, it's just that plagiarists are probably a little smarter than this most recent asshole that's come to my attention.


Make the Cut and Paste a Little Less Obvious, Sport
The thing that floors me is that a lot of the plagiarists who get caught literally cut and paste entire paragraphs from the original story. Hell with paragraphs, try whole chapters, even whole stories. They preserve the original not just word for word, but misspelling for misspelling, typo for typo, and, in this latest case, bad grammar for bad grammar.

That's not just stupid, that's lazy.

If you're going to cut and paste, please put a little work into it. Correct the spelling and grammar. It's the least you can do. At least then people might think you've got some talent as a copyeditor. Or something.

One more thing about the cut-and-paste thing: If you at least change the wording to a significant degree, you might, just maybe, have a little wiggle room. You can plead ignorance. You can plead, "Oh, I didn't realize I read something similar to this. It must have settled into the back of my brain and I spit it back without realizing." You can make all kinds of excuses.

Granted, no one will probably believe you. And no one should believe your lying ass. But at least you've got a fig leaf for people inclined to sympathetic to you.


Try not posting your stolen work on the EXACT SAME SITE as the original
Again, how stupid can you be? Chances are, the same readers that hung around that particular site when the original was published are going to see the plagiarized story and go, "Hey! I remember reading this before!"

Since authors have certain styles or favored subjects, it's not too hard for these people to track down the original story and start comparing.

It doesn't matter if the original story is positively ancient by fanfiction standards, by the way. People have surprisingly long memories and some of them remember stories they've read five, sometimes ten years ago. All it takes is that key phrase or concept to trigger the memory (see: "Cut and paste") to get a reader to start digging.

Or, how's this for a better scenario: the author of the original work probably hangs there and if you're writing in a genre he or she usually writes in, then there's a good bet they're going to see your story and start howling bloody murder.


Steal from Authors Who Don't Work the Same Vein as You
Let's look at our most recent case: They were BOTH Xander-gets-a-power Halloween stories. They both involved Xander dressing up as an anime/comic book character. They both involved obscure crossovers. They both demanded that Xander keeps the power after the spell is broken.

I mean, c'mon! Seriously. Xander-Halloween-Costume-Anime crossover stories are written by a limited number of authors as it is and is read by a selected group of people who like these kinds of stories. The chances of the plagiarist being caught was approximately 100%, and that was even BEFORE the plagiarist was actually caught (since, by definition, if something has happened, the chances of it happening is 100%).

At LEAST change some elements. Instead of Xander, make the character Willow. Instead of some random obscure anime/comic book reference, how about choosing a different kind of crossover.

Oh, wait. That might require you to actually write something ORIGINAL. We can't have that now, can we?


Steal from Authors Who Work in a Different Fandom
Now this is a little smarter, but people who do this make other stupid mistakes that get them caught (see: "Cut and Paste").

Everyone on my FList must remember the case of B/X writer Ozymadius, with his OOC characterizations of Xander and Buffy (sometimes Faith) getting jiggy with it. Turns out he was stealing from X-Files and Smallville fandom (and even possibly a third). He'd copy and paste the smutty parts (and some of his stories were ALL smut, btw) and basically search and replace the names.

Now, it took years for this dude to be caught, so point for him. But here's the point: he was eventually caught. He was justifiably villified for it. He copped to it and (to his credit) apologized. But the damage was done.

I still remain floored by people who actually said they didn't care that he ripped off people writing in other fandoms and they didn't care that the stories were plagiarized. These are people who (all caps now) JUST DON'T GET IT. This was a violation of those authors' ideas and hard work. Fanfic authors don't get paid (nor should they). All they've got is feedback and the satisfaction of sitting back and writing something original. To take that away little bit of pride away and actually throw their stories in doubt is simply wrong on a major scale.

And no, I have no sympathy or mercy. This was a clear-cut case of someone who was NOT a bad writer, someone who actually had promise as a writer if he worked at it. Someone who DELIBERATELY sought out stories published in other fandoms and stole from stories in those fandoms. This is someone who thought "intelligently" about the plagiarism.

Plus, B/X writers have a tough uphill battle in Buffy fandom and in the realm of fanfic. The last thing they needed as a group was to have one of their most prominent writers revealed as a thief.

But if you insist on being a thieving asshole, at least be a SMART thieving asshole.


There. I'm done. I'm sure there are many more "rules" I can come up with. But This will do for a start.

Excuse me. I have to go get me some bird therapy to calm me down. George the Amazing Lovebird may be sometimes a pain-in-the-ass, but he's an honest pain-in-the-ass.

Comments

[bastardsnow.livejournal.com]

Plagiarists piss me off too, but that's not what i'm here about. I'm here about this:

The best Halloween fic I ever read never even got to the part where the spell goes off. It basically goes through the day, through Xander picking his costume, and doing all the work he needs to get *into* the costume, as apparently it is quite taxing. And then he kind of waddles over to Buffy's house, and Joyce opens the door and says, like "Oh, my, Xander. And what are you going as?" And Xander grins at her and yells/sings out:

"WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA?"

And thus ends the story.

Just thought that might amuse you =)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

See? But THAT'S clever!

I think I even remember that one. It was probably one of the first ones written back when they were nearly drabble-like stories instead of these huge re-writes of 'Halloween.'

What kills me is that the original challenge WAS clever and people really put some good thought into it. I seem to recall that part of the challenge was that people had to keep the stories short and readers had to guess what character it was, which lead to better-known characters being used instead of this insane obscure crap.

Now...*shakes head* They've evolved into something completely different.

What's sad is that I KNOW there are some quality fics out there that work this mine, but I just can't bring myself to read them. I'm burned out reading the summaries and I've been burned too many times taking a chance, so I don't even bother any more.

Of course, all this bad!fic has brought me to the brink of hating the actual episode by extension.

*bangs head on desk*

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Heh. I was the other judge for this case, and totally share your hate, both of the stories and the plagiarism. University lecturer here, so get quite a bit of it. (Plagiarism). I always get that Snyder-like glow of satisfaction when I catch one of the dirty little cheats. It is truly extraordinary how naive and careless some of 'em are in their plagiarism. As I said to one plagiarist this year, "You know, we can use Google too!" I sometimes think I should do that sort of "If you're going to plagiarise, at least do it well" talk early in the year, then I think, no actually I really oughtn't.

But Lord, were those fics bad? Spelling, grammar, bloody Charmed crossover, and, one thing I hate, the super-powerful Xander - I mean even before he gets the Costume-Anime-Crossover superpowers - Early season 2 Xander didn't go taking on three vampires hand-to-hand all by his lonesome. Let alone winning with barely a pause for breath. But really, where do you start with stuff that awful.

And why anyone would think that something that bad was the fic they really had to plagiarise. *boggles*

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Wheeee!

Yeah, both stories were bad. The story I believe was the original was...lordy...not good. It sucked like a suck-y thing. I couldn't even see Xander to start with, so seeing the costume change took me by surprise.

I have a "Xander fights vampires" rule for post-'Chosen' stories.

Head-to-head with one vampire, Xander has better than an even chance, provided he maintains the element of surprise in one form or another. Head-to-head against two vampires, good chance his goose is cooked. He might get one, but killing the other would require him to pull a sneaky trick out of his ass to save his bacon (which by definition makes it no longer head-to-head). And he's going to be crawling his injured ass to safety afterwards. Head-to-head against three vampires and no help? Not. A. Chance. He's vamp food. Or a vampire. Your choice.

Although I do maintain Xander with a distance weapon like a longbow or a crossbow and a defensible position could probably hold off a greater number of vampires for a little while, but time wouldn't be on his side. Sooner or later he'll miss one and one getting through is all it would take.

*shakes head*

But S2 Xander? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Less said about the quality of grammar, the better.

As for academic plagiarism, that's almost understandable and, I honestly thing, can sometimes happen inadvertantly through laziness, or simple exhaustion. Plus, there's an actual benefit if they don't get caught (like passing).

But fanfiction? I mean, what's the POINT?

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

spot on!

smashsc sent me over here, because I have been grading English papers all day and complaining about my pretty crop of plagiarists. So if it makes you feel better. . .or worse. . .people pull the same crap when turning in papers for a grade.

though I can at least see the POINT of academic plagiarism. this?

Incidentally, we have half the same flist, so I'm sure I don't know why you're not already on mine. . .am adding :)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my weirdness!

Really, I'm usually far more pleasant.

My current job is a medical technical writer. We have to source every single sentence, even if we heavily re-write the information. So my already famously low tolerance for this crap is even lower, since I can spend up to 30% of a project painstakingly underling the sources passages in the original and making sure the sourced material and new material match.

Don't get me started about the fun that is writing bibliographies based on the American Medical Association Stylebook. That's the seventh level of hell right there.

[yma2.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the plagerism thing. Ok, in academic terms I see why it happens. In real life writing I see why it happens. But fanfic? What the fuck? I mean, the point of fanfic is to have fun writing and then, hopefully, have people who say, 'yeah, that's really good stuff, Zooty, I like your plot, ect, ect, ect,' but if you just nick someone elses stuff is just pointless because the only results of fanfic is praise, and if it's praise for work which isn't your own then it's... not real, right?
I just don't get it. It's strange. And very, very sad.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I'm so completely with you.

Plus, it seems that stories of lesser quality get ripped off more often than stories that are of better quality. I have yet to see someone like othercat, who writes Xander slash, or nwhepcat, who writes mostly Xander het, get ripped off.

What blows me away, is that in most cases of plagiarism, the plagiarists generally steal from low-quality stories and don't even both trying to fix the most mechanical of problems that should be really easy to fix.

I mean, FANFICTION?!? Why would you rip off FANFICTION? Why?

[rachelmap.livejournal.com]

Within the first 15 pages of both fics, I found at least five instances of a direct cut and paste from Story A to Story B. This cut and paste involved preserving the bad spelling and grammar from the original in many cases.<.i?

Bwaaaahahahahaha! I've caught students doing that... Of course, in their case, they're ESL students so their grasp of correct grammar and spelling in English is often shaky at best. What's this plagiarist's excuse?

[rachelmap.livejournal.com]

Nuts.

[rileysaplank.livejournal.com]

One case of plagiarism that velvetwhip found on FF.net, the plagiarist didn't even bother to hange the title. The idiocy of some of the plagiarists amazes me.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

That...that...that...

My words have failed.

I remember taking on a case of plagiarism on FF.net that involved a Souled!Vamp!Willow! showing up on Xander's doorstep with pizza as a peace offering in hopes of getting him to talk to her and getting his forgiveness for some bad things she did to him before she got the shiny soul. Xander opens the door and refuses to let Willow in and lets her have it. The "twist" was that she tortured Tara as well and now Xander and Tara were together (romantically!), bounded by their tortures at the hands of UnsouledVampWillow.

Both stories were exactly the same. I mean, exactly. First I told the plagiarist to take the story down because I went through all of FF.net and found the original. The plagiarist pitched a "screaming" fit at all of us who called her on it and insisted she wrote the original and that she had NEVER HEARD of the original.

Right there you knew she was lying. If she said she posted it first on another site, she would've bought time. But to say she never heard of the original fic when the two stories were nearly word-for -word identical? Wow. That's just stupid on an epic scale.

The story was taken down. I think the author was even banned. But...just wow!

I don't understand. I mean, I don't understand the why. But I understand the stupidity even less.

[jpublic.livejournal.com]

Heh. Check back in my journal an entry, liz. The one just before my current post has a notable interaction with a plagiarist I had.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Horror film reviewers on the Internet are dealing with a serious plagiarism scandal right now, actually. A UK print magazine, Dark Side, is wholesale lifting 1000+ word reviews from a number of horror film websites without accreditation. This is a ten year old publication, and the editor-in-chief, every time he's called on it, claims that it's the work of a new freelance writer and that he just wasn't aware. This crap has probably run as long as it has because horror writers are generally just fans who don't have the money for an international lawsuit, but now it looks like Dark Side may have lifted from the freaking New York Times.

It's sick and pathetic and what really pisses me off is the people who shrug and say, "It's up free on the Internet. What did you expect?" *screams*

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

*grrrrrrrr*

Reminds me of the huge debate over political bloggers to an extent. The FEC is trying to say they can't have the same rights as "legitimate" news organizations (liek, whoh! I must've missed that phrase in the First Ammendment that said, "This applies only to university-trained reporters with a journalism degree and who draw a paycheck from a multinational media conglomerate.")

Because it's on the "Internets," the authors can be abused and their work can be stolen or subjected to laws that don't apply to anyone else.

I hope Dark Side goes out really soon in as ugly a manner as possible.

[skipp-of-ark.livejournal.com]

Couple of points. Forgive me for rambling.

1) I think one of the reasons many people give Ozmandayus a break and say "I don't care" about the fact that he plagiarized is that he first came to prominence during a period when B/X fandom was suffering a low point, what with the establishment of Xanya as a "real" relationship despite the fact that ME had firmly established it as 90% comedic fodder (and thus, both participants as mostly comic relief), and the rise of both Spike as one of the top three characters on the show and Spuffy in general, 'cause it was viewed early on that Buffy getting involved with one vampire was happenstance, but Buffy choosing to get involved with two vampires was the final nail in B/X's coffin, or at least the possibility of it ever happening in canon. Oz came along and seemed like an act of defiance and a breath of much-needed air rolled into one, especially as the seasons went on and ME seemed to refuse to do anything with Xander or let him out of the margins for more than episode a season. (Seeing as how most B/X'ers are/were primarily Xander-fans first.) I'm not at all attempting to excuse, justify, or defend Oz's plagiarism, and frankly, I share your opinion of his characterization of Buffy and Xander as OOC. (Frankly, I think Oz needs to come out of the closet and admit that what he really wants to do is write Harlequin romance novels.) I think that some people feel that his role in keeping B/X "alive" at a time when other old-school ships were dying on the vine (like W/X, C/X, or W/O) is more important than his plagiarism.

2)I'm not a fan of either anime or manga, but I accept that there are fans. But it always seemed, at least on the Militantly Het-Only Xander-Centric List we're no longer members of, that the anime fans onlist were the diehard, "I live and breathe this stuff exclusively" fans, and BtVS was the only exception. And their fanfic was always, "How to divorce Xander from BtVS and make him a part of this or that anime, because I assume everybody's as big an anime geek as I am," and thus the assumption that, on a Xander-centric list, we don't need to explain this stuff to non-fans. Which. Always. Annoys. Me. And the ongoing battle to see who can come up with the most obscure crossover? Is just fanboy posturing. Dude, just crossover with something most people have at least heard of, okay?

[booster17.livejournal.com]

To me, half the fun of any crossover is getting both universes right. Whereas this may require info-dumping to enable people who only know one to catch up, a good writer will be able to do it in such a way that it flows naturally.

Obscure crossover does not automatically equal bad. Just my two cents in on the end.

[learnedhand-dj.livejournal.com]

Even though I have no idea what you look like, I am now picturing you in a black robe and powdered wig, banging your gavel and shouting, "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Oh, but if you saw the comparisons between the two, this is a case of "beyond a reasonable doubt."

I'm talking word-for-word, down to the typo in many cases. Whole chapters, even.

In fact, when I first got the samples, I had a completely open mind. The openings were complete different as was the endings, so I seriously thought mara_sho was overreacting. But once you got beyond page two in both....really, there was no doubt. It was startling to see it so blatant.

And, as pointed out, mara_sho, smhwpf, and myself all read the fics in question. I can't tell you for certain which was the original, but without a doubt, one copied from another. The names aren't going to be made public until at least mara_sho gets a response.

In the meantime, she's removed the story that with plagiarism attached to it.

So, yeah, definitely powdered wig on my head tonight.

*must go to bed now*

Define plagerizm

[(Anonymous)]

Something that bugs me about Plagerizm as defined in fanfiction. Is it plagerizm just because the author of the new story didn't credit the original author?

The Reason I ask is that I've sean stories where entire chapters were just the show's script (and in script format yet) but no one acuses them of plagerism. So, other then not crediting the first fanfiction author with having "inspired" the story what is wrong with the plagerism of fanfiction?

The Unicorn
unicornzvi@yahoo.com

Re: Define plagerizm

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

It's plagiarism when the plagiarists uses the original author's words and/or whole of a story, whether or not they credit the original author.

And don't trust the credits of a story if someone claims they got permission from an author. Just because someone claims they got permission from the original author, doesn't mean they actually did. There've been cases where this has happened and the original author was, "The hell? I don't remember this."

As for fanfiction itself: the short point. It's illegal. It's not legally defensible at all. Period. It's not even considered "fair use."

However, due to lack of enforcement, it's either actively encouraged by the creators (i.e., Whedon for any of this stuff, Moore for DS9 and BSG, JRK for Harry Potter) because they know its a smart way to keep the properties alive; tolerated with a blind eye by others (say, FOX for Buffy, by way of example); or forbidden completely by the creator (authors Anne Rice; Laurell K. Hamilton).

And if you notice, almost every single piece of fanfiction out there does (or should) have a disclaimer right at the top of chapter one giving credit to the original source.

The other thing: fanfiction writers can't/shouldn't make money off what they write. The second you get anything of monetary value (for example, someone paying your annual LJ fee), you have broken the law. Provided you don't make money off it, in certain circles, fanfiction can remain uneasily in that grey area.

As for lifting script passages from scripts, that's just shitty writing.

The fact is, there's a huuuuuuuge difference between fanfiction where people (in theory) are applying new stories or new plots to characters created by someone else, while acknowleding in the disclaimer that they don't actually own anything.

That's a completely different situation where you have one small potato stealing from another small potato (right down to word-for-word passages in many cases) and claiming a story they did not write is theirs. What makes it even worse is that the original small potato has zero legal recourse to protect what's theirs and often is stuck trying to protect their claim or defend themselves.

I remember us getting into this on the XZ. I didn't understand your attitude then about this, I don't understand it now.

[mara-sho.livejournal.com]

It did boggle the mind completely when I read the exact same sentences one after the other over and over again...

The grammar in both stories was shockingly bad, but the plagiarist really kind of gave themselves away with that whole tense shifting thing they did, that is, they would have given themselves away if it hadn't been for the fact that it was obviously a copy'n'paste job.

What really, really, really gets me about this is that it's such an obscure crossover that it's instantly only goting to appeal to a limited audience (and that's after half the potential audience has already clicked away from it as soon as they saw the word Hallowe'en...). The remaining potential audience is so narrow by that point that of course they're going to remember any other fic which used that crossover and that alone would have run up a flag.

Plagiarists are apparently not the most intelligent people.

As for Ozymandayus, I was one of the first sites to be contacted about his fics, it was X Files fic writers who contacted me and the proof they showed me was staggering. As you say though, he was intelligent about it (if that word canbe applied to plagiarism) in that he took works from completely different fandoms and did the copy'n'paste/find/replace thing. (Seriously, one story it genuinly was a find/replace the word Mulder with the word Xander...)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your quick work on this. :-)

But, yeah, this had to be one of the dumber cases I've ever seen. *shakes head*

I can't wait until the naming of the name happens. I'm always curious to see who I should keep my eye on for future reference.

Slightly Different Example

[keith5by5.livejournal.com]

At uni, I was sat talking to my mate having finished my programming assignment, when I realised that my printout had gone missing. Figuring I'd thrown it in the bin, I start to printout another copy.

Then, as I'm printing it out friend tells me that he'd seen this lad who was utterly useless pick up my print-out. I go after said thief. Fortunately for him, he didn't go to the next class (I got in major trouble kicking the door open and charging in in-mid lecture, oops).

Why wasn't he in said lesson? He was busy typing up sections of my program. Fortunately for me, my second instinct after my thwarted attempt at lynching was to approach my tutor. I got an 'A', he got a bare pass and a stern warning not to push for a higher grade.

Re: Slightly Different Example

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I don't know of a single programmer that hasn't happened to.


Although, truthfully, out in the real world of business it's useful - no use reinventing the wheel is someone has a section of code that does what you need. (To be perfectly honet, though, I'm such a snob I rarely copy anyone's code except my own - I'm a great programmer, no need to sully my code with someone else's crap.)

[4thdixiechick.livejournal.com]

Bwah! & Word!
Nice esssay/rant.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

*bows* Thank you.

[koos73.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know what is wrong with halloween fic. I dont' like them either, thus I ignore them. I have read only one Halloween fic so far and that was XZ's very first. But, there are enough other fans who do like them, so no problemo for me.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Some of the shorter Halloween ones can be clever. d_tepes, for example, usually puts out some clever stories that I enjoy.

The problem with them, however,, is that they've bred like roaches all over the Internet. You can't get away from the damn things, even if you use the fanfic equivalent of raid.

Of course, I may be bitter because I had to read not just one, but two, yesterday for this plagiarism case.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I love it. Not only is the plagerist a complete boob, but a boob with incrdibly bad taste.

And I also hate fics that give Xander super powers. The idea is to prove ME wrong -that Xander could have had great plot lines while remaining normal guy.

[koos73.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more with you here.

I will never give Xander superpowers. (Except that I might make him an Immortal one time.)

Xander's strength lies in his personality; his heart and determination. In his ability to judge the moral issues involved; even though its awkward at times, and his ability to vocalize this. Xander is a normal human guy that with his past, his friends, his background, his personality, his talents in an amazing world will give you more than enough plot lines.

And those nitwits called ME totally missed that. Especially during that crap that's called S7.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered if the choices I make lead to fanfiction that isn't popular enough to steal. Heh.

Kind of off-kilter pairings, depresso plotlines, grocery store settings...

But then, your theory is quite appealing too! :)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Heeeeee!

You need to write crappier fics, that way people will "pay you the compliment" of stealing your stories.

I know...not enough of teh hawt seX0r.

*grumbles about going back to writing about a pharmaceutical drug product using British spelling*

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Fucking Xander-centric 'Halloween' stories. *stabbity stabbity stab stab* Haaaaaaate! Have I mentioned that seeing 'Xander' and 'Halloween' and 'costume' in the summary is enough to make me run the fuck away? Do you know what I want to see? Do you? I want to see a Halloween story where Xander DOESN'T wear a costume and he and Ghost!Willow are stuck running all over town trying to keep a lid on things. But noooooooo. The power of Power!Xander! compells you. GAAAAHHHHH!

WHich is why folks should probably run with "Head Waiter Guy" stuff instead of "James Bond" stuff...

[aadler]

Okay, you did this list-commentary months ago, but you just referred to it in a recent post, so I’m (in a way) responding to that.

My own experience with plagiarism was brief but blatant: someone copied my story “Twilight’s Last Gleaming”, renamed it, and posted on their own site (at least, I assume it was their own). I found it because they had done a cut-and-paste of the entire original site page, including the header that listed me as author; that latter appeared three times within the text, in the places where chapter breaks would have gone.

I asked for advice online about what to do about it, but as it happened a strongly-worded warning that I was aware of this, and it wasn’t legally permissible, was enough to resolve the situation.

I don’t know if it’s possible to find an example more extreme than that.

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

Everyone on my FList must remember the case of B/X writer Ozymadius, with his OOC characterizations of Xander and Buffy (sometimes Faith) getting jiggy with it. Turns out he was stealing from X-Files and Smallville fandom (and even possibly a third). He'd copy and paste the smutty parts (and some of his stories were ALL smut, btw) and basically search and replace the names.

Now, it took years for this dude to be caught, so point for him. But here's the point: he was eventually caught. He was justifiably villified for it. He copped to it and (to his credit) apologized. But the damage was done.


OMG, I didn't know. When did he get caught? Coz I remember a year and a half ago, I was asking for good Xander/Buffy fics and many pointed for me to read Ozymadius' fics. I never had the chance to read them because I get busy with other fics and RL. Oh God...