no ice storms

[incandescens]

Good heavens. Someone on fanfiction.net is plagiarising me. They've posted the Cue the Heroic Rescue story (which is already up on ff.net), as well as some of my bleach-quickies stuff (which is up on my own website). I therefore suspect that they found my website and didn't realise that I had a ff.net account already.

I have sent them a cease-and-desist-and-remove-or-I-notify-authorities letter, but even so. Heavens.

(They're also citing a "Bleach the Bottle" fic as their own, which I have a sneaking suspicion I've seen elsewhere, and which I need to check up on.)

Elsewhere, my sister has been organising the books round the house, at my mother's request. This has turned up the fact that we now can't find the Abhorsen books by Garth Nix, or any of the Antonia Forest ones except for The Player's Boy. Much consternation.

The weather is cold. Though there aren't any ice storms. There is that.

Comments

[boymonster.livejournal.com]

Ahh, plagiarism. The sincerest form of flattening.

[incandescens]

And one I could live without.

[lacewood]

... Wow, that's a new way to end the year. >_> Good luck with getting rid of the plagariser!

Bleach the Bottle was written by harukami, and the LJ link is here.

[incandescens]

Thanks. I will pass this on.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

That's how you know you've really made it.

[incandescens]

Gee, the fame.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

I've been plagiarized in Trigun and I think one of my earlier Bleach stories, but never any of the ones that I consider my better writing. Plagiarists have no taste.

[incandescens]

Someone once stole some of my GB fics earlier, too. But that was a while back.

[solaas.livejournal.com]

Good grief. Hopefully this will go away quickly, lest you have to summon the Dread Masters of The Pit of Voles.

[incandescens]

I do hope so. It's sort of flattering, but really rather disgusting.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

OK, I'm not up on fanfiction and its intricacies, but isn't any fanfic kinda plagiarism? Not saying that it's not creative or anything, but you're taking other people's characters and all, so do you have any legal claim to the work?

[archangelbeth]

Fanfiction has a lot of gray areas, but it's not plagiarism -- which is taking other people's work and claiming them as your own. No half-way sane fanficcer ever claims that a non-original-character is actually their creation. Fanfic is generally copyright violation, though some creators either don't care sufficiently that they ignore it, or even give some kinds of permission because they feel that it's a form of advertising or keeping fans happy. (Or because they're also fanficcers and don't sweat it.)

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

OK, good point. I missed my Semantics check (which is embarrassing).

[incandescens]

No worries. In fact, I'm not sure what the exact term for "steals someone else's work entire and then claims it as said person's own writing", but whatever it is, that person did it.

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

That is plagiarism -- failing to credit, or purposefully mis-crediting, the source of an original thought or creative work.

And it feels awful, I bet. ::ehugs::

[incandescens]

Thanks. It is appreciated.

[incandescens]

Good clarification. Thanks. :)

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not a copyright violation unless you a) try to profit off it, and b) use the same wording as the original text, or similar-enough wording to make it confusing. If your wording is transformative -- e.g., it takes the original material and transforms it sufficiently that it's obviously not just a ripoff -- then it falls under fair use.

Or so the OTW (http://transformativeworks.org/faq/) argues.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

It's worth pointing out that a) is actually irrelevant, when it comes to copyright violations, except in the case of how damages are awarded. See http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html for a quick discussion of that one. (And b) is only relevant in some circumstances; see #6 on the same page.)

[incandescens]

Interesting. Thanks!

[archangelbeth]

What fade said. A concept cannot be copyrighted -- you can have all the hawt vampire city-lords you want, even if they're boinking the local vampire hunter necrohottie, and unless you name them something way too close to Jean-Claude and Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton probably won't bother trying to sue you. (Though she could, rightly, send your publisher nasty notes saying you're a hack.)

But fanfic, using the actual names-for-concepts and probably characters? If you don't have permission, that's copyright violation. (Whether it's morally right for the US law to be worded that way? That's an entirely different discussion. You'll note that I, myself, have written fanfic for fandoms where I'm not aware of any blanket, explicit permission to write it. On the other hand, I do try to avoid writing in any fandoms where I know the author has explicitly asked that there not be fanfic.)

[incandescens]

All of a sudden I have a temptation to write a non-hawt vampire city-lord, just because. :)

[rheow.livejournal.com]

Ah, the Pit of Voles. Hope that gets resolved soon.

Happy New Year!

[incandescens]

Thank you! And the same to you.

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

I keep getting requests from strangers to send them the text of my old fanfics from waybackyonder -- "just for their own private reading", they say. It's this kind of thing that makes me tell them helltotheno. I have enough problems with my fanfic being stuck in archives I can't get it out of (the old RAAC archives, which have apparently been abandoned; I've sent multiple requests); I really don't need more of that.

[incandescens]

Yes, I'd be a bit suspicious of that too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

And on a totally different subject--

You can rebuy Nix but losing the Forests is cue for serious cardiac arrest. Out of print or else, even the reprints are going for megabucks. Run Away Home was about $300 the last I looked.

They must be in a box somewhere. Unless it was your mother's copies of Nix that you sent me back in err 2003 was it?

[incandescens]

I'm sure they're in a box somewhere -- a box so safe that my mother's forgotten where it is. We've just turned up some Dorothy Sayers in the attic that she was swearing were on the shelves last time we looked, so I have hopes of finding the Nix and Forests in a similar sort of place.

I don't think I'd have sent you my mother's copies of Nix, in any case. At that point I was still living at home with her, and she was reading mine. :)

[amethyst-hunter.livejournal.com]

I'm curious. Did they just take your fic and switch a few things around to make it look like they wrote it, or did they just flat-out take the entire thing and stick their name on it? (Either way, I'm sure it's an unpleasant surprise...)

Reason I ask is because I'm not sure if the same thing's happened to me - a couple months ago I spotted a fic with *very* similar elements to one of mine, but I haven't yet said anything to anyone because a) I'm not sure if it's worth kicking up a fuss over, and b) obviously I don't own the original characters (it's a GB fic, in case you were wondering, and I can give you links if you're interested) so it's not like I have any legal recourse even if I did decide to go after 'em - I mean, what am I gonna say, "take down your fic because it's a ripoff of mine which is also technically using somebody else's property"? They'd probably reply with a two-worded sentence, heh.

Anyways, just wondering. And Happy New Year, too. :)

[incandescens]

They seem to have just taken the entire thing and stuck their name on it.

Much sympathy on the plagiarism of your own work.

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

I hope you got rid of the fake(plagiarised) story!! Some people are just shameless!

I hope you had a good new years, though!!

[incandescens]

I had an excellent new year, thank you! Hope you did too.