the plagiarism debacle of HP and Cassie Claire

[seldear]

Most of you probably don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about. That's okay.

If you have time, then the long version is here at Bad Penny.

If you don't have time, then the short version is: the biggest and most well-known BNF of Harry Potter fandom stole whole passages from the books of published authors, as well as dialogue quotations from TV shows, and put them into her own work. Then, when people complimented her on her marvellous writing skills and witty dialogue, she accepted the praise as though it was her due.

She used her fame to gain a writing contract with a publishing house and is presently engaged in publishing a young adult fantasy novel under what is essentially her fandom name, minus an 'I'.

The Long Version
(The Short Version)

What the BNF did was lift passages, changing a word here and there, fitting the plagiarised sections into her own story - not individual words, but many phrases, sometimes whole scenes. And taking the credit for it.

Oh, she later claimed that she 'took inspiration from', 'paid homage to', and 'was influenced by' these authors, these creators. She didn't. There's a vast ocean of difference between taking inspiration from someone and doing a copy-paste and changing a few words around. A reasonable proportion of this BNF's most famous work was taken from other people - and she never said otherwise, never indicated just how much was taken, and just smiled and nodded, pretending that huge chunks of other people's work, originated in her own mind, from her own soul.

Plots are one thing - I've probably handed at least as many plot ideas out to people as I've written, no bad feelings. But plots are broader - concepts, ideas... You could give me and skydiver119 the same plot and we'd probably execute it fairly differently - and in our own words.

Fanfiction is built upon a universe, but one would never rewrite 'Window Of Opportunity' with descriptions and try to pass it off as their own. One might write scenes that weren't seen in WoO - but while the concept of a time loop in which there are no consequences is taken from the show, each writer writing such 'missing scenes' will execute the scene differently, using their own words, their own ideas.

Back in 2002, someone began plagiarising a story of mine, not just my plot but my words as well - beyond all shadow of a doubt - and tried to list it as their own fic. I was browsing through, thought "this is familiar" then mailed them, and the archive it was on, and the archivist took it down. I never heard from the plagiarist.

To be honest, I've never understood plagiarism. Why would you want to use someone else's words any more than you'd want someone to chew your food for you before you swallowed it? It's secondhand - someone else's castoffs. There's no pride in it, no love, no effort.

WHY?

I've written stuff that I'm ashamed of. The characterisation sucked. The plot looked like swiss cheese. I've written stuff that I thought was atrociously mediocre. But every word was my own - even if it makes me cringe. (Incidentally, that story that got plagiarised? Was one of the ones I'm ashamed of. Stupid enough to plagiarise, worse to have no taste when plagiarising!)

Are there phrases I would have liked to coin? Yes. Are there authors I would love to be? By golly, yes, there are.

I would love to have as much creativity as Terry Pratchett has in his little finger, Jacqueline Carey's descriptive skill with words, Melanie Rawn's ability to write a scene in dark times, yet have the characters make mordant jokes that leave me in giggling fits.

I'd like JKR's bank account, though!

But this is 'just fandom' - what does it matter? Well, it matters when people begin to think that plagiarism is 'okay' because it's 'just fandom' - would it be okay if it was 'just an essay at school' or 'just a university thesis'? If one thinks that it's 'not plagiarism' to lift whole passages from someone else's work, or that it's okay because it's not-serious, should a teacher accept an essay where a student has plagiarised whole chunks of text from someone else because it's "just academia" and the student isn't taking the subject seriously?

IMO, plagiarism is a sin of stupidity. It's basically being too stupid to come up with something in your own words. Too lazy. Half-assed. In terms of academia, I think it means you haven't understood what the original text is saying, because you can't explain it without quoting verbatim. Plagiarism is basically saying you don't have the brains to do anything other than parrot someone else's words and you don't have the courage to admit that's all you're doing.

I'm not the best writer in Stargate fandom - either of them. I'm better than some, but this is fandom. That's not necessarily saying a lot. But when I write, they're my words, nobody else's. I promise you that. I write them in a certain style, I write them with my own 'accent' and patterns of speech, I write them about whatever has hold of my brain and will not bloody well let go.

But in the end I write them. And I'm proud of that fact, even if I may not be proud of the finished product two, three years later.

I may never be published. I may not have what it takes to get formally accepted by an editor and sell books on shelves. My face may be too plain to be put on a dustjacket without serious vaseline on the lens. Whatever. But if I am going to be published, it's going to be on my words, not someone else's. I'm not going to steal from someone else's creativity to pass it off as my own - I may want to be a published author, famous in my own right, but where's the point if it's not on my own two feet?

--

Over on JournalFen, I've found someone who has said exactly how I feel about the situation. I should have just pointed you to him and let him say it all for me. But I like using words - it's one reason I'm a writer. I like being able to transmit my sense of the universe to other people through communication - whether speech or text. And, honestly, because I have to write and rant and talk. If I didn't, I'd probably be clinically insane (instead of just, you know, fandomically insane).

And yes, my ego has something to do with it. I like to think that what I have to say means something, impacts people. My fifteen seconds of internet fame. Wowie.

"I've written fanfiction and other stuff for over 20 years. I can honestly say I have never lifted passages from any book and tried to claim it as my own. There are stories and situations that have inspired me, I'll fully cop to that, but the words describing them, for better or worse, are my own. I wouldn't have it any other way. And frankly, I've got enough of a style that, were I to swipe some paragraphs here and there, they'd stick out like a sore thumb, most likely because they'd be better written.

I don't care if it's fanfiction, a school paper, a doctoral thesis, or The Great American Novel. There's absolutely no honest excuse for stealing someone else's work and passing it off on your own. I really don't understand it. I'd rather do it myself, publish and be damned with praise or piss, so to speak. Because at the end of the day, I'll be able to look at myself in the mirror without flinching.

Unlike others, who apparently would rather bask in reflected glories."

~ Mister Terrific at JF ~

--

Final word (congrats to those who made it thus far!) is from Yeats:

"I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked."

Comments

[bellalarina.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm not a part of the fandom you're talking about but I think it's pretty a low thing to do. And copying other peoples work, whether you know them or not, is just theft.