Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Ack, I've been plagiarized!

sorry wendy, just the line about superman "the lover" and clark, as 2 diff. people reminded of one of your fics - maybe "a conscious choice"? anywho, lines of it do seem familiar, so its probably been stolen from several places...

I'm so sorry - and angry! - that this happened to you and your wonderful story, Kathy. I'm glad, though, that it was brought to your attention so quickly and hope FFN will get the story down soon. It's awesome how FOLCs look out for one another!

Looked over it briefly, one line from the M part screamed at me as familiar. It, at least in part, is from A Conscious Choice: The Morning After by Wendy Richards and Yvonne Connell.

Oh!!!

Well, that makes two times that Yvonne's been plagiarised, then. She wrote the love scenes in that story, not me!

Thank you, guys, for checking it out for me. I appreciate it! And, of course, the 'author' has actually just copied and pasted the story from where it already is on fanfiction.net!


- Wendy

After whoever it was said that about Conscious Choice I went and looked at the 'Morning After' file - searched for 'Superman the lover' and sure enough big chunks of it are from there - not quite all but most...

Carol

ETA: Of course, I've already commented on it since she posted it in one big chapter so I can't comment again and call him/her out on the nfic plagiarism... Who does this stuff? /me doesn't get it...

I wonder if some people know it's wrong and do it just to watch people get mad at them. Kind of like trolls.

Actually, Wendy, the relevant scene is available on ff.net here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/23890/1/A_Conscious_Choice_the_morning_after

(again that link is to a rated M fic)

So they may not necessarily have access to the restricted forums/Anne's Place.

Yes, I realised that and edited my post, Lieta And I reviewed on ff.net pointing out that the 'author' had very skilfully managed to copy and paste from two different web-pages.
(http://www.fanfiction.net/r/5213445/) It amused me :rolleyes:


Wendy

Yes, you would think that in a section of ff.net that sees as few additions as the LnC section (I rarely even check it as it seems as though at least 90% of the current authors post here as well) that the perpetrator would realize that adding a plagiarized fic THERE would be incredibly obvious.

Kathy, did you actually submit a report to stop_plagiarism? If you haven't, I strongly recommend that you do.

- Wendy

And there I go, right into the "embarrassed and apologetic" category.

For the record, I love Yvonne's writing and have often raved about it. I was annoyed and being flip because I thought the little thief had written the other stuff herself in a lame attempt to "make it her own" and I lashed out without even reading it closely. I just knew it wasn't mine. Sorry, Y.

Though I must say, the fact that she took another story from FF.net to add?? That just boggles me even further. And here I'd been wondering if I should be posting all my fic to FF.net myself as a way to protect this from happening in the future. Obviously not!

ETA: I haven't reported it to the LJ site yet, Wendy. I have a mental block about how to do things like pasting screen caps on LJ -- it's been years and I still have to consult the FAQ each and every time, LOL -- and as such, it would have required more mental effort than I had energy for today.

I wonder if I could say something else... if somebody hasn't already done so.

I've noticed that in many of the fandoms they want us to give reasons why they should make us a member. Even in this one (for the NFanfic access) we have to state explicitly that

"I'm a fan of L & C and older than 18. So, please grant me access... blah blah..."

So, why not add another field in which we ask them if the members-to-be know what plagiarism is and ask to to solemnly swear not to do it? If they don't know what it is, then please go google it, learn what it is and come back later!!!

I mean, it would at least prevent them (those who actually have something called conscience) from giving an excuse like:

"Oh is it wrong? I never knew. I thought stealing words is not actually stealing..."


It was just an idea...

Karen's kindly offered to help with the screencaps, Kathy. All you'll need are links to them. You can post those links, along with links to your fic and the one of mine and Yvonne's (which is here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/23890/1/A_Conscious_Choice_the_morning_after ).

Hope this helps!


Wendy

Kathy, if you've already got the screencaps, you can upload them somewhere like flickr, LJ\'s scrapbook gallery , or you can see if your ISP has free webhosting. Once it's uploaded, all you have to do to link them is do one of the following:

<a href="http://linktopicture.com/folder/picture.jpg">Picture 1</a>

or

<img src="http://linktopicture.com/folder/picture.jpg">

If you need the screenshots made and uploaded, I can do those for you.

(((((Kathy)))))

Well, that's a back-handed compliment if I ever heard of one. Obviously this person loved your story if he wanted to claim it as his own. Cold comfort, I'm sure.

I added my review to the story. There isn't a single review there that isn't from one of us.

Go get'em!

Hmm, when originally scanning the first scene, must have hti the page down button twice or even three times (which happens when my computer needs a few seconds to do whatever it is a computer does when it doesn't react), missing one whole page. No wonder I had the feeling that something was missing in that scene (which made me think it was bad).

No offense, Yvonne!

Thanks to Karen and Wendy's help, I submitted the evidence to the Stop Plagiarism LJ community last night. It's awaiting moderator approval right now, but I'll post the link once it's up so you all can see what comes of it. The story is still up on FF.net, but I do find it funny that all nine reviews are from FoLCs calling her out, LOL.

There's a reason I've been a FoLC for so long. I love this community!

I posted a review. How pathetic. I hope that plagiarizer is ashamed and embarrased enough not to try this again.

OK, my mom took Collin shopping with her, so now I have time to put on my pink armour and come rushing to Kathy's defense.

Not to defend the person who stole your story, but I think the Internet has so badly blurred our concept of plagiarism that some people may not understand what it is anymore.

Look at the number of web sites that copy language directly from other sites without attributing the information to an author. I was recently doing research on "kidney failure in dogs," and of the first five web sites I found, four of them said the same thing, in almost identical words. "Research" used to mean going to a number of sources and copying the pertinent information from each onto a note card, then summarizing it in your own words, with reference to the sources. Now it means going to Wikipedia (unless your teacher has warned you that they will be checking the Wikipedia entry, so you find a different site), highlighting the text, hitting "copy," and pasting the language that you have found into your own document. Since the person doing the "research" hasn't actually typed any of the text, they have no motivation to go to the additional trouble of stating it in their own words.

I don't read ff.net, but does it make you pledge anywhere that the person posting the story must be the actual author? Or do some people think they can simply post a story that they like?

So I realize that you're outraged, Kathy (and I would be too), but in a sense it IS a compliment to your writing. I'm going to have to look for your story and read it myself now.