Summary of the case against masked_vampire/Charlotte2323/Phantom/Olivia Dunham
This case was reported to us by bugsfic, it concerns a writer in the Battlestar Galactica Adama/Roslin fandom called Charlotte2323 and her various possible identities. This case was reported by email because there was a mix up with the moderation queue. Under the cut is a C and P of the email I recieved.
In September, one of the victims of a writer calling herself Charlotte2323 on Survival Instinct, the archive for Adama/Roslin Battlestar Galactica fic, organized as much of the stolen fics and plot points from several writers she could find into one report for me. (I'm not bothering to include this because like an idiot, I didn't screen cap the plagiarist's fic! The shame!)
I wrote to her, requesting that she acknowledge the usage of these other writers' ideas in her author notes or that we bring the situation to stop_plagiarism for judgment.
She doesn't do the usual find and replace or simply putting her name on another fic. She does rewrite the story in her own style; thus making it easy for us to spot her work because of her repetitive errors. So I could see that she might have thought this wasn't plagiarism, as she put it in a response when called on it previously: "I just love that story so much, I wanted to make it my own,"
In any case, her response was to pull all her stories and remove her membership from SI. Curiously, I was at the site on 10/8/10, and she was there. (Members viewing the site are listed in a sidebar) She quickly signed out, but not before I clicked on her name: http://mujaji.net/adamaroslin/viewuser.php?action=seriesby&uid=3098 All the links are dead and nothing more has happened to update them since this appeared.
From what we can remember, these were the few stories in her collection not obviously plagiarized, so perhaps she's reached an agreement with the site's mod to repost her 'clean' stories. My attempts to communicate with the mod about this issue has been met with silence on her part.
Within two days of pulling the Charlotte2323 identity, a new author signed up on SI, Phantom. http://mujaji.net/adamaroslin/viewuser.php?uid=3399 Her one story has only one detail from another fic, so we're letting that go. But we are certain it's Charlotte because of the errors she makes and the 'voice.' This identity will play a part later in the report.
On October 10th, a new author, masked_vampire, appeared on the adama_roslin LJ comm, posting a link to her first story. http://community.livejournal.com/adama_roslin/1908734.html Very quickly, we realized two things. It was Charlotte2323 because of the errors and voice and second, it was a direct rip-off of story by Miabicicletta, http://miabicicletta.livejournal.com/, Opening Night. We contacted Mia and she commented on the story. (See screen caps or it's still up on Vampire's LJ) As of today, masked_vampire has not removed her story or altered it in any way. http://masked-vampire.livejournal.com/836.html
I also contacted the comm's mod, who is the mod of the Survival Instinct website as well, and have received no reply.
The good news is, through her LJ and SI profiles, this plagiarist began to build the web to connect all the identities. Charlotte2323 listed her 'real' name as Brandy. Phantom lists her real name as Amelia. Masked Vampire gives an alternative identity of Amelia Jane (Mia's alternative identity as well. She even steals names!) Vampire also directs you to her fanfiction.net page, under the name President Laura Roslin. (screen caps)
Realizing she was leading us to her other identities, our plagiarist changed her ff.net's pen name to Olivia Dunham so we couldn't find her in a search. http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1205255/President_Laura_Roslin I'd already screen capped the President page, though. (screen cap) As you can see, it's the same page.
On that page, she lists her real name as Brandy. It's my belief all four identities are the same person. Although I foolishly had not screen capped Charlotte2323/Brandy's fic list at SI before it was removed, another writer swears "Little Known Facts" was one of those fics. The Charlotte identity had also started a fic called "Before the Storm" that was quickly pulled down (probably after it was called as plagiarism in a PM) and the President Laura Roslin identity claims to be working on a Lost fic by that name.
I had a prolific A/R reader check a story on the ff.net identity that I felt had to be plagiarized but couldn't place the original fic. Although she couldn't identify it, she did notice that a Lost fic, "Zygote", was completely stolen from a A/R writer, Dallas, from her series, "Zygote".
When I contacted Dallas, she said she had not given permission. She pulled her series from Survival Instinct and friend-locked her journal. She also posted on adama_roslin, http://community.livejournal.com/adama_roslin/1910425.html, which resulted in the plagiarist removing "Zygote" from her ff.net page.
I've included screen caps of the beginning of the first chapters of both versions which is pretty much word for word throughout and then the second chapters of both fics for comparison. Vampire cut out the first part of the Y chapter because she tends to like thing short and sweet.
It's my suggestion that anyone who reads/writes in this person's favorite fandoms should check her remaining stories for plagiarism. I'd thought she didn't cross plagiarize, but she has once, so she probably has done it again.
Here are some screecaps:
Dallas's story - Zygote and Yeilding
Olivia Dunham' story - Zygote and Yin Yang
After reviewing the story by Phantom I don't see any plagiarism there and the method of detection is dubious in this case as the spelling of frakking appears as both frakking and frakken.
Screencaps of Sira's story here, here and here.
Phantom's story is located here.
After reviewing the story by masked_vampire I see some similarities but not enough to be considered plagiarism. I will be adding masked_vampire to the watch list, however this is not a condemnation.
No action will be taken against the identities of masked_vampire, Charlotte2323 and Phantom but I will be adding the identity Olivia Dunham to the list of known plagiarists. I agree with the assessment of the plagiarism not being a straight cut and paste job, the concepts, dialog and text are different but yet still too similar to be a mere coincidence.
In September, one of the victims of a writer calling herself Charlotte2323 on Survival Instinct, the archive for Adama/Roslin Battlestar Galactica fic, organized as much of the stolen fics and plot points from several writers she could find into one report for me. (I'm not bothering to include this because like an idiot, I didn't screen cap the plagiarist's fic! The shame!)
I wrote to her, requesting that she acknowledge the usage of these other writers' ideas in her author notes or that we bring the situation to stop_plagiarism for judgment.
She doesn't do the usual find and replace or simply putting her name on another fic. She does rewrite the story in her own style; thus making it easy for us to spot her work because of her repetitive errors. So I could see that she might have thought this wasn't plagiarism, as she put it in a response when called on it previously: "I just love that story so much, I wanted to make it my own,"
In any case, her response was to pull all her stories and remove her membership from SI. Curiously, I was at the site on 10/8/10, and she was there. (Members viewing the site are listed in a sidebar) She quickly signed out, but not before I clicked on her name: http://mujaji.net/adamaroslin/viewuser.php?action=seriesby&uid=3098 All the links are dead and nothing more has happened to update them since this appeared.
From what we can remember, these were the few stories in her collection not obviously plagiarized, so perhaps she's reached an agreement with the site's mod to repost her 'clean' stories. My attempts to communicate with the mod about this issue has been met with silence on her part.
Within two days of pulling the Charlotte2323 identity, a new author signed up on SI, Phantom. http://mujaji.net/adamaroslin/viewuser.php?uid=3399 Her one story has only one detail from another fic, so we're letting that go. But we are certain it's Charlotte because of the errors she makes and the 'voice.' This identity will play a part later in the report.
On October 10th, a new author, masked_vampire, appeared on the adama_roslin LJ comm, posting a link to her first story. http://community.livejournal.com/adama_roslin/1908734.html Very quickly, we realized two things. It was Charlotte2323 because of the errors and voice and second, it was a direct rip-off of story by Miabicicletta, http://miabicicletta.livejournal.com/, Opening Night. We contacted Mia and she commented on the story. (See screen caps or it's still up on Vampire's LJ) As of today, masked_vampire has not removed her story or altered it in any way. http://masked-vampire.livejournal.com/836.html
I also contacted the comm's mod, who is the mod of the Survival Instinct website as well, and have received no reply.
The good news is, through her LJ and SI profiles, this plagiarist began to build the web to connect all the identities. Charlotte2323 listed her 'real' name as Brandy. Phantom lists her real name as Amelia. Masked Vampire gives an alternative identity of Amelia Jane (Mia's alternative identity as well. She even steals names!) Vampire also directs you to her fanfiction.net page, under the name President Laura Roslin. (screen caps)
Realizing she was leading us to her other identities, our plagiarist changed her ff.net's pen name to Olivia Dunham so we couldn't find her in a search. http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1205255/President_Laura_Roslin I'd already screen capped the President page, though. (screen cap) As you can see, it's the same page.
On that page, she lists her real name as Brandy. It's my belief all four identities are the same person. Although I foolishly had not screen capped Charlotte2323/Brandy's fic list at SI before it was removed, another writer swears "Little Known Facts" was one of those fics. The Charlotte identity had also started a fic called "Before the Storm" that was quickly pulled down (probably after it was called as plagiarism in a PM) and the President Laura Roslin identity claims to be working on a Lost fic by that name.
I had a prolific A/R reader check a story on the ff.net identity that I felt had to be plagiarized but couldn't place the original fic. Although she couldn't identify it, she did notice that a Lost fic, "Zygote", was completely stolen from a A/R writer, Dallas, from her series, "Zygote".
When I contacted Dallas, she said she had not given permission. She pulled her series from Survival Instinct and friend-locked her journal. She also posted on adama_roslin, http://community.livejournal.com/adama_roslin/1910425.html, which resulted in the plagiarist removing "Zygote" from her ff.net page.
I've included screen caps of the beginning of the first chapters of both versions which is pretty much word for word throughout and then the second chapters of both fics for comparison. Vampire cut out the first part of the Y chapter because she tends to like thing short and sweet.
It's my suggestion that anyone who reads/writes in this person's favorite fandoms should check her remaining stories for plagiarism. I'd thought she didn't cross plagiarize, but she has once, so she probably has done it again.
Here are some screecaps:
Dallas's story - Zygote and Yeilding
Olivia Dunham' story - Zygote and Yin Yang
After reviewing the story by Phantom I don't see any plagiarism there and the method of detection is dubious in this case as the spelling of frakking appears as both frakking and frakken.
Screencaps of Sira's story here, here and here.
Phantom's story is located here.
After reviewing the story by masked_vampire I see some similarities but not enough to be considered plagiarism. I will be adding masked_vampire to the watch list, however this is not a condemnation.
No action will be taken against the identities of masked_vampire, Charlotte2323 and Phantom but I will be adding the identity Olivia Dunham to the list of known plagiarists. I agree with the assessment of the plagiarism not being a straight cut and paste job, the concepts, dialog and text are different but yet still too similar to be a mere coincidence.