The Case Against MusicalsWithAMission
The original report is here.
To begin with, I began verifying the plagiarism allegations and in the process decided that "Chipmunk on the Roof" was properly attributed/credited, so although it probably constitutes copyright infringement, fan fiction in general constitutes such as fan fiction is creating derivative works of original work without necessarily obtaining permission from the author; custom has always been to explicitly disclaim seeking personal profit and to properly state whose original canon the fanfic is a derivative of. As such, "Chipmunk on the Roof" properly would fall in the realm of a court case involving Musicals and the creators of "Fiddler" and I have no desire to open that whole extra barrel of apples, so I will move on to the other works.
With regard to her other fics, I have decided that the original allegations are indeed correct and indicate widespread plagiarism. [ EDIT: Note that she has changed her ff.n username, and her user profile has been changed. She has also blocked PMs. ]
Having decided that, it turned out in the course of my investigation that MusicalsWithAMission has a fictionpress account (screencap below) [ EDIT: Note that she changed the username associated with this account since this writeup was originally made. ]
I began investigating those fics, and found the following:
* http://www.fictionpress.com/s/3068617/1/Saved was also plagiarized on fp in addition to ff.n; it is another repeat of the "suicide prevention" story originally created on Facebook.
* "Diary of a Lovesick Mutant" was copied from the original; screencaps below.
Original on the left, copy on the right:
* "Lose a Guy in Ten Days" was copied from the original; screencaps below.
Original on the left, copy on the right:
For the record I took screencaps of Musicals's ff.n profile as of the time I approved the original plagiarism report. It runs to 17 pages and I'm not going to put all 17 pngs in this report. I will make them available as a .zip file for anyone who asks by LJ PM. I will post the first page, and the last three as they are the most relevant.
Some final notes:
I entered into a correspondence with MusicalsWithAMission, and along the way also PMed the original authors to find out if they had ever given permission for reproduction, While the correspondence with MusicalsWithAMission makes it abundantly clear to me that she did, in fact, plagiarize, it is worth noting that CakeIsAGoodFriend indicated to me that Cakes did not give permission for reproduction.
In addition, a rather strange sequence of anon posts materialized on the LJ entry, this one being the most suspicious, especially as during my correspondence with Musicals, she claimed to have great difficulty finding this comm, but not long after that claim, this post appeared (IP address redacted to preserve privacy):
From the language used, I suggest an ineffective attempt at getting me to dismiss the entire set of allegations. The IP is the same as that for the other two also unscreened anon posts. I have no idea why she would actually say to look at her own FictionPress account, but I imagine that since FP is for "original fic" somehow that would mitigate the claim, in her mind?
Last, but not least, the correspondence. It will rapidly become clear to anyone who follows along that she was attempting at every stage to delay, delay, delay, clearly hoping that I would give up and resolve the case as ambiguous and/or provide a basis for her to claim that she had been unfairly treated by stop-plagiarism.
In the end, however, she simply gave up and shut down further dialog.
As of the time of writing, she has not taken any fics down although ff.n will be notified.
MusicalsWithAMission will be added to the list of known plagiarists indefinitely.
To begin with, I began verifying the plagiarism allegations and in the process decided that "Chipmunk on the Roof" was properly attributed/credited, so although it probably constitutes copyright infringement, fan fiction in general constitutes such as fan fiction is creating derivative works of original work without necessarily obtaining permission from the author; custom has always been to explicitly disclaim seeking personal profit and to properly state whose original canon the fanfic is a derivative of. As such, "Chipmunk on the Roof" properly would fall in the realm of a court case involving Musicals and the creators of "Fiddler" and I have no desire to open that whole extra barrel of apples, so I will move on to the other works.
With regard to her other fics, I have decided that the original allegations are indeed correct and indicate widespread plagiarism. [ EDIT: Note that she has changed her ff.n username, and her user profile has been changed. She has also blocked PMs. ]
Having decided that, it turned out in the course of my investigation that MusicalsWithAMission has a fictionpress account (screencap below) [ EDIT: Note that she changed the username associated with this account since this writeup was originally made. ]
I began investigating those fics, and found the following:
* http://www.fictionpress.com/s/3068617/1/Saved was also plagiarized on fp in addition to ff.n; it is another repeat of the "suicide prevention" story originally created on Facebook.
* "Diary of a Lovesick Mutant" was copied from the original; screencaps below.
Original on the left, copy on the right:
* "Lose a Guy in Ten Days" was copied from the original; screencaps below.
Original on the left, copy on the right:
For the record I took screencaps of Musicals's ff.n profile as of the time I approved the original plagiarism report. It runs to 17 pages and I'm not going to put all 17 pngs in this report. I will make them available as a .zip file for anyone who asks by LJ PM. I will post the first page, and the last three as they are the most relevant.
Some final notes:
I entered into a correspondence with MusicalsWithAMission, and along the way also PMed the original authors to find out if they had ever given permission for reproduction, While the correspondence with MusicalsWithAMission makes it abundantly clear to me that she did, in fact, plagiarize, it is worth noting that CakeIsAGoodFriend indicated to me that Cakes did not give permission for reproduction.
In addition, a rather strange sequence of anon posts materialized on the LJ entry, this one being the most suspicious, especially as during my correspondence with Musicals, she claimed to have great difficulty finding this comm, but not long after that claim, this post appeared (IP address redacted to preserve privacy):
From the language used, I suggest an ineffective attempt at getting me to dismiss the entire set of allegations. The IP is the same as that for the other two also unscreened anon posts. I have no idea why she would actually say to look at her own FictionPress account, but I imagine that since FP is for "original fic" somehow that would mitigate the claim, in her mind?
Last, but not least, the correspondence. It will rapidly become clear to anyone who follows along that she was attempting at every stage to delay, delay, delay, clearly hoping that I would give up and resolve the case as ambiguous and/or provide a basis for her to claim that she had been unfairly treated by stop-plagiarism.
In the end, however, she simply gave up and shut down further dialog.
As of the time of writing, she has not taken any fics down although ff.n will be notified.
MusicalsWithAMission will be added to the list of known plagiarists indefinitely.