Plagiarism between Degrassi, iCarly, Hannah Montana
Here's a good one. I just found an author who indisputably plagiarized herself, and possibly plagiarized someone else (who may be a plagiarist as well). I'm hoping you all can help me track down the original author because I haven't had any luck finding it with Google.
The plagiarist is known as Your-hollywood-tragedyx3 on FanFiction.net. I was reading her so-bad-it's-good Degrassi fanfic because the pairing she chose was so absolutely ridiculous that I couldn't help myself. She adds a new chapter yesterday and puts up an author's note saying sorry for the delay, she was on vacation, blah blah, here's some SMUT!
Up to this point, the story had been in first person. That's how this chapter begins, but just as the scene changes to the "good stuff," so does the POV. Out of nowhere, it's third person. This was the first red flag for me.
The second red flag (and I'm probably neurotic for noticing these little details) is that the punctuation (quotations marks and apostrophes) became stylized, i.e. in the way that Microsoft Word formats it. Before the smut scene, all the punctuation was plain/unstylized, as it is in this entry, if you're writing in Notepad, etc. Usually the only reason for a shift from unstylized to stylized, or vice versa, is because the text was copied and pasted from somewhere else.
The third red flag was the glaringly obvious shift in tone and writing style. It didn't seem like her words. But my Google search of some phrases seem to indicate that they might be her words... over and over and over. She has, in fact, included this same chapter in three of her stories. Every word is identical except for the characters' names.
Rusted Silhouette - Degrassi - Chapter 6 (published 3/25/08)
LINK or SCREENCAP
I Have a Secret - iCarly - Chapter 3 (published 3/25/08)
LINK or SCREENCAP
2AM - Hannah Montana - Chapter 12 (published 1/12/08)
LINK or SCREENCAP
And yet, there's more. My Google search also brought up a link to another Hannah Montana story on bebo.com with different characters (screencap). This story is written by a user named "letmeholdontillidie." I can't tell when it was posted but the user has been registered on the site since January 2008.
I am not familiar with bebo.com (in fact, I'm not really sure what that site is) but according to the blog also linked there, the writer's name is Emily. According to Your-hollywood-tragedyx3's profile on ff.net, her name is Chelsey.
Given that Chelsey used the same chapter a whopping three times, I'm inclined to think she's the plagiarist. Or at least... the bigger plagiarist. The Bebo.com story also has the same red flags: first person becomes third person, and unstylized vs. stylized punctuation. It still looks like this was copied from somewhere else.
I haven't been able to find any other "proof" besides this, but I did leave Your-hollywood-tragedyx3 this review:
You know, I hate to do this, because I was enjoying this story. But I feel that you've deceived us. Something about this chapter seemed very off, and not just because you suddenly switched from first-person to third-person, but because the writing style didn't seem to match your own.
So I googled a few lines of this and found that you used this exact same chapter for Chapter 3 of your iCarly fic, "I Have a Secret." You also used it for Chapter 12 of your Hannah Montana fic, "2Am." All you did was change the names.
And then, I found the exact same chapter in another Hannah Montana fic by "letmeholdontillidie" on bebo.com. I'm not sure if that means they copied you or you copied them, but it's suspicious nonetheless.
Long story short, right now I am very wary of this fic and questioning how much of the writing is your own. I'm very disappointed because I feel like we're being lied to, and I would like to know what's going on.
I doubt she'll respond. I expect her to delete all the fics, to be honest. I left her a somewhat negative review on a different Degrassi story she had written a couple months ago and she removed it the next day, which I thought was really weird. Oddly, when I left her good reviews for previous chapters of this story, she added me to her favorite authors list. I suspect I'll be taken down from that shortly. :-P
Does this chapter look familiar to anyone else? I'd really like to track down the original text and let the author know, because I'm not convinced that any of these are it.
ETA: Yes, I realize that "plagiarizing" oneself really doesn't matter in fanfiction besides being incredibly weird and dumb. However, it would be more helpful to me if you read this post all the way through to the end before commenting, because plagiarism is occurring here in some form, as the same chapter appears on both ff.net and bebo.com by two different writers. I suspect that it was copied from a third source because of the stylization issue, so my main reason for posting this here is to track down the original source. Lastly, after leaving the first author a review asking her to explain herself, she promptly removed two of her stories without saying anything. I don't think she would have done that if she didn't know she was doing something wrong.
The plagiarist is known as Your-hollywood-tragedyx3 on FanFiction.net. I was reading her so-bad-it's-good Degrassi fanfic because the pairing she chose was so absolutely ridiculous that I couldn't help myself. She adds a new chapter yesterday and puts up an author's note saying sorry for the delay, she was on vacation, blah blah, here's some SMUT!
Up to this point, the story had been in first person. That's how this chapter begins, but just as the scene changes to the "good stuff," so does the POV. Out of nowhere, it's third person. This was the first red flag for me.
The second red flag (and I'm probably neurotic for noticing these little details) is that the punctuation (quotations marks and apostrophes) became stylized, i.e. in the way that Microsoft Word formats it. Before the smut scene, all the punctuation was plain/unstylized, as it is in this entry, if you're writing in Notepad, etc. Usually the only reason for a shift from unstylized to stylized, or vice versa, is because the text was copied and pasted from somewhere else.
The third red flag was the glaringly obvious shift in tone and writing style. It didn't seem like her words. But my Google search of some phrases seem to indicate that they might be her words... over and over and over. She has, in fact, included this same chapter in three of her stories. Every word is identical except for the characters' names.
Rusted Silhouette - Degrassi - Chapter 6 (published 3/25/08)
LINK or SCREENCAP
I Have a Secret - iCarly - Chapter 3 (published 3/25/08)
LINK or SCREENCAP
2AM - Hannah Montana - Chapter 12 (published 1/12/08)
LINK or SCREENCAP
And yet, there's more. My Google search also brought up a link to another Hannah Montana story on bebo.com with different characters (screencap). This story is written by a user named "letmeholdontillidie." I can't tell when it was posted but the user has been registered on the site since January 2008.
I am not familiar with bebo.com (in fact, I'm not really sure what that site is) but according to the blog also linked there, the writer's name is Emily. According to Your-hollywood-tragedyx3's profile on ff.net, her name is Chelsey.
Given that Chelsey used the same chapter a whopping three times, I'm inclined to think she's the plagiarist. Or at least... the bigger plagiarist. The Bebo.com story also has the same red flags: first person becomes third person, and unstylized vs. stylized punctuation. It still looks like this was copied from somewhere else.
I haven't been able to find any other "proof" besides this, but I did leave Your-hollywood-tragedyx3 this review:
You know, I hate to do this, because I was enjoying this story. But I feel that you've deceived us. Something about this chapter seemed very off, and not just because you suddenly switched from first-person to third-person, but because the writing style didn't seem to match your own.
So I googled a few lines of this and found that you used this exact same chapter for Chapter 3 of your iCarly fic, "I Have a Secret." You also used it for Chapter 12 of your Hannah Montana fic, "2Am." All you did was change the names.
And then, I found the exact same chapter in another Hannah Montana fic by "letmeholdontillidie" on bebo.com. I'm not sure if that means they copied you or you copied them, but it's suspicious nonetheless.
Long story short, right now I am very wary of this fic and questioning how much of the writing is your own. I'm very disappointed because I feel like we're being lied to, and I would like to know what's going on.
I doubt she'll respond. I expect her to delete all the fics, to be honest. I left her a somewhat negative review on a different Degrassi story she had written a couple months ago and she removed it the next day, which I thought was really weird. Oddly, when I left her good reviews for previous chapters of this story, she added me to her favorite authors list. I suspect I'll be taken down from that shortly. :-P
Does this chapter look familiar to anyone else? I'd really like to track down the original text and let the author know, because I'm not convinced that any of these are it.
ETA: Yes, I realize that "plagiarizing" oneself really doesn't matter in fanfiction besides being incredibly weird and dumb. However, it would be more helpful to me if you read this post all the way through to the end before commenting, because plagiarism is occurring here in some form, as the same chapter appears on both ff.net and bebo.com by two different writers. I suspect that it was copied from a third source because of the stylization issue, so my main reason for posting this here is to track down the original source. Lastly, after leaving the first author a review asking her to explain herself, she promptly removed two of her stories without saying anything. I don't think she would have done that if she didn't know she was doing something wrong.