The Case Against Sailor-Duel-Racer-Armista
On Setpember 19th, 2009, we received a report from masterofthepen of a possible plagiarism of her unfinished story "OSR Season 2: A Shining Tomorrow", by an author by the name of Sailor-Duel-Racer-Armista, who had posted the story on fanfiction.net under the title, "Oban Star Racer". The original report can be found Here.
I contacted Sailor-Duel-Racer-Armista via her ff.net account. We exchanged several emails detailing the circumstances of the case as well as what needed to be done to move forward. The case was somewhat complicated by the fact that the alleged plagiarist had taken an unfinished story of 13 chapters, and created an additional 5 chapters to finish the story. The last 5 chapters of the story were compared with the other works on her site, and appeared to be of a consistent style and quality with the other stories she had written.
Salior-Duel-Racer-Armista demonstrated an almost fanatic adoration for masterofthepen and this story in particular. She claimed she had contacted masterofthepen when it appeared that the story had been abandoned, asking if she could have permission to finish it. However, the contact appears to have been an afterthought, see below,
this is to masterofthepen i hope you arent mad at me but i kindof borrowed
your idea of OSR: shining tomorrow and kindof used it for the creator that my
friend really knows personaly and i hope its okay to add on to it i've already
used some of your ideas for 1-12 chapter but i but in my own thoughts on how
to make it better. i hope you will not be angry with me but you see you
haven't finished it so i thought since you are so busy you wouldn't mind at
all. if you would like to read it please do so at
http://www.fanfiction.net/~sailorduelracerarmista
ok thank you and i really hope you will not be anger with me.
In addition, although she mentions that she only used the ideas from chapter 1-12 and had her own thoughts to make it better, chapters 1-12 were found to be word for word copies of masterofthepen's story. An extensive search could not locate anywhere that the alleged plagiarist has credited masterofthepen or linked to the original story, or notified her readers that she had not created the first 12 chapters of the story.
masterofthepen reported she never received the request, as it was posted on a forum she no longer moderated or visited.
At no point did Sailor-Duel-Racer-Armista ever deny taking the story. She was also very upset that masterofthepen was angry, and had great difficulty understanding why she couldn't take what appeared to her to be an abandoned story, and finish it in her own words without crediting the original author, despite any explanations I offered.
It was agreed that she could keep up her own chapters that she had written, as long as she removed masterofthepen's chapters and posted a link or at least a credit to the original story and author. However, I received the following message this morning:
Subject: so long
there happy i took all my works down delet my name from your site ill never
use this site again
It does appear that all of her stories have been deleted from FF.net. Her profile is also gone, but the name and account are still there and thus she can at some point post again if she so chooses.
Due to her confession of having taken the story and her failure to credit, as well as her failure to understand the need to, she will be placed on the list of known plagiarists.
I contacted Sailor-Duel-Racer-Armista via her ff.net account. We exchanged several emails detailing the circumstances of the case as well as what needed to be done to move forward. The case was somewhat complicated by the fact that the alleged plagiarist had taken an unfinished story of 13 chapters, and created an additional 5 chapters to finish the story. The last 5 chapters of the story were compared with the other works on her site, and appeared to be of a consistent style and quality with the other stories she had written.
Salior-Duel-Racer-Armista demonstrated an almost fanatic adoration for masterofthepen and this story in particular. She claimed she had contacted masterofthepen when it appeared that the story had been abandoned, asking if she could have permission to finish it. However, the contact appears to have been an afterthought, see below,
this is to masterofthepen i hope you arent mad at me but i kindof borrowed
your idea of OSR: shining tomorrow and kindof used it for the creator that my
friend really knows personaly and i hope its okay to add on to it i've already
used some of your ideas for 1-12 chapter but i but in my own thoughts on how
to make it better. i hope you will not be angry with me but you see you
haven't finished it so i thought since you are so busy you wouldn't mind at
all. if you would like to read it please do so at
http://www.fanfiction.net/~sailorduelracerarmista
ok thank you and i really hope you will not be anger with me.
In addition, although she mentions that she only used the ideas from chapter 1-12 and had her own thoughts to make it better, chapters 1-12 were found to be word for word copies of masterofthepen's story. An extensive search could not locate anywhere that the alleged plagiarist has credited masterofthepen or linked to the original story, or notified her readers that she had not created the first 12 chapters of the story.
masterofthepen reported she never received the request, as it was posted on a forum she no longer moderated or visited.
At no point did Sailor-Duel-Racer-Armista ever deny taking the story. She was also very upset that masterofthepen was angry, and had great difficulty understanding why she couldn't take what appeared to her to be an abandoned story, and finish it in her own words without crediting the original author, despite any explanations I offered.
It was agreed that she could keep up her own chapters that she had written, as long as she removed masterofthepen's chapters and posted a link or at least a credit to the original story and author. However, I received the following message this morning:
Subject: so long
there happy i took all my works down delet my name from your site ill never
use this site again
It does appear that all of her stories have been deleted from FF.net. Her profile is also gone, but the name and account are still there and thus she can at some point post again if she so chooses.
Due to her confession of having taken the story and her failure to credit, as well as her failure to understand the need to, she will be placed on the list of known plagiarists.