why you should cover your tracks if you steal things
Last year, I wrote a story called Love Lockdown for my best friend jedusaur's birthday. It was Ellen Page/Ryan Ross and basically the most honest thing I wrote about what it's like when your male best friend is so rooted in your life that you don't know how to be mad at him. So: birthday fic for my best friend with a lot of really personal stuff in it. Kind of a big deal, yes?
Imagine my surprise when I was browsing dangerbears' 1D rec list and came across the summary from Love Lockdown. The fic was posted directly to one_d_fanwork (only visible to members of the comm). The differences were the character names and the title, as well as minor things like taking out the name of a beauty product I mentioned in my fic. (It was actually an important detail, since it was an expensive gift from one main character to another and established the giver's attitude towards money and towards their best friend. But I guess this person didn't bother to google it. Research is something the author does, I suppose. The changes they made actually made "their" fic worse - compare on the other side of the bed, louis lay tangled in sheets sweaty with booze and other liquids, face scrunched up in a dream. with On the other side of the bed, Ryan lay tangled in booze-sweaty sheets, face scrunched up in a dream. "Sweaty with booze and other liquids?" Seriously? Is it that hard to grasp that it was a symptom of the character's hangover, not a random description I typed to fill the page? Not to mention everything that was lost in translation between fandoms. But I digress.)
You can see the plagiarized fic here - turning all those good hearts away (or here at that person's journal), download a screenshot here, or get the full text for comparison here. The plagiarized fic doesn't use capitalization. ...maybe it felt like actual writing if they typed it out? :))
The person who posted it is ruinswood. I don't know/can't be bothered to look for her other fics, but my guess is that mine isn't the only story she stole. [eta: confirmed] Someone with fewer deadlines than me should look into that.
For the record, I still love my corner of this fandom to distraction. And I'm flattered that dangerbears recced it even in that diluted form. :D
UPDATES:
- a mod post about plagiarism that links back to this entry at 3point5seats, because this happened in our own fannish backyard :(
- one of ruinswood's plagiarized fics was suspended, pending deletion (lifeasacloud, the author of the original fic, notified LJ about the situation)
- via jedusaur - the public LJ post in which my fic was prompted on June 17, 2011 | Love Lockdown on LJ, with comments dated August 17, 2011 (nice one year anniversary, right? also, note that I spent two months working on this, grr)
- jedusaur's post about her birthday gift being plagiarized
- the one_d_fanwork mods let me know that ruinswood was banned from the comm and her fics were deleted, let me know if you see them crossposted to other comms!
- a report was submitted to stop_plagiarism about the three confirmed fics - link
- ruinswood deleted her journal - here is a copy of her masterlist, with comments, saved less than 30 minutes before the journal was deleted
- August 17: a very apologetic comment from an unregistered user (as "the+plagiarist") was posted on Love Lockdown at AO3
Imagine my surprise when I was browsing dangerbears' 1D rec list and came across the summary from Love Lockdown. The fic was posted directly to one_d_fanwork (only visible to members of the comm). The differences were the character names and the title, as well as minor things like taking out the name of a beauty product I mentioned in my fic. (It was actually an important detail, since it was an expensive gift from one main character to another and established the giver's attitude towards money and towards their best friend. But I guess this person didn't bother to google it. Research is something the author does, I suppose. The changes they made actually made "their" fic worse - compare on the other side of the bed, louis lay tangled in sheets sweaty with booze and other liquids, face scrunched up in a dream. with On the other side of the bed, Ryan lay tangled in booze-sweaty sheets, face scrunched up in a dream. "Sweaty with booze and other liquids?" Seriously? Is it that hard to grasp that it was a symptom of the character's hangover, not a random description I typed to fill the page? Not to mention everything that was lost in translation between fandoms. But I digress.)
You can see the plagiarized fic here - turning all those good hearts away (or here at that person's journal), download a screenshot here, or get the full text for comparison here. The plagiarized fic doesn't use capitalization. ...maybe it felt like actual writing if they typed it out? :))
The person who posted it is ruinswood. I don't know/can't be bothered to look for her other fics, but my guess is that mine isn't the only story she stole. [eta: confirmed] Someone with fewer deadlines than me should look into that.
For the record, I still love my corner of this fandom to distraction. And I'm flattered that dangerbears recced it even in that diluted form. :D
UPDATES:
- a mod post about plagiarism that links back to this entry at 3point5seats, because this happened in our own fannish backyard :(
- one of ruinswood's plagiarized fics was suspended, pending deletion (lifeasacloud, the author of the original fic, notified LJ about the situation)
- via jedusaur - the public LJ post in which my fic was prompted on June 17, 2011 | Love Lockdown on LJ, with comments dated August 17, 2011 (nice one year anniversary, right? also, note that I spent two months working on this, grr)
- jedusaur's post about her birthday gift being plagiarized
- the one_d_fanwork mods let me know that ruinswood was banned from the comm and her fics were deleted, let me know if you see them crossposted to other comms!
- a report was submitted to stop_plagiarism about the three confirmed fics - link
- ruinswood deleted her journal - here is a copy of her masterlist, with comments, saved less than 30 minutes before the journal was deleted
- August 17: a very apologetic comment from an unregistered user (as "the+plagiarist") was posted on Love Lockdown at AO3