Writing: it's pick on Twilight day!!!!
First, I see this: http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_documents/0803_meyer_infringement.pdf
courtesty this: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/37882246.html
(yeah, I know, since when is ONTD a viable news source? But the only other articles I've found were pure opinion pieces, too, so might as well use ONTD because ONTD's the only one that linked to the TMZ docs. Oh, except for, you know, the TMZ one... http://www.tmz.com/2009/08/04/twilight-author-accused-of-biting-vampire-story/ )
And that just completely makes my day. I want to shout from the roof-tops that SMeyer's a plagiarizer. But I'll be nice, and won't, just because, Ya Know, I don't want to be sued next. So in the letter shown in the TMZ docs, they do a side-by-side comparison of Breaking Dawn and another author's work, a young woman named Jordan Scott who "published" her story online and in some unspecified written form. FOURTEEN PAGES of Twilight on one side and The Nocturne on the other. Bad shit is bad shit, all around, right there on the page, and this shit smells. And some judge has to read ALLLLLLLL of it. I couldn't handle reading word for word from either of them because it is just so... against my personal preferences, I'll say, just in an attempt to be nice. It would be so amusing to see the face of the judge who has to read it for legal purposes, but alas, I'll never get that money-shot.
Regardless, the official reply from SMeyer-camp is that it's all lies. Per their reply to TMZ: "The claim that 'Breaking Dawn' by Stephenie Meyer somehow infringes on an alleged book by someone named Jordan Scott is completely without merit. Neither Stephenie Meyer nor her representatives had any knowledge of this writer or her supposed book prior to this claim."
Anyway, so considering Jordan Scott's The Nocturne was published in some form in 2006, (and presumably they have proof of this? It's apparently not listed at Amazon.com) and Breaking Dawn was not published until 2008, they miiiiiiiight have some actual legal ground here. Iffy though because they tend to require "You Must Prove She Read It!!!!" and be happy hiding behind coincidence. The words aren't directly the same, but the sentence order/structure/content are scarily similar. Copyright laws are fuzzy about this whole thing tho, (unless it's music, you can take the basic idea and just reword things, according to the research I've done. Music, however, they get fussy about. Go fig.) so no telling how it'll turn out. Most likely, since it's not word-for-word, courts will side with SMeyer and the poor kid will be out legal costs, but I hope the lawyers aren't trying to just screw the kid over by bringing forth a lawsuit in her name. They must have some precedence to bring forward that's worth noting.
Aside from the Twilight aspect of it, this is interesting just as it relates to the internet phenomena known as fandom. Apparently Scott's only 21 years old and was posting this novel of hers online, as she was writing it, starting around age 15. So it's not a leap to assume that in all likelihood, this 'novel' did arise out of some form of 'fanfiction.' As I understand the fandom, she would have turned it around to be from Edward's perspective instead of Bella's and then just changed the names and some circumstances probably to get it 'publishable'. Also, there's the question of SMeyer's 'leaked' manuscript from before Breaking Dawn that caused such an uproar back awhile ago. I don't remember when it was, but it could be argued that Scott got her hands on the leaked copy if it was before 2006, and they could flip the suit back on her. Either way, way to go, SMeyer! Run a kid into the ground using your millions of other *kid* fans. Because this is recent and I'm sure the hate-mail is already pouring in. The comments already on all the articles were sure bitter against Scott.
So I'll be watching that, both for it's regular publishing-world aspects, and because I'm a bitter old Twilight-hater. 0=cD
The next bit of Twilight amusement of the day was this, from Livejournal's daily Writing Block:
"Imagine you manage a coven of baseball-playing vampires. The Cullen family is really strong this year and you want to bring in a ringer. Which currently active MLB baseball player do you sire?"
I couldn't answer the question, but the timing had me roaring with laughter. I'm sure the Livejournal folk read ONTD, too, since it *is* one of their comms, but still.
And alllll of this a day or so after my sibling made me sit through the "Twilight: The Musical (parody)" on youTube. Twilight is so topical again (wait, has it died yet?) and it's everywhere I look. I get this insane sort of amusement out of it all; my family is, I'm sure, getting tired of hearing about it. I guess it's the wonderful world of irony at work?
Either way, honestly, would the WB please give me my HP7 movies now so I can go back to pretending Edward Cullen is really Cedric Diggory in ghostly drag?
courtesty this: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/37882246.html
(yeah, I know, since when is ONTD a viable news source? But the only other articles I've found were pure opinion pieces, too, so might as well use ONTD because ONTD's the only one that linked to the TMZ docs. Oh, except for, you know, the TMZ one... http://www.tmz.com/2009/08/04/twilight-author-accused-of-biting-vampire-story/ )
And that just completely makes my day. I want to shout from the roof-tops that SMeyer's a plagiarizer. But I'll be nice, and won't, just because, Ya Know, I don't want to be sued next. So in the letter shown in the TMZ docs, they do a side-by-side comparison of Breaking Dawn and another author's work, a young woman named Jordan Scott who "published" her story online and in some unspecified written form. FOURTEEN PAGES of Twilight on one side and The Nocturne on the other. Bad shit is bad shit, all around, right there on the page, and this shit smells. And some judge has to read ALLLLLLLL of it. I couldn't handle reading word for word from either of them because it is just so... against my personal preferences, I'll say, just in an attempt to be nice. It would be so amusing to see the face of the judge who has to read it for legal purposes, but alas, I'll never get that money-shot.
Regardless, the official reply from SMeyer-camp is that it's all lies. Per their reply to TMZ: "The claim that 'Breaking Dawn' by Stephenie Meyer somehow infringes on an alleged book by someone named Jordan Scott is completely without merit. Neither Stephenie Meyer nor her representatives had any knowledge of this writer or her supposed book prior to this claim."
Anyway, so considering Jordan Scott's The Nocturne was published in some form in 2006, (and presumably they have proof of this? It's apparently not listed at Amazon.com) and Breaking Dawn was not published until 2008, they miiiiiiiight have some actual legal ground here. Iffy though because they tend to require "You Must Prove She Read It!!!!" and be happy hiding behind coincidence. The words aren't directly the same, but the sentence order/structure/content are scarily similar. Copyright laws are fuzzy about this whole thing tho, (unless it's music, you can take the basic idea and just reword things, according to the research I've done. Music, however, they get fussy about. Go fig.) so no telling how it'll turn out. Most likely, since it's not word-for-word, courts will side with SMeyer and the poor kid will be out legal costs, but I hope the lawyers aren't trying to just screw the kid over by bringing forth a lawsuit in her name. They must have some precedence to bring forward that's worth noting.
Aside from the Twilight aspect of it, this is interesting just as it relates to the internet phenomena known as fandom. Apparently Scott's only 21 years old and was posting this novel of hers online, as she was writing it, starting around age 15. So it's not a leap to assume that in all likelihood, this 'novel' did arise out of some form of 'fanfiction.' As I understand the fandom, she would have turned it around to be from Edward's perspective instead of Bella's and then just changed the names and some circumstances probably to get it 'publishable'. Also, there's the question of SMeyer's 'leaked' manuscript from before Breaking Dawn that caused such an uproar back awhile ago. I don't remember when it was, but it could be argued that Scott got her hands on the leaked copy if it was before 2006, and they could flip the suit back on her. Either way, way to go, SMeyer! Run a kid into the ground using your millions of other *kid* fans. Because this is recent and I'm sure the hate-mail is already pouring in. The comments already on all the articles were sure bitter against Scott.
So I'll be watching that, both for it's regular publishing-world aspects, and because I'm a bitter old Twilight-hater. 0=cD
The next bit of Twilight amusement of the day was this, from Livejournal's daily Writing Block:
"Imagine you manage a coven of baseball-playing vampires. The Cullen family is really strong this year and you want to bring in a ringer. Which currently active MLB baseball player do you sire?"
I couldn't answer the question, but the timing had me roaring with laughter. I'm sure the Livejournal folk read ONTD, too, since it *is* one of their comms, but still.
And alllll of this a day or so after my sibling made me sit through the "Twilight: The Musical (parody)" on youTube. Twilight is so topical again (wait, has it died yet?) and it's everywhere I look. I get this insane sort of amusement out of it all; my family is, I'm sure, getting tired of hearing about it. I guess it's the wonderful world of irony at work?
Either way, honestly, would the WB please give me my HP7 movies now so I can go back to pretending Edward Cullen is really Cedric Diggory in ghostly drag?