Who knew writing fanfic took less time than copying someone else's?
I know many of my flist have been following with increasing disbelief the saga of polgarawolf, who was discovered initially by dshael to have plagiarised, in a Jack, Nine and Rose fic on fanfiction.net, work by joolz, cherryice, lindenharp and dameruth. dshael reported polgarawolf to stop_plagiarism, and the original report is here.
And this is where the fun started. dshael, before she made the report, attempted to persuade polgarawolf politely to take the stolen work down. In return, she got a rant attempting to make her out to be the bad guy. And from there it got worse.
In various posts on her LJ, most of which are now deleted or flocked, polgarawolf:
- accused those accusing her of plagiarism of being trolls and harassing her
- claimed that she could not possibly have plagiarised fic that was posted in 2005 or 2006, as she was not online then so how could she possibly have seen those stories?
- claimed that since she had been working on her fic for over a year, when it was on her hard drive - leaving the clear implication that she was accusing the authors she was accused of copying from of... what? Hacking into her hard drive, stealing her work and then going back in time to post it on LJ or Teaspoon?
- claimed that she never read fanfic anyway
- asserted that she is only online for an hour a day, so when is she supposed to have read this fic? (ever heard of offline reading?)
- argued that she had NO TIME within which to plagiarise - despite having produced, in fairly quick succession, a number of extremely long stories. So, what? Writing your own fic is faster than copying and pasting?
- stated more than once that she hoped her accusers died slowly and in excruciating pain from cancer.
In the meantime, the plot thickened on stop_plagiarism. lindenharp put her librarian skills to good use and began researching, turning up more than half a dozen examples of other 'fics' by polgarawolf that were plagiarised from a variety of sources, including from two commercially-published authors. Others provided additional examples. Someone posted a link to the stop_plagiarism thread on polgarawolf's LJ in response to sympathetic comments she was receiving on the 'harassment' she was experiencing, and later posted a line-by-line comparison to one of the plagiarised fics. Lo and behold, those comments got deleted.
And then polgarawolf entered the fray on stop_plagiarism. In a post notable for its bizarre demand that everyone who had posted in the thread give polgarawolf their real-life contact information so that she could report us to the police for harassment and libel, she trotted out a number of the same 'reasons' why she could not possibly have plagiarised, including the also-bizarre argument that AU fanfic just isn't plagiarism by its nature:
I am an AU fanfic writer. Note the "fanfic" and the "AU" designation, as both draw from sources other than the self and are therefore sometimes classified as plaigerism. THEY ARE NOT.
She also claims that it is suspicious that the person who initially contacted her about plagiarised fic (not dshael, given timing of some other events) did not get in touch until her fic had been up over a year. What? Someone borrowed the Doctor's time machine again to go back in time and insert chunks of polgarawolf's work into other people's fic?
It then transpired, when another author came forward to post proof of her work being plagiarised, that polgarawolf had asked to be friended by this latest author some time before that plagiarised fic was posted. Why did polgarawolf want to be friended? So that she could have access to the locked story which she later plagiarised. Absolute proof, therefore, that she had seen that story.
The report is now posted on stop_plagiarism, in two parts: One and Two. Even now, more evidence of additional plagiarism has since been reported. It doesn't seem likely that polgarawolf will admit to anything any time soon, much less take down the copied stories - in fact, it's much more likely that she will continue to harass people who accused her.
I hope that those who have been plagiarised get some satisfaction from the finding. For me, though, this case has simply left me slack-jawed at the sheer audacity of someone who has copied multiple stories from multiple authors. She has responded to the page after page of hard evidence with bluster, verbal abuse, threats of going to the police and the law, and wishing death by cancer on her accusers. I'm just glad that the internet allows some degree of anonymity, otherwise I think I'd be worried for the safety of some of the people who have been most involved here.
Well done to all who had a hand in exposing this massive amount of plagiarism - and kudos to the stop_plagiarism mods in the case, who had an unbelievable amount of material to wade through.
And this is where the fun started. dshael, before she made the report, attempted to persuade polgarawolf politely to take the stolen work down. In return, she got a rant attempting to make her out to be the bad guy. And from there it got worse.
In various posts on her LJ, most of which are now deleted or flocked, polgarawolf:
- accused those accusing her of plagiarism of being trolls and harassing her
- claimed that she could not possibly have plagiarised fic that was posted in 2005 or 2006, as she was not online then so how could she possibly have seen those stories?
- claimed that since she had been working on her fic for over a year, when it was on her hard drive - leaving the clear implication that she was accusing the authors she was accused of copying from of... what? Hacking into her hard drive, stealing her work and then going back in time to post it on LJ or Teaspoon?
- claimed that she never read fanfic anyway
- asserted that she is only online for an hour a day, so when is she supposed to have read this fic? (ever heard of offline reading?)
- argued that she had NO TIME within which to plagiarise - despite having produced, in fairly quick succession, a number of extremely long stories. So, what? Writing your own fic is faster than copying and pasting?
- stated more than once that she hoped her accusers died slowly and in excruciating pain from cancer.
In the meantime, the plot thickened on stop_plagiarism. lindenharp put her librarian skills to good use and began researching, turning up more than half a dozen examples of other 'fics' by polgarawolf that were plagiarised from a variety of sources, including from two commercially-published authors. Others provided additional examples. Someone posted a link to the stop_plagiarism thread on polgarawolf's LJ in response to sympathetic comments she was receiving on the 'harassment' she was experiencing, and later posted a line-by-line comparison to one of the plagiarised fics. Lo and behold, those comments got deleted.
And then polgarawolf entered the fray on stop_plagiarism. In a post notable for its bizarre demand that everyone who had posted in the thread give polgarawolf their real-life contact information so that she could report us to the police for harassment and libel, she trotted out a number of the same 'reasons' why she could not possibly have plagiarised, including the also-bizarre argument that AU fanfic just isn't plagiarism by its nature:
I am an AU fanfic writer. Note the "fanfic" and the "AU" designation, as both draw from sources other than the self and are therefore sometimes classified as plaigerism. THEY ARE NOT.
She also claims that it is suspicious that the person who initially contacted her about plagiarised fic (not dshael, given timing of some other events) did not get in touch until her fic had been up over a year. What? Someone borrowed the Doctor's time machine again to go back in time and insert chunks of polgarawolf's work into other people's fic?
It then transpired, when another author came forward to post proof of her work being plagiarised, that polgarawolf had asked to be friended by this latest author some time before that plagiarised fic was posted. Why did polgarawolf want to be friended? So that she could have access to the locked story which she later plagiarised. Absolute proof, therefore, that she had seen that story.
The report is now posted on stop_plagiarism, in two parts: One and Two. Even now, more evidence of additional plagiarism has since been reported. It doesn't seem likely that polgarawolf will admit to anything any time soon, much less take down the copied stories - in fact, it's much more likely that she will continue to harass people who accused her.
I hope that those who have been plagiarised get some satisfaction from the finding. For me, though, this case has simply left me slack-jawed at the sheer audacity of someone who has copied multiple stories from multiple authors. She has responded to the page after page of hard evidence with bluster, verbal abuse, threats of going to the police and the law, and wishing death by cancer on her accusers. I'm just glad that the internet allows some degree of anonymity, otherwise I think I'd be worried for the safety of some of the people who have been most involved here.
Well done to all who had a hand in exposing this massive amount of plagiarism - and kudos to the stop_plagiarism mods in the case, who had an unbelievable amount of material to wade through.