Plagiarism, fandom, and Fanfiction.net

Dec 27, 2009 11:37

Holiday greetings, all, it's been a while, hasn't it ( Read more... )

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bugsfic December 31 2009, 02:58:05 UTC
I've never posted at FFN. When I was writing in XF, a million years ago in fanfiction years, it had a bad rep for quality. If you posted there, you were slumming, to be rude about it ( ... )

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cschick December 31 2009, 03:33:23 UTC
Actions not allowed:

1. Multiple entries of the same material. There can only be one copy of any unique story on the entire site. No exceptions.
2. Rewriting names of characters/locations of one story in order to upload to multiple categories.
3. Copying from a previously published work (including musical lyrics) not in the public domain.

I think that number three pretty much covers all versions of plagiarism that generally occurs in the fan fiction community, and then goes to extent of possibly being the only fan fiction archive that bans song lyrics in songfic . .

http://www.fanfiction.net/guidelines/

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bugsfic December 31 2009, 04:00:05 UTC
Well, let me point you to your own guidelines on Gossamer. :D Under What is Acceptable; What is Not: - The story must not plagiarize any other source.

Seems pretty straightforward and simple. So why doesn't FFN say something that clear?

--no plagiarism. First offense, lifetime ban.

They do say Failure to comply with site rules will result in the removal of stories and/or suspension of account.Is 'suspension of account' the same as a ban? Or can the 'writer' simply start a new account under a new penname and keep playing ( ... )

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cschick December 31 2009, 04:11:22 UTC
There are different definitions of plagiarism out there.

I'll point you at today's version of the debate over on stop_plagiarism. Based on the definition that the admins there use, I can see them being hesitant to declare that plagiarism. It's copyright infringement, but it's credited. It's still banned under the way that FFN's guidelines are written. Not necessarily under the way Gossamer's are written, although I have pulled stuff like that under similar circumstances.

The idea of "banning" someone in the online world, unfortunately, is pretty quaint. I can't really ban anyone from submitting to Gossamer (as long as they're willing to go through the effort of creating a new penname and setting up a new e-mail account--how would I even know?). I can say that I won't accept any further submissions from that e-mail address with that associated name. Basically the same thing as suspension of account: you can't use that account anymore.

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