The Case Against Guardian of the Crystal

[enigmaticblues]

On September 4, 2011, minni reported that Guardian of the crystal had plagiarized Eloisa James' book, A Kiss at Midnight. Other than changing the names of the characters, Guardian of the crystal's version of "A Kiss at Midnight" is a word-for-word reproduction of James' book.

Comments

[velvetwhip]

This is actually an interesting (well, okay, not really all that interesting) new excuse: Other people plagiarize so it's not fair that I can't.

It does beat the fic-stealing sister/evil twin/mutant zebra from outer space.

Gabrielle

[enigmaticblues]

I would agree. She's right; I've seen plenty of other people do this exact thing. And, it's one of the more novel excuses I've seen so far.

[fishinwhite]

Hmm, it gets +0.5 points for originality, -1 zillion points for whining.

Absurd exaggeration time! "Your honor, other people have gotten away with murder, it is really not fair that I cannot do so, as well!" :P

[velvetwhip]

I can actually see this particular plagiarist going to that extreme.

Gabrielle

[amorettea]

Lizzie Borden whacked her folks, therefore, I can whack mine. I do not think this thief is the brightest bulb in the box.

[yamx]

Well, OF COURSE other people have done it before! Otherwise there wouldn't be a word for it, much less an LJ comm dedicated to fighting it.

[terrie01]

I wonder if she's talking about fusion fics, where people lift the plot and redo it with characters from another fandom. In which case, she's doing it wrong.

[enigmaticblues]

She might be, but I've seen this situation crop up before. For some odd reason, there are people who seem to think they can reproduce a published author's work word-for-word, with only the names being changed, because isn't that what fanfic does? Which, no, but the misconception is there.

[bugsfic]

It's humorous to see us try to apply logical sense to these things.

[deadhavyn]

A bit nitpicky but Eloisa James, not Eloise James, is the author of A Kiss at Midnight. I can see though how someone would think it's Eloise; I used to make the same mistake.

Unfortunately, fanfic authors plagiarizing published authors is definitely happening more and more (at least that I've heard). Not too long ago someone on ff.net plagiarized Cynthia Eden.

http://www.cynthiaeden.com/romance/plagiarism-sucks/
http://www.cynthiaeden.com/romance/plagiarism-update-experiment-i-dont-think-so/

[enigmaticblues]

Ack! Thanks for the correction. I've fixed it.

And yes, I had heard about the thing with Cynthia Eden, and I've seen this very situation a couple of other times before I was involved in (or knew of) stop_plagiarism. I think there are some fic writers who think they can get away with it because they liken it to a fusion or crossover, or because they've seen someone else get away with it. It doesn't make it right, but I get it.

[deadhavyn]

I can sort of get it only because to some extent by writing fanfiction we're using characters and backgrounds (of the characters and of the show/book/movie/anime/etc. that were written by other people). But I don't understand how people can just copy whole stories word-for-word and only change character names.