Comments | stop_plagiarism: Plagiarism between Degrassi, iCarly, Hannah Montana

takemeback in stop_plagiarism

Plagiarism between Degrassi, iCarly, Hannah Montana

Mar 26, 2008 17:24

Here's a good one. I just found an author who indisputably plagiarized herself, and possibly plagiarized someone else (who may be a plagiarist as well). I'm hoping you all can help me track down the original author because I haven't had any luck finding it with Google.

( The Details )

2008, admin: unresolved, mod: spiralleds, fandom: hannah montana

Comments 15

spiralleds March 27 2008, 20:22:48 UTC

As of this moment, she's taken down Rusted Silhouette and I Have a Secret, but 2AM is still up. Stranger and stranger. And while, yes, in academic publishing plagiarizing oneself is serious, I'm not sure if we've ever landed on a stance regarding that. I'll chat with the other mods. (Community members, if you have an opinion, please share your thoughts on that.)

But regardless of that, if Emily and Chelsey are two different people, that's a problem. Or, if as you suspect, there's a different primary source that she/they are drawing from, that would be a problem. I'll try contacting Emily and Chelsey and see where we get.

Thank you for doing up all the screencaps. That will be quite helpful.

takemeback March 27 2008, 21:04:57 UTC

Let me know if you have any luck reaching either of them. I'll be keeping an eye on Chelsey too.

celisnebula March 27 2008, 22:57:55 UTC

I dunno... in as far as using what you've already written in another story, and adding it to a different story. Well I've done that. Most of the time I edit it, spruce it up and what-not, but I don't really see a problem with it, especially if it's for different fandoms.

takemeback March 27 2008, 23:25:16 UTC

Well, I'm not overly concerned with her plagiarizing herself. The issue is I don't think that's what's going on here... the text seems pretty obviously copied & pasted from another source, and there's also the issue of a different person on bebo.com with the same story and different characters, too. Adding to the suspicion is the fact that I left her a review and she promptly removed two of her stories. If she thought there was nothing wrong with what she was doing, then there's no reason for her to have done that.

I took the time today to look through her other fics and they all follow this same formula... once it gets to a sex scene, the writing style completely changes and there's the issue of the punctuation marks.

spiralleds March 28 2008, 21:01:42 UTC

If it's one's own work and isn't published/graded/etc., I don't think it's wrong. Possibly 'bad form', but not wrong. Similarly, I know of folks who have taken fanfic they've written, reworked it to make the characters and 'verse a wee bit more their own, and at least attempted to get it published. Maybe some have published. Which, more power to them.

I have a friend who has clipped from a section from one of her stories to another - from a fanfic to an original story she's writing. It wasn't so in reading the original story that I recognized the scene, but I made a variety of comments about not getting why these people were acting in this way. It seemed out of character, etc., etc. It was then she explained it was a scene from a fic she'd written. When I knew who the fic characters were, the scene made sense - for them. I guess the 'moral of the story' being: does the scene still make sense with different characters in a different verse?

zig_zag123 March 28 2008, 02:16:02 UTC

Although I find copying yourself highly unorginal, dull, and... really weird... as this isn't professional writing I'd say it's alright.

takemeback March 28 2008, 02:17:25 UTC

There are two different people using that same chapter, though.

zig_zag123 March 28 2008, 02:21:47 UTC

Hehe, I realized that. I should have made myself more clear. I was just commenting about the idea of if we should do anything about those who are plagiarizing themself.

In this case I really believe you're on to something and something should be done. Although that is hard given it's so hard to know who is the orginal author.

lightbird777 March 28 2008, 02:44:28 UTC

I'm not sure what the precedent would be for someone who plagiarizes themselves.

I do know that in school, college for example, you're technically not supposed to write a paper for one class and then rewrite it for another class. For example, if you had to write a paper on Hamlet in one class, and then a year or two later had to write a paper on Hamlet for another class - if you use the same paper for the second class it's plagiarizing yourself. I've never heard of anyone getting caught doing this though, so I'm not sure what the consequences are.

Thread 8

theficklepickle March 28 2008, 06:58:24 UTC

IMHO it wouldn't be possible to 'plagiarise' oneself, because plagiarising is re-using without permission and obviously this would not be the case. Re-using text - or rewriting it for other characters - is pretty tacky if the thing's already been published, but it isn't actively harmful to anyone else's interests. (Except, of course, the reader's.) Frankly I don't think it's anything this group should be getting involved in, when there are so many clear-cut cases of perfectly straightforward fiction theft out there to be investigated. (It's a resource issue, as much as anything!)

spiralleds March 28 2008, 17:41:38 UTC

It sounds like there's general agreement that self-plagiarizing is bad form, but not really plagiarizing. Which I'm happy to hear.

If self-plagiarizing was solely the case with this one, we wouldn't be investigating. But given that there's what appear to be two different persons with the same scene, it bears taking a closer look. It may be Chelsey and Emily are the same girl under different names. Or it may turn out that someone recognized the sex scene as belonging to someone completely different. The greater community is fabulous as ID'ing stuff I'd never imagine we'd be able to ID.