"Ethical Bizarre": A New Wave In Plagiarism

[winkingstar]

So here's an interesting development in the art of plagiarism: babelfishing.

See, propinquitine Googled herself for fun and found an English-Russian-English translation of her SGA "The Last Man" missing scene, Foreseeable. The page provides quite an amusing rendition of the first 500 words of her story (the best line by far is Rodney's "It's not that we're

Comments

[lacontessa11]

I didn't want to post on your friend's LJ because I don't know her (and I don't want to be construed as giving legal advice, which I'm not, just person-who-knows-about-copyright-law advice), but YES, she should contact the guy, unless she truly doesn't mind. Not only is it an unauthorized derivative work, but it's being used for commercial gain, so there's a very very low chance of there being a fair use defense. As funny as the goofy translation is, that sort of thing would annoy the crap out of me, and I'm going to check my LJ and fanfiction.net names right now just in case.

If she doesn't know what to write to him, there should be some sites online with sample cease and desist letters. At the very least, if the site maintainer doesn't answer, she can find out who the host is and email them.

[winkingstar]

I'm sure she'll see this, so thanks for your input as a person-who-knows-about-copyright-law. She's actually a law student, too. :)

Hopefully you didn't find anything "ethical bizarre" with your own names?