greenconverses | Aug. 11th, 2009

I've been plagiarized. In Harry Potter fandom, of the all places I haven't been in the last four years.

I got an email from someone this morning pointing me in the direction of this Rose/Scorpius fic and said the first couple of lines were similar to my James/Lily fic The Incident in the Library. So I checked it out, and at first I was like, "Oh, it's just the first line, huh? Well, I'm no aja, so I'm going to let it slide," but then I read it again and now I'm kind of pissed.
( Here's the opening paragraphs to both stories )

The stories themselves are completely different from each other otherwise, so it's just the opening couple paragraphs that have been stolen.

I'll repeat this from what I said in my last post on plagiarism: I completely don't understand the people who do it, especially college students who should KNOW BETTER BY NOW (which this author is, according to her FFnet profile). If you'll allow me to be an arrogant brat for a moment, it's not like my fic is some obscure little piece in the monster that is HP fandom. It's a fairly well-known and popular fic in the Lily/James section for a one-shot. Like I said before, someone always finds out when you plagiarize...especially if you plagiarize from something popular.

The mean-spirited bitch in me wants to stir whatever Harry Potter fangirls I have left, report this fic to the FFnet mods and get it yanked without warning, while my more rational, "Let's not end up on Fandom Wank, shall we?" side believes I should at least send a PM to her first to let her know her I'm reporting her. Or is that still being too bitchy to report her without giving her a chance to change her fic? I'm risking creating a wank storm anyway because her fic is a fairly popular Rose/Scorpius one-shot, and it getting yanked will probably piss someone off.

Has anyone out there been plagiarized, and if so, what did you do about it? I'm not going to make a move until after I get off work, so you have plenty of time to respond.

The reason this isn't f-locked? When you're on the receiving end of plagiarism, it's not something you should hide and it's something everyone else in whatever fandom should be aware of. It's all about accountability, and when you've done something wrong, you need to own up to it and face the consequences. Or at least be publicly shamed for it.

And, no, this is not a plea for people to go out and harass this author. Not like I think any of my f-list would do that sort of thing.