Plagiarism: An Editorial

17Feb14

I know I’ve touched on this before in this entry. But that was a “lesson.” I consider this an “editorial.”

Longtime readers are aware of my open letter to Phantom’s Ange. I touched upon her history of plagiarism there briefly. It wasn’t relevant to the topic I was discussing. And I guess because I thought she had learned her lesson.

I was wrong.

We start last year. Angey had posted a Doctor Who fanfiction called “The Rebel Companion.” From what I read, it was the usual Angey fare: an all-knowing Sue whose only rebellious aspect seemed to be her tendency to curse gets picked up by the Doctor and proceeds to condescend all over the place. Donna and Martha consider her a “sister” despite the fact that the Sue is nothing but rude to Martha in the chapters I read. Oh, and a future romance with the Doctor is hinted at with all the subtlety of an anvil. The Sue was inserted into different Doctor Who episodes, with Angey copying and pasting from episode transcripts. (Which led to the Sue’s all-knowing tendencies).

I like to browse reviews. Some times the writing in the reviews is better than the story they are reviewing. And when I checked the reviews for “The Rebel Companion,” I discovered an allegation of plagiarism. She had taken portions of a story written by LizzeXX called “Hidden Lady of Time.” When I checked Lizze’s story, an author’s note confirmed it. But she seemed to work it out with Angey and the plagiarized parts were removed. Angey, though, did not admit to her wrongdoing until her fans were verbally attacking Lizze.

Then “The Rebel Companion” and its sequel were deleted. I believe it had something to do with the songs she used, which were against Fanfiction.net’s TOS. She decided to rewrite “The Rebel Companion,” posting it as “Hope’s Light.” Last month, Lizze announced on her tumblr that Angey had plagiarized from her again. She posted the proof and, after some back and forth with Angey, the story was removed. To date, Angey has yet to admit the plagiarism.

Why do I mention this? Because Angey is far from the first person to plagiarize in fanfiction. And sadly, she won’t be the last. Over my years in fanfiction, I’ve seen how people react to allegations of plagiarism. In an ideal world, people would rally to the victim’s side and let the plagiarist know in no uncertain terms that what s/he did was wrong.

But people have different reasons for not doing that. Some believe that fanfiction itself is plagiarism and therefore it makes no sense for writers to claim plagiarism. There have been posts explaining how fanfiction is more a copyright infringement issue than a plagiarism issue. Even then, most fanfiction writers add a disclaimer to their stories. They don’t have much by way of legal value but they still tell people that certain characters and scenarios don’t belong to them. Plagiarists pretend the words written by others do.

But even if you think fanfiction itself is plagiarism, does that than negate the feelings being plagiarize causes? Because being plagiarized hurts. I’ve never been plagiarized but it’s something I’ve seen constantly said by people who have been. I understand why and I think I understand why people don’t. It goes back to something I’ve no doubt said before: A common misconception is that writing is easy. That all a writer does is sit down and write.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Writing is hard work. First, you take that initial idea and spin it into something more. You create characters and form them into 3-D people. Agonize over which word to use. Rewriting a sentence ten different ways until you are only okay with it. But the possibility of writing it better will haunt you even after you post. Or you find the perfect way to write the sentence and you’re really proud of that.

When someone copies your work, they take all that away from you. They aren’t just pretending your words are theirs, they are pretending your hard work is theirs as well. And they accept the praise for it.

Maybe people then refuse to acknowledge someone is plagiarizer because they feel like they’d be able to spot one. Or because it is easier to ignore the proof and pretend their preferred author is being targeted by jealous writers.

I invite readers to investigate claims of plagiarism before reserving judgment. See for yourself if it is just some “jealous writer.” Or if it is someone who has had his or her hard work stolen. Then respond accordingly. Support the wronged party and let the guilty party know that what they did was wrong.

Also, I ask that people realize that any plagiarism is bad. There are no levels to it. I say this because of something I saw before “The Rebel Companion” was taken down, when Angey admitted the plagiarism. A reviewer told her it wasn’t a big deal because it was only two chapters. No. It doesn’t matter if it was a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter or an entire story. Any plagiarism is a big deal. If you say “Oh, it was only (x amount). It’s fine” then you give the plagiarist the message that it was okay because it was only x amount.

I also saw something else that made me shake my head. An anonymous reviewer appeared to actually be encouraging Angey to continue plagiarizing! The person was begging Angey to prevent the Tenth Doctor from regenerating into the Eleventh. He (or She) provided a link to a story that had such a scene with the person telling Angey that he (or she) hoped Angey included that scene. Look, it’s good that you liked how a writer wrote a scene. And you may have preferred it to canon. It’s understandable. But you can’t ask someone to steal someone else’s work because you liked it that much. It’s wrong.

Bottom line: Plagiarism is wrong. Don’t do it. It may seem like it’s easy and won’t hurt anyone but in the end, it will hurt people. And it will be a lot of trouble when you’re found out. Because you will be found out.

And if you find out a writer you like plagiarized, don’t make excuses for them. You don’t have to stop liking them either. But you should let the writer know that you don’t agree with what they did and that it was wrong. It’s a strong statement.

Together, we can start to change attitudes about plagiarism. We can start supporting the victim together instead of as splinter groups, some who also support the plagiarist.

Thank you.

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Tags: plagiarism, writing