Plagiarism strikes again!

I first joined PC for the fic section, and to post my main fic about in new places. It's a parody of the Pokemon Colosseum games and only took me about four-and-a-half years to write all maybe ~180,000 words of it (granted I did take some long breaks during that, haha). It's been a rather big success too what with an unreasonably bloated view count, its own page on tvtropes, youtube LPs randomly advertising it with no notice, fic awards... I'm fairly proud of it.

The downside (and I am sure that I am far from the first and certainly will not be the last to suffer from it) is that it has been a target of plagiarism on and off. But I think this case here is pretty odd...

http://www.write4fun.net/view-entry/51829
Spoiler for screen in case it's taken down quickly:

For comparison: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=129050


When a primary school kid copy+pastes your story's prologue with minor edits (including removing some jokes FROWN and also replacing some dialogue with a censored swear of ' s******'...?) and submits it to a nationwide site to enter it for a competition... well, I'm left a bit bemused by it.

Remember kids, stealing stuff is pretty uncool and does not earn you a Wess Dance. (Now I wonder if anyone on here knows the kid... =p)

Ergh, yeah, it's pretty deplorable on how this was blatantly plagiarized. :(

And no, I don't know the kid, but, I hope he learns a big lesson from this.

I've seen plagiarism on even worse magnitudes, when a girl stole another's painting from deviantart and submitted it for a Scholastic competition. Let's just say, the results were... bad for her. :(

Ok now go through the IPs of each of the 32,494 views on your fan fic, back-trace each one (crime tv show style), until you find one that is either registered in that name, or leading to a spot where people actually give their kids that name...

That was a mean joke but I'll keep it for reference lmao. ;;
Apologies in advance if you read this and are named Hubert! No hard feelings.

Miss Doronjo;bt87377 said:

Ergh, yeah, it's pretty deplorable on how this was blatantly plagiarized. :(

And no, I don't know the kid, but, I hope he learns a big lesson from this.

I've seen plagiarism on even worse magnitudes, when a girl stole another's painting from deviantart and submitted it for a Scholastic competition. Let's just say, the results were... bad for her. :(

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Ah, devontart deviantart. That place is known to have a good number of cases of plagiarising on it. =/

Ah well. We'll see what happens about it I suppose? Not much I can do besides wait anyway rn.

Ok now go through the IPs of each of the 32,494 views on your fan fic, back-trace each one (crime tv show style), until you find one that is either registered in that name, or leading to a spot where people actually give their kids that name...

That was a mean joke but I'll keep it for reference lmao. ;;

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Oh please. It'd take a lot more work than that! I don't even have access to IPs on ffnet which number views of 80,000+, and sppf is nearing 150,000 in itself! I'm going to have to enlist the help of every able writer out there to get this sorted. =p

But in all seriousness I do hope the site goes and contacts the kid about it. It's basically one of the big sins in writing (pc has a perma-infraction for it for example, and one can argue that's too soft for it) and it can also be very upsetting for someone to find out their own hard work was stolen. I'm not too fussed here but that's only because of the circumstance and that this is the 4th/5th time of such an occurrence happening. I just rather the kid not do it again and understand why stealing = bad with stories (or for that matter art, etc).

I would be ****ing pissed. My fic that I started upon joining got plagiarized once. They tried to make it a bit more different than this kid did, but yeah...didn't fool me. And it's odd since my fic wasn't nearly as good as yours haha.

bobandbill;bt87379 said:

Oh please. It'd take a lot more work than that! I don't even have access to IPs on ffnet which number 80,000+, and sppf is nearing 150,000 in itself! I'm going to have to enlist the help of every able writer out there to get this sorted. =p

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Dear God...
Doesn't that site provide any information on the poster?
EDIT: Apparently not ;;

Sydian;bt87380 said:

I would be ****ing pissed. My fic that I started upon joining got plagiarized once. They tried to make it a bit more different than this kid did, but yeah...didn't fool me. And it's odd since my fic wasn't nearly as good as yours haha.

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Aww don't sell yourself short! Your fic is amazing! ^_^
You have a fan-fic? O_o

Your fic is so good that everyone wants it for their own. Feel good about it! They're only trying to flatter you!

Haha, last year's winner of the short story competition has several grammar mistakes in the first sentence. :V Hilarious. And it's all about a shopping cart.

What do they win anyhow that would make someone steal another person's work?

I would be ****ing pissed. My fic that I started upon joining got plagiarized once. They tried to make it a bit more different than this kid did, but yeah...didn't fool me. And it's odd since my fic wasn't nearly as good as yours haha.

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Whereabouts did that happen? And your fic was fun to read and I was disappointed it didn't get finished. =(

PEDRO12;bt87382 said:

Dear God...
Doesn't that site provide any information on the poster?
EDIT: Apparently not ;;

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I did say it had a bloated view count. =p And no, they did not. I just made use of the site's contact form.

Your fic is so good that everyone wants it for their own. Feel good about it! They're only trying to flatter you!

Haha, last year's winner of the short story competition has several grammar mistakes in the first sentence. :V Hilarious. And it's all about a shopping cart.

What do they win anyhow that would make someone steal another person's work?

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Imitation is the greatest sort of flattery!... whoever said that was silly. :V

I don't think they did win anything (at least) as the site has a million stories in it so they probably just put all entries there for their couple-every-year comps. But who knows. Didn't go through all the winners lists anyhow.

I guess they have stuff like money and gadgets (e.g. xboxs, kindles going off the site) and also they sell published books of entries deemed good enough to be a winner. I guess this would be a way to have a fic officially published then? =p

My fic got lost in the depths of being 15 years old. :( If you really wanted, I could tell you the ending. I had it planned rather well.

Wow that's seriously disappointing. If that was me I'd be fuming! You seem to be keeping yourself rather calm which I admire! Personally, I'd report them if possible - whether on the competitons Facebook page etc. And wow, that kid's school is not that far from where I live haha. I'm so tempted to report it to the FB page - but I won't because that's your decision and it's not my place. :)

Sydian;bt87387 said:

My fic got lost in the depths of being 15 years old. :( If you really wanted, I could tell you the ending. I had it planned rather well.

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We must go back in time and find 15-yr-old Sydian! No that plane sounds creepy actually out of context. =p But yes, I would like to hear that. =)

Wow that's seriously disappointing. If that was me I'd be fuming! You seem to be keeping yourself rather calm which I admire! Personally, I'd report them if possible - whether on the competitons Facebook page etc. And wow, that kid's school is not that far from where I live haha. I'm so tempted to report it to the FB page - but I won't because that's your decision and it's not my place. :)

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I am quite annoyed about it too mind you - as said though it's a bit diminished when this isn't the first time it has happened with my fic. =/ (More like 4th or 5th to some degree).

I used the contact page on the website but I may have to wait a while for the person in charge to deal with it according to a generic return email from them I received. -_-

At least you've taken the first step I suppose! Good luck with it all.

I should just make a tl;dr post in FF&W and say "yo this is how just a brother ends"

But yeah, good to see you've taken the first stride into getting this resolved. Like I said, if it were me...I'd be pissed.

Good news - they appear to have taken the story down now. =)

Oh, good. No one should be able to gain anything off the back of someone else. It's not cool :|

Hoooorrah! Glad to hear! :)

Yay that's great!

Why... I've never heard of that child in my life...

...

Ever...

¬¬