If you're going to plagiarize, steal from the best -- it makes it easier to find you.

I found time to help thisisbone with the compare and contrast, but not time to post about it, but I'm going to now, although mostly to point you to other people's posts because they are better than me at keeping the facts straight.

Short version: ilsaluvsrick plagiarized thisisbone's TFATF story, A Little Night Music, written in the UB 'verse for HEROES Fandom. (ilsaluvsrick has pulled the story.)

This is not an invitation or incitement to pile on the plagiarist, it's a PSA, because this is not the first or even second time ilsaluvsrick has done this, and given how many times she's done this, been caught, apologized, pulled the work, and then gone on to do it again, the chances are moderate to high that most, if not all, her stories are at least partly stolen from other fan writers.

You can find reports of the plagiarism of ilsaluvsrick (and other known plagiarists) at stop_plagiarism (Please be sure to read the comm info.)

Specific to this plagiarist:

Bone: http://community.livejournal.com/stop_plagiarism/52846.html

Thuri & Randomslasher: http://community.livejournal.com/stop_plagiarism/48250.html


Other comments and timelines:

Celli: http://celli.livejournal.com/843238.html
Yahtzee36 (also plagiarized): http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/357500.html
Nestra: http://nestra.livejournal.com/253909.html
liviapenn: http://liviapenn.livejournal.com/505214.html

It looks like ilsaluvsrick posts primarily in HEROES fandom, Matt/Mohinder, but I have no way to know for sure. If she's in your fandom, if she posts to your comms, her work is suspect.

++++

I have an open policy with regards to my own work. As far as I know, I've never been plagiarized in fandom. People are welcome to riff, rewrite, rework, counter-fic, comment, review, or re-purpose my stories any way they like and all I ask is that Credit be given where Credit is due.

Plagiarism blithely by-passes that little request. Plagiarism is not about plots or characterization: it is all about taking other people's words, other people's work and calling it your own. The reason why people do it are varied, and only in rare cases do I actually think it's done out of sheer laziness. A complete and simple search and replace of character names is lazy. I think people who take parts and sections and dialogue and narrative and then work their own words and realign their on points of interest to make something similar but not new are not lazy -- what they are are is envious and self-centered, dishonest and manipulative. It is about the comments and the accolades, as far as I can tell, be it fan writing or an academic work. It's about looking like you are something you are not, it's about take the credit for something when you got someone else to do most of the work for you. Maybe it's about the risk of getting caught, maybe it's about being one of the cool kids, or boosting your own ego, or working out issues of self-worth. I don't know and mostly, I don't care. It's just fanfic isn't an excuse. I didn't know it was wrong isn't either past the first time you get caught, if then.

Nestra points out in her post, the bigger problem is that often, once a plagiarist is caught, mostly people just want them to go away and everyone wants to get past the unpleasantness and move on. That is a mistake onthe part of the greater fan community.

In my nearly 12 years on the net, it's rare that a plagiarist does this just once.