Magnolia ([info]magnolia_simms) wrote,
@ 2007-12-15 01:39:00
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Plagerizing is not cool.
I just found a completely plagerized story on ff.net. It's here. I hope she deletes it after she reads my comment. Once I realized I'd read a story almost exactly like this before, I pulled out the book (which just happens to be one of my favorite Star Trek books), I realized practically this entire story was copied word for word.

How sad.

This was my comment to the story:

Wow. Just wow. This is the most glaring plagerization I have EVER come across on ff.net. Seriously. This is almost word for word from the story of The Covenant of the Crown.

You have the same premise. Spock and McCoy are trapped on a planet (sure you took out Kailyn and your reason is a little different... whoopdee do). There are Klingons pursuing them, and they're climbing a mountain where they run into locals that know about space travel. You changed Shirn O'tay's name to Shar-in, but that's about all the originality I see here. You even used direct passages from the book.
~~
The stone paved walkway ended and McCoy continued along a path at the base of a high cliff. The smooth wall of rock rose up to blend with the dark sky, it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Below him, the steep slope fell away to the valley floor hundreds of feet down. There was a soft thump from the path a few yards ahead of him. He glanced up and saw a little lump of snow that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Before he could turn to look around, the silent night was shattered by a screeching roar from above and behind him. Giant claws slashed at his throat. No place to go but over the cliff. Suddenly hands grabbed him, he held them, felt them give way, felt himself being pushed to safety as the animal fell backwards over the cliff.

This is the one that gave you away to me. So I pulled out the book.
~~
“Spock, why are we doing this?” McCoy asked exasperated.

“You know why, Doctor,” Spock replied impatiently.

“Tell me again, cause right now, I have my doubts,” McCoy said. “Here we are climbing a mountain somewhere in the middle of nowhere..”

“We are proceeding along the most logical course,” Spock replied.

~~
“These travelers have been held without need,” the old man said. “Release them.

Immediately, the hand ropes were untied.

“You are free to leave,” said the old man.

“Now?” McCoy asked surprised.

~~
I could list them all, but I'm sure you know exactly which words you plagerized. I know that the book was published over 20 years ago, but some of us dedicated fans have a copy and prefer Howard Weinstein's version much better.


Pfft... what a moron.



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[info]magnolia_simms
2007-12-15 04:52 pm UTC (link)
I hate this type of stuff too. She actually replied to me and said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, I borrowed the idea from the book, I didn't
plagarized it. But I have removed the story if it makes you feel any better."

This was my reply:
Borrowed? You copied his words. You basically copied and pasted paragraphs
from his book into your own story. You took his dialogue and claimed it as
your own. That's not borrowing. That's plagerizing.

If you'd just used the basic idea like Spock and McCoy trapped on a planet
with Klingons pursuing them, but then came up with your own interpretation
of it, that would be borrowing. If you'd used his McCoy's mannerisms and
personality, but used your own dialogue and storyline, that would be
borrowing.

It doesn't make me happy that you're taking down the story. I really don't
care either way. It's your credibility on the line, not mine. To be
honest, I was enjoying your stories up until that one, but now I'm not sure
if it's your writing I'm enjoying or someone else's. Are those your
descriptions in your other stories? Or did someone else come up with them?

Sorry to be so harsh, but Covenant of the Crown is one of my favorite Star
Trek books, and to see someone else rip it off really burned me.


I can't stand when people do stuff like this. It's one thing to use plot devices from books in a story, which I've done in some of my older fanfics, but it's something completely different to copy dialogue word for word or use another author's descriptions. There were probably at least 9 or 10 more passages that I know of withouth re-reading the book that were ripped straight from that book.

How do I know if her other stories didn't come about the same way?

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[info]jij
2007-12-16 11:18 pm UTC (link)
How do I know if her other stories didn't come about the same way?

Yeah, I think that was the best point you made--if you enjoy the writer's work but find out they plagiarize, suddenly it throws everything you've read by them into doubt. Are you enjoying that author or the other people they've stolen from? It ruins their own credibility--not, I suppose, that people like this care much. *sigh*

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[info]magnolia_simms
2007-12-18 04:44 am UTC (link)
Exactly. After I'd discovered that, I couldn't even look at any of her other stories. And there's no way she could possibly defend herself after that in my eyes.

It's one thing to say "Oh, that was a funny line that McCoy said, I wonder if I could use it sometime" since McCoy tended to recycle his insults/lines/whatever throughout the show. But to copy whole paragraphs outright was just stupid. And so obvious to anyone who's read that book. It seemed familiar right from the beginning, but I'd thought maybe I'd read the beginning of that story before and just never finished it... then I came across that first paragraph and it hit me where I'd seen it before.

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