Thoughts on the latest Harry Potter fandom kerfuffle

[dangermousie]

Reading (or actually skimming) all the stuff on "bad_penny" which rehashes in detail the whole Cassandra Cla(i)re plagiarism scandal was quite interesting.

For those few lucky ones who never came within shooting distance of the Harry Potter fandom, CC was the BNF to end all BNFs in the Potter fandom a few years back. She wrote a fanfic known as the 'Draco Trilogy' (Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister and Draco Veritas), which is very long, very-Draco centric, and is without doubt the mot famous HP fic ever (or at least was a few years back when I even lurked in HP fandom. For all I know, something else is more famous now). Also, apparently, she lifted uncredited (or improperly credited) a variety of quotes from a variety of sources, from Buffy to published fiction. Actually a bunch of you might know her because she also wrote the Lord of the Rings 'Very Secret Diaries.'

Reading all the stuff on bad_penny (offspring of journalfen's FW) left me with the following thoughts:


1. Harry Potter fandom is the scariest there is. Really. It's the creepiest dreadfulest fandom there is, and not just because there are people who like Giant Squid porn.

2. I am so glad that the most I eved did in that fandom was post a bit on Sugarquill a few years back. Because, see point number 1.

3. I read DT around 2000-2001. You couldn't be in the HP fandom back then and be unaware of the story. I confess to enjoying it at the time, even though its ships were completely not mine. It had a complicated consistent plot (which is very rare in fanfic, no matter how good otherwise) and characters that were (I thought at the time) well-written, even if nothing like HP canon characters.
Looking back at it, I think she way overdid on the emo and the gorgeous aloofness of Draco descriptions. If I reread it now, I'd probably find it overwrought (though hey, I see that same problem in books often enough) and I did lose interest around 2002 because the updates were taking about seven million years and the story kept getting longer and longer without need (if she was a real author, I'd say she needed a good, mean editor). I am actually pleasantly surprised to discover that she's just finished DT because I know of too many long popular fandom stories that the authors never complete and thought it would be another one like that. Basically, DT is not in my top 10 fanfics or anything, but I did enjoy what I read of it years ago.

4. OK, this one might be unpopular. But unlike that stuff about msscribe (another HP BNF) posted on bad_penny before, where the woman went to horrifying degrees of psychosis nad crazy scary actions, my reaction to the CC stuff is...so? So she lifted a number of lines (or chunks of text) or plots or whatever. It was for fanfic. Which is, in itself, a violation of someone's copyright (I am no copyright lawyer, but I know that making no profit off it is unlikely to make a difference. I know in computer crimes, if you make no profit from distributing software/songs etc which you shouldn't, the fact that you made no profit doesn't make it not a crime). Fanfic is, by its very definition a derivation of someone's idea. It's derivative and unoriginal by its very definition. It's plagiarizing the chracters or situations of canon, if you will.

I love fanfic. I read fanfic. I write fanfic. But the fact that a fanfic author *gasp* put lines in her fanfic without credit or the author's knowledge does not seem to bother me any. Is it a good thing to do, to credit lines? Yes, of course. But being 'OMG noez! she didn't' when the medium in question is itself fanfic, seems a bit odd. Yes, of course everyone reading a HP fanfic knows that the author is borrowing from the HP world so credit to JKR for 'Harry Potter' is not explicitly necessary to put the readers on notice of the borrowing, unlike with CC's borrowing from Pamela Dean or Buffy. But still, other than thinking that crediting is a good thing to do, I guess finding that a fanfic or a piece of it is derivative in more than one way, not in just being HP, doesn't dampen my enjoyment any. What I am reading is derivative anyhow. I think it might be different if I was either a CC fangirl who loved DT with a great degree of love and found my goddess had clay feet, or was involved in HP fandom and had to put up with constant CC mentions and BNF status stuck in your face, but as someone outside the fandom, my reaction to the CC thing is largely 'oh well. That's not so surprising. Now, where is my Veronica Mars DVD?'

Comments

[emily-anne.livejournal.com]

Yes, all fanfiction is derivative. But no fanfiction author would ever be stupid enough to try and claim ownership of the universe they write about. CC did try and claim that she had written several lines, scenes and passages that she had lifted from other sources.

There were originally no citations given for the quotes lifted from shows like Buffy and Blackadder. When it came to the Pamela Dean passage, she deliberately misled people into thinking the work was her own. She drew attention to that passage by saying she had been inspired by a book but couldn't remember who wrote it. The implication there is that the words used to express the idea were her own. They weren't, of course. They were copied directly from Pamela Dean, with just the odd name changed here and there, and a Buffy quote thrown in for good measure at the end, though so over-egged that all the humour had been sucked out of it.

And then there was the arrogance after she'd been caught. There was the outrage over ff.net not warning her that her account was going to be deleted, because of course she was the victim! There were the excuses, there was the refusal to admit she'd done anything wrong. There was the way she just kept on doing it! If you read the whole saga through properly (if you have a few hours to spare!) you'll see the extent of her duplicity.

I was relieved a few months ago to see that detailed citations had finally been added to the DT. However, I've now read this. That's just a small sampling of quotes that are either not cited or incompletely cited. And it's not just the odd line here or there. Entire scenes are lifted. Concepts that have nothing to do with Harry Potter are taken and dumped into the middle of the fic. It seriously looks right now like the entire thing was just cobbled together from a multitude of other sources. And if she's done it here, who's to say she won't do it in her original fiction.

The thing is, maybe if this was just about fanfiction we could all point and laugh and hope she'd go away. But she is capitalising on her internet fame in her professional, publishing career. I can understand why she's done that, but ultimately I think it's going to prove to be a big mistake on her part, because for every fanbrat who worships the ground she walks on, there is a fan who looks upon her as nothing but a plagiarist who doesn't deserve an ounce of the success she's had, and who would dearly love to see her brought down.

Also, something that's come out in this whole kerfuffle is that she has apparently already been contacted by the lawyers of an author called Sherrilyn Fenyon over possible copyright infringement.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't read the whole thing on bed_penny (it was horrendously long and I am not familiar ot invested enough with HP fandom to read all that stuff at length) so yeah, the arrogance is a bit on the off side. I guess ultimately, I just don't care about her or her life or her writing enough one way or another to get really riled up or invested. I guess msscribe stuff struck me as doing real damage, and this, while wrong etc etc, did not ruin anyone's hours of life. But YMMV of course.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

Personally, I the problem is that most people consider taking stuff without crediting poor taste and they were bothered that CC was considered like one of the biggest and best writers in the fandom. Kinda like, if you have that kind of fame, it shouldn't be based on copying stuff from other people.

One big thing I always wonder about with this is how original are people really. Like where does plagiarism stop and 'hommage' start. Taking the plot structure of Pamela Dean is plagiarizing and writing a fic that mirrors Romeo&Juliet or Hamlet is artsy?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

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<iTaking the plot structure of Pamela Dean is plagiarizing and writing a fic that mirrors Romeo&Juliet or Hamlet is artsy?</i>

I'd guess the difference would be that there is no way people wouldn't recognize that you're taking the plot structures of more famous works and so you're not trying to pass anything off as your own original idea, whereas when you use more obscure material and don't credit it it looks like you are?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand that it's in poor taste and fame might be undeserved blah blah blah, it's just the amount of effort invested to either defend her or to expose her seems so disproportionate to anything. I mean, she is a fnafic author. Probably shouldn't have gotten as famous as she did, but she isn't that well known any more and was fading away on her own, and in the ultimate analysis, she is a fanfic author. That's pretty minor on the scale of importance in the scheme of things so to waste hours and hours on her (for whatever reason) seems a bit of an overkill.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think the workup of the msscribe story kind of set the example, like people saw that this method/style worked and tried to emulate it on a different topic.

Plus I'm getting the impression (I really read only the first part and at the most flipped through the others) that:

1) Quite a bit of the stuff was evidence she had collected for way back when she wanted CC kicked off fanfiction.net
2) She probably had to dig out all this evidence in an attempt to try to make it look halfway professional and less like a personal grudge.

[mycenae.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, HP fandom, oh, god. I read the DT back in 2002-03 (guess I was late to the bandwagon) and, yes, liked it a lot. It was my first foray into internet fandoms, and I'm not sorry. I remember a lot of quotes and a lot of "find the quotes and I will bestow my awesomeness upon you!" or whatever. I hadn't watched any Buffy then so I had no clue what was a quote/reference/theft and what wasn't. I'm sure if I went back and reread I'd spend the whole time getting steadily more annoyed. But I don't really want to waste time.

At least CC did produce something to warrent her BNF fame, unlike MsScribe. Ok, maybe the DT didn't justify the renown she got... but does HP really deserve the insane following it has worldwide? Some things just get popular. I don't really understand the epic chronicling of CC's vagaries of quote. Why are we still on about this? Shouldn't we just... ignore her? She's seems to be kind of fading, why throw her back in the spotlight?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Ok, maybe the DT didn't justify the renown she got... but does HP really deserve the insane following it has worldwide? Some things just get popular. I don't really understand the epic chronicling of CC's vagaries of quote. Why are we still on about this? Shouldn't we just... ignore her? She's seems to be kind of fading, why throw her back in the spotlight?

Exactly. I mean, CC isn't (as far as I can tell) a huge BNF any more as fandom is so dispersed and the story is so 2001, now. I guess if people were really active in the fandom it's of great interest to them, but since I wasn't, I am just 'must we rehash all of this again?'

Re: HP. I agree. Like the books, great fun, but the amount of fame for them is insane.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

My question is why did no one catch on right away that this was happening if it was so blatant. I know plenty of people who can quote huge amounts of lines from Buffy and if she was lifting entire scenes from things, why didn't anyone call her on it sooner?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is weird. It was an open thing that she was taking from Buffy. She'd say so. I am not sorry she did it because I remember thinking 'ooooh, Buffy sounds fun' and that wasmy intro to Buffy which I ended up loving.

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

I've stayed the hell away from HP fandom...for a lot of reasons. Starting with not being that big of a fan.

But this reminds me of the recent scandal about that "chick lit" book that had to be recalled because of plagiarism. I forget the author's name, but the book was "Opal Mehta"... Many of the examples given in the press as having been copied from other books, well honestly, many of them looked to me like plain old cliches--in both books. My impression from a quick skim of the examples posted to fandom wank (linked above) is the same.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Agreed on that chick lit book. I guess, not being an author, I don't have much of an investment in this stuff. I am just 'ahhh, whatever' whenever any plagiarism comes up.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I don't really know much about it but the impression I got was that she took praise for lines that had been written by other people and didn't say 'yeah, that's a great line. It was written by x,' which would have been the obvious thing to say. And going by this whole thing on JFen she didn't just lift lines, she just altered whole chunks of text and then took credit for it being her own stuff until called upon it. And even then wouldn't admit it.

I wouldn't much care if she hadn't:

a) apparently got all miffed because people then copied her secret diaries stuff (itself an imitation) which seems a bit ironic given the circumstances
b) apparently used her reputation from the Draco series to get stuff and a career as a profession writer when so much of what people liked about that series seems to have belonged to other people originally
c)hadn't made Draco so fecking popular as a misunderstood and tragic boy all over the internet. That's what I really can't forgive. :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

She does sound kind of fatheaded.

a) apparently got all miffed because people then copied her secret diaries stuff (itself an imitation) which seems a bit ironic given the circumstances
b) apparently used her reputation from the Draco series to get stuff and a career as a profession writer when so much of what people liked about that series seems to have belonged to other people originally

Didn't know about either of those. Heeee. Amusing.

Re: c. You know, I'd rather read about Draco being a woobie than about Ginny going evil or twincest. Each nitwit writing about the awesomeness of Draco is one potential story less of the other ones.

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

Eh, fanfiction may not be "original," in the sense that it's based on other works and its legal status is dubious, but I have a zero tolerance policy on plagiarism no matter where it's practiced. Fanfiction is by its nature playing in the world others have created; every fanfiction writer acknowledges that up front. Taking credit for other people's words and ideas without acknowledging them is another matter entirely; it's dishonest. I draw a distinction between taking an existing world and writing a story, using your own words and ideas, based on that world, and lifting verbiage wholesale from other sources without acknowledgment.

I have a couple of friends who write Buffy fanfiction and who were the victims of plagiarims--of having ignorant teenyboppers post their stories to archives under their names. I would certainly not put the people who sweated blood crafting the stories and the teenyboppers who stole them in the same category.

As far as Cassie Claire goes, I can get why people would be so cheesed off that someone who plagiarized so unrepentantly ended up getting a new laptop from fans, a publishing contract, etc. It's never fun to see bad behavior rewarded.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I guess it's one of those things whether you feel invested about the issue or you don't. I don't know any authors and no one I know has been plagiarized, so while I think it's a bad thing to do, it doesn't evoke any emotional reaction in me whatsoever except of 'oh well.' Basically, to me it's whether I enjoyed reading it (which I did, well enough, from what I can remember) and the rest is not something I am going to get riled up about it. But I know it's different than if I was involved in the fandom.

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

I had that happen a long time ago with a Deep Space Story. Someone took direct, paragraph-long chunks out more than one of my stories, as well as stories by other people. She pasted it in with her Mary Sue. The whole thing was so awful that the only reasonable response was laughter. How stupid do you have to be to plagiarize from fan stories in the same fandom you're writing in...? But hey, I probably would have been much more offended if she'd styled herself a "BNF" from *my* efforts (as well as those of other people)!

[thelana.livejournal.com]

The ones that amuse me the most if when somebody "find and replaces" the names in a fic and crossposts it to a different fandom as their story. These are usually really easy to spot even if you don't know the original story, because the characterisation is so obviously out there.

[khym-chanur.livejournal.com]

For those few lucky ones who never came within shooting distance of the Harry Potter fandom, CC was the BNF to end all BNFs in the Potter fandom a few years back.

From second hand reports, I get the impression that she was the BNF to end all BNF in all fandoms, ever.

[sinclair-furie.livejournal.com]

Ugh, Harry Potter was my first real fandom. I sort of dabbled in LOTR but not very seriously.
Do you know how hard it is to find good writing in that fandom? I mean, eventually you figure out how to do it and avoid the shitty stuff, but DT was the first thing I read on a rec from a friend who was rather obsessed with the piece.
This was like, a year and a half ago? I didn't like it much and I used to tease her awfully for loving Draco with his fine silver hair, but I have read the entire thing. Alas.
It's kind of like reading the Da Vinci code or something, these days.
Also, I couldn't care less if she's plagiarising, because her writing isn't that good anyway. Though it is good to credit, and as a matter of policy I'd prefer if she did.

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

unlike that stuff about msscribe (another HP BNF) posted on bad_penny before, where the woman went to horrifying degrees of psychosis nad crazy scary actions, my reaction to the CC stuff is...so?

Can't agree with you more on that one.

I always keep updated on the wankery of my HP fandom, but I never get involved in any way. I'm sort of immune to the crazy now. Hanging out on Fandom Wank does that to you :)