Plagiarism!
Update
Just another update on
the situation. The moderators on REFRESH,
the current forum Tanja is plagiarizing at, are completely ignorant and
apathetic about our complaints of plagiarism.
They censored our posts that exposed what Tanja has been doing, and they
closed all of her threads and ours because they felt we were “attacking”
her. Many of the other posters on the
board are, sadly, just as ignorant and unwilling to look at the proof and see
for themselves. They’re mad at us for
“ruining” the stories for them – or, rather, their fantasy that such good
stories were written about Busted and McFly first,
not the Backstreet Boys.
We succeeded in
alerting people of the plagiarism, but since some of them are having trouble
taking us seriously, we are taking the next step and going to higher powers
that be. Chaos, the
owner of AbsoluteChaos, the site that most of the
stories were stolen from this time, has gotten involved and contacted the webmaster
of the Refresh forum. One of the mods at AC, Julilly, who was
involved in this with Mare and me from the beginning, is putting together a
formal complaint that includes both Tanja’s posts and
the original stories, for comparison’s sake, to send to the Refresh owner and
moderators as well. Since Tanja’s actions do violate their terms of service, we
expect to at least see her threads deleted and her account terminated.
In the meantime, Chaos
has asked us not to post on the forum or contact the moderators of Refresh, and
I will ask you to do the same. I’m still
mad as hell about this, but we all need to just wait and see what will happen.
No matter what comes
out of this, we won’t be able to stop Tanja; she will probably just look for
another place to plagiarize our stories.
All we can do is be on the lookout and wait for her to pop up
again. I found her this time through a
simple Google search. She doesn’t make
it hard to uncover her thievery.
Thanks for your
continued support with this issue!
~Julie
ANOTHER UPDATE!!
Well, it hasn’t even
been a year, and it seems our friend Tanja (see below) has moved on… to another
forum!! She’s doing it AGAIN!!!
Here is a link to the
forum: http://www.refreshdaily.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47
I also posted in each
and every thread that contained a plagiarized story, from what Mare and I could
find. 10 in all. (Probably 12, but there were 2 we couldn’t
prove because we couldn’t find their Bsb counterparts.)
Here is the list of
plagiarized stories this time. Most of
them came from AbsoluteChaos, not this site.
"Beyond the Sea" by miss_hypergirl
"Gone Without Goodbye" by LenniluvsBrian
"Set You Free" by Hilda
Warren
"Can You Feel Me?" by
Danielle
Here are the original
links to these stories:
"Beyond the Sea" by miss_hypergirl
"Gone Without Goodbye" by LenniluvsBrian
"Set You Free" by Hilda Warren
"Can You Feel Me?" by Danielle
Just as before, if
you’d like to join the ranks and post against her, sign up for the forum and
post away in our threads! Thanks for
your support!!
Update!
Upon further
investigation, it seems that our friend Tanja (see below post) has been
stealing MANY stories associated with this site. Here’s the list so far:
Hosted Stories:
“Shape of My Heart” by Melissa
Favorite
Stories:
“Where Can We Go From Here” by Whitney
A few of us have
already registered on the Busted board and have posted in all of these threads,
plus started a couple of new ones about Tanja.
The other people on the forum are aware of the situation now, and I’m
sure she won’t get away with this on that board anymore. Still, if you want to support us and join in
on the action, sign up and start posting!
Thanks!
2/20/06:
Today I got an email
from a girl named Helen, bringing to my attention the fact that a girl named
Tanja on a message board for a British boyband called Busted was posting the
Bsb fanfic “Faceless” by Jaydee (a long-time favorite of mine; the link can be
found on my Favorites page) on the board as her own, word
for word except for the names, which she changed to fit the Busted guys. When I went to the message board to see for
myself, I saw that not only was she stealing Jaydee’s
story, she was doing the same thing with “Sammy” by Stephanie, another classic
Bsb fic which is hosted on this site. If
you want proof, see for yourself…
(Note: I took screencaps of the message board posts because I don’t know
how long the links will work or how long the posts will stay up.)
“Tanja’s”
Faceless: http://www.dreamers-sanctuary.com/plagiarism1.jpg
Jaydee’s Faceless: http://www.geocities.com/bsbtreasury/faceless1_5.html
“Tanja’s”
Sammy: http://www.dreamers-sanctuary.com/plagiarism2.jpg
Stephanie’s Sammy: http://www.geocities.com/ds_hosted2/sam
Notice any
similarities? *rolls eyes*
Here’s the link to the
message board itself; you can see the actual threads if they’re still up at the
time you’re reading this: http://bb01.mer.uk.vvhp.net/busted/YaBB.pl?board=fanfic
Helen called her out on
the board, which should be enough to take care of the problem, cause I doubt people will continue to give her credit for
stories they know aren’t really hers. I
just thought I’d post a message here to make you aware of this issue. I know people plagiarize, and with
fanfiction, it’s very easy to do and not get caught or not suffer any real
consequences. We put our stuff out there
for the public to read, and no matter how many copyright signs and warnings we
include, people can steal, and there’s not much we can do about it except call
them out until they’re forced to stop.
I’ve just never actually seen anyone do it this blatantly, so I’m
shocked and appalled right now.
I’m posting this
message to remind people that doing what Tanja did is PLAGIARISM, and it’s WRONG (not to mention
ILLEGAL), and if you see it happening, please do something about it! Post on a message board like Helen did, email
the authors, let people know what’s going on!
If you ever see a story from this site – one of mine, one of my hosteds, one of my favorites, one of my friends’ stories,
anything! – being plagiarized, PLEASE let me know! I’m not afraid to call people out for it, and
I’ll do everything I can to see that they own up to their actions. I’d be PISSED if I found out someone was
stealing one of my stories, and I’d be PISSED if I saw it happening to anyone
else too. I don’t think this is that
common of a problem, but please, be aware and report it if you think it’s
happening! Thanks, and thanks again to
Helen.
~Julie