Plagiarism!
9/23/06
11:03 p.m.:
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
9/23/06
1:07 a.m.:
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!!
2/21/06:
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