Color me surprised when my handy, dandy google alert told me I was being discussed on fanfiction.net. Apparently, some idiot calling herself Lady Sephi had taken Ember word-for-word, done a search and replace on the names, and passed the story off as her own original Final Fantasy fanfic.
Normally, an incident like this might make a gal disappointed with humanity. You go to the trouble to share your work for free, and then some jerk comes along and steals it? That sucks!
But I’m not disappointed with humanity because of the way the fanfiction.net community reacted to the plagiarism. When a reader pointed it out to them, they took down the story and closed the plagiarizers’ accounts. Fans of the story spread the word among themselves that the story was stolen, and linked to my web page for the original.
This incident shows that while there are some dishonest jerks out there in the world, there are a whole lot more wonderful, honest people who care about giving credit where it is rightfully due.
Bettie’s faith in humanity? Restored. Thanks fan fictioners.
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So sorry to hear this happened to you, but glad it turned out well. That kind of community response is why it is good to educate people about plagiarism.
The fanfiction community is very effective at policing its own, and they can sniff out plagiarists like bloodhounds. It’s an awesome thing to behold.
I’ve never understood the motivations of a plagiarist, especially one in the fanfiction community. Praise and good reviews are the currency in that arena. To get these for stolen words is like getting paid in counterfeit bills. Where’s the satisfaction in that?
I’m sorry this happened to you, Bettie but thrilled it worked out in the end. Oh, and I see you’re in the Agony/Ecstasy anthology. That anthology held no interest for me until I saw your name in it. Looks like I have a purchase in the near future.
Best,
Grace