Plagiarism

I've been fortunate enough not to have experienced the pain of having my stories plagiarized. (What? Are my stories not good enough to steal?) But I've seen several examples of this on social media that I visit.

On Facebook the day before yesterday Mamafour Dukes pleaded for help. One of her stories had been stolen and re-posted on Bookrix. The community swung into action, especially Aunt.Bell, who went on the war path, spreading word of the theft and organizing complaint postings to various boards on the site itself. I was impressed with the effort my fellow fic-lovers put into reporting this individual and trying to get the story removed. Within 24 hours, it was down.

The next day, the same thing happened to poor Ellie Wolf, who had two stories stolen, posted on multiple sites, and one of them entered into a contest, no less!

So, Aunt Bell issued this statement:

Here's a TREND plea for ALL Twilight FanFiction authors. I don't care if you are a canon OR a non-canon author, both sides are effected.

In your next chapter of your story update, incorporate plagiarizing. Make mention of the rights and why it is wrong. Somehow help your readers to watch out for plagiarism and become warriors in the fight. Incorporate the fact that it is intolerable.

Make sure that you list that readers and writers alike need to be vigilant. If they notice a stolen story, they need to inform the owner of the story immediately.

Do whatever you can within your story to get your readers join in the fight! Let's get the word out that we are watching out and we are fighting AGAINST it!!!
PLEASE JOIN IN THIS FIGHT!!!

This post is my contribution to the cause.

The question that kept appearing on the comments was, "Why are they doing this?" The answer can be quantified in one word: "Attention." They don't have the skills, or perhaps the bravery, to post a story of their own, but they're eager for praise. So they take a story they like and post it as their own and bask in the attention and praise garnered from reviewers.

I tried explaining this to one of the commenters, whose response was that they wouldn't enjoy praise they hadn't earned. Well, most of us wouldn't, but they do. As the old saying goes, any attention is good attention for them. In real life, these are people who pretend to have rich/handsome boyfriends, or tell strangers they have exciting and exotic jobs, or sometimes even pretend to have diseases to get sympathy. In reality, they're very sad individuals, starved for attention but afflicted by low self-esteem which would prevent them from actually going out and doing something to deserve it.

Fanfiction authors are especially vulnerable to theft. There really aren't any legal protections available except for reporting the culprits to the site where the stolen work was posted. As a result, all of us authors have to stick together. If you see a plea for help, answer the call. Because some day it may be you who needs the help.

And, for God's sake, don't take your story down in response to a theft! It won't stop the thieves, and you've just shot yourself in the foot by removing the PROOF that the story is yours.