#about plagiarism

[chevril-glove]

Oh my god it's The Author's Voice by Ricard Greenberg

(sorta)

This gnome is imprisoned in a room in this guy's apartment and the guy is forcing him to write a book that the guy is planning to sell and claim as his own. Gnome's good at writing, has a clear voice, has ideas. Guy is terrible at writing. (So the gnome's not an AI, but the guy's still trying to get published without writing.) Finally the gnome gets mad at the guy bc the guy is cruel and unimaginative, and so, in revenge, he gives the guy a complete manuscript to publish. The guy is delighted and sends it off to the publisher.

Then the gnome gives him a copy of an obscure novel. Guy opens the novel, finds it's the same, word for word, as the manuscript. He has now sent a completely, obviously plagiarized book for publication.

I apologize if you’ve been asked this question before I’m sure you have, but how do you feel about AI in writing? One of my teachers was “writing” stories using ChatGPT then was bragging about how good they were (they were not good) and said he was going to sell them. To put aside any legal concerns in that, I’m just trying to talk him down from that because, personally, I would not enjoy dream job being taken by AI.

The poor man.

Many magazines have closed their submission portals because people thought they could send in AI-written stories.

For years I would tell people who wanted to be writers that the only way to be a writer was to write your own stories because elves would not come in the night and do it for you.

With AI, drunk plagiaristic elves who cannot actually write and would not know an idea or a sentence if it bit their little elvish arses will actually turn up and write something unpublishable for you. This is not a good thing.

[dragonboyteeth]

I love being fully unaware of YouTuber drama and which channels are "popular." My first reaction at the start of that section was "who the hell is James Somerton"

[whirligiga]

I’ve been thinking since I watched the Hbomberguy video and it occurred to me

He said that one of the reasons he started looking into James Somerton’s stuff, is because he was being accused of plagiarism. He looked into it because he wanted to verify wether that was true, because queer people often get falsely accused of things, and harassed because of it. He wanted to make sure that wasn't happening.

In the end, his downfall was the kindness of the community that he exploited.

[blvckmvgicwoman]

Question wrt plagiarism - what would we report it under? The copyright violation requires a DCMA, but I'm not the owner.

I'll answer it the same way I answered one of my mutuals

You can always report as spam

There's not much we can do about copyright violation as you mentioned, we're not the owners or original author

But there's always the spam option

[yeoldenews]

I am now determined to find a way to use "ice cream freezer" as an insult again.

(source: The Troy Messenger, July 13, 1882.)

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[ekingston]

Hello! So sorry to bother, but have you had any updates on the Word-Stream/Speechify situation?

Just one: like I posted on Xitter and Bluesky last night, as of yesterday afternoon, the links to individual works as they were listed on WordStream are gone from both Google and Bing. Hurray, right? Surely we’re all sick of this whole debacle and there’s far more important things to worry about. If all is well that ends well, surely there’s no need to still be angry.

Well, I am. Here’s why:

When I checked on Wednesday, the links to my own work on WordStream were still listed. So rather than it taking a week after Cliff Weitzman first hid the fanwork from view, it took a little over a week from the moment he first promised privately that they would be deleted. Which, fine. Perhaps Cliff didn’t really know what he was talking about when he gave that timeframe. Or maybe he told a little white lie to create the impression that he always intended to do the right thing. It seems more likely to me, though, that Cliff still believed—even after the backlash he received—that he would get away with honoring only individual takedown requests. Or worse, that he needed just a little bit more time with the stolen material to figure out an alternative way to profit off it—preferably without us noticing, this time.

But who knows? I certainly don’t! All we can do is speculate, because publicly, Cliff Weitzman has remained completely silent on his copyright infringements. All we got was the initial justifications he and his sockpuppet accounts used in comments on the original Reddit and Tumblr posts. After those were so understandably ill-received, Cliff only ever communicated with a few individual authors who contacted him directly and repeatedly, blocking people who addressed the issue on Twitter and quietly distancing himself from WordStream by deleting a blog he’d posted to Speechify.com dated December 20th—where Cliff promoted WordStream’s platform specifically to fanfiction readers. (See my enormous timeline post for details and screenshots of said posts before they were taken down.)

And this is why I’m still angry: As long as Cliff Weitzman faces no real consequences for his actions, he won’t see a need to own up to his mistake; and as long as he’s able to delay taking responsibility, this isn’t over. This didn’t end well.

After all, wasn’t this the next-best scenario for Cliff, second only to him turning WordStream into a (for him) effortless, infinite money-making machine? He took something we provided for free and fed it to AI so he could more easily put it behind a paywall; we found out and protested; Cliff quietly erased all evidence of his crime; and we went—almost equally quietly—away.

I want to make sure you know that I continue to be genuinely amazed and intensely grateful for how quickly the news about WordStream’s copyright infringement was shared—and continues to be shared—throughout fandom, on tumblr in particular. If it hadn’t been for our collective outcry here and on Reddit, WordStream would very likely still be up in its original form, and Weitzman would be reaping the benefits (those subscription prices were steep) today.

But it’s been frustrating to see that, with the exception of mentions in articles on Substack and Fansplaining (the latter of which is a particularly awesome and thorough read on fandom’s decontextualization) and a Fanlore listing, our outrage never really spilled out beyond the safely insulated, out-of-the-way spaces that are tumblr, a handful of subreddits and bluesky. And I believe that—unfortunately—we are collectively responsible for that part, as well.

Most of us seemed content to only spread the word by circulating the same two posts on tumblr. (Have we all given up completely on every other social media platform? Am I the only remaining straggler?) And soon after Cliff Weitzman hid WordStream’s fanfiction category from view, our interest in the issue took a sharp dive even there. Are we genuinely deceived into believing the issue has been fully resolved? Do we truly fail to realize that Weitzman’s refusal to admit that what he did was wrong left the door wide open for the next greed-driven tech bro to wander through? Or is the true naivety in thinking that, as a community, we can keep this kind of attack on fandom from happening again? Has our disillusionment already gotten that bad?

However the situation spins out from here, Cliff’s actions will set a precedent. If we fail to show Cliff and his ilk that attempts to profit off fandom’s unpaid labor have consequences, their tech companies will keep trying until something eventually sticks. They might be a little smarter about it next time; obscure their sources a bit better, maybe leave the titles and the authors’ names off. Or maybe they’ll go a bolder route: maybe next time they cross the line they’ll do it boldly enough for IP holders to take notice and stop tolerating fanwork entirely.

Doesn’t that make you angry, too?

There’s this whole other mess of thoughts I would love to be able to untangle about how commercial influence is contributing to the steady erosion of fandom’s foundations, but I’m tired, and other people have said it all much more eloquently than I ever could. Seriously, go read that article on Fansplaining. Or listen to the podcast version of it. Better yet, as long as you’re wearing your noise-canceling headphones, go listen to a podfic of one of your favorite fandoms’ works, and enjoy the collaborative joy and creativity of the people who Cliff Weitzman refuses to believe exist. (In one of Speechify’s other blogs, Cliff claims there are only 272 podfics on AO3. Would you like to run that ChatGPT prompt again, Cliff?). Honestly, much like Cliff Weitzman’s infuriating denial of the fact that fandom fucking has this covered, thank you very much, there’s so. Many. More. Things for us to talk about. There’s the connotations of WordStream’s dubious ‘upload’ button, for instance, or the fact that the app scraped (and in some cases, allegedly, still lists) copyright-protected original fiction as well, or WordStream’s complete lack of contact information, which is illegal for an internationally operating app. And oh! Has anyone reported more thoroughly on Cliff’s app’s options to ‘simplify’ or ‘modernize’ uploaded works, or—my own very favorite abomination—to translate them into something Cliff calls ‘Gen-Z Language’? Much like his atrocious AI book covers, it would be hilarious, if it didn’t make steam come out of my ears.

Anyway, there it is. I highly recommend you do all of that. And then, if you aren’t familiar with it already, go do some research re: fair use and your rights as the copyright owner of your works. A good number of people commenting on this controversy expressed stunned surprise or fearful hesitation about claiming any sort of ownership of their fanfiction. The more informed we are about our rights, the more willing we will be to defend them.

Please don’t stop writing or sharing your work. If you can’t bring yourself to work on your WIPs today (trust me, I get it), post about this situation instead. Tweets, skeets, whateverthefucks—about WordStream’s theft, about how this reflects on Speechify’s already shady business practices, about how Cliff’s actions and justifications have personally affected you. You’re welcome to share or copy my posts on these platforms, but since Cliff already blocked me, I very much prefer you post your own. If you do, call Cliff Weitzman by his full name and tag or include both WordStream and Speechify to ensure Weitzman will recognize he has both a personal as well as a professional stake in handling the situation with integrity. Leave your concerns in reviews on the Speechify app. (We weren’t provided with a more appropriate place to put them, after all!) Consider calling for a Speechify boycott until Cliff accepts accountability for his actions.

Do avoid making exaggerated claims, and don’t call for physical retaliation against Cliff’s person or his property. We don’t want to give him or Speechify even the weakest of grounds to claim defamation or threats of violence. Focus on the facts: they’re incriminating enough by themselves. Show Cliff that we’re determined to keep bringing up his company’s wrongdoings in public spaces until he demonstrates that he understands why taking these freely shared fanworks and monetizing them was wrong, and takes steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

One last thing—and this is really more of a general reminder—please stop suggesting I handle this situation for you. People have come to me asking for action items. The resulting flashbacks to my days as an office assistant were extremely upsetting. In all seriousness, casting me as some sort of coordinator or driving force behind this backlash actively hurts the cause. Not only does it downplay fandom’s collective efforts, it also makes our message extremely vulnerable. It would be all too easy for Cliff to silence one singular source. Wikipedia will not maintain mentions of this controversy as long as it leads only to Easter Kingston’s attempt to summarize what happened as it was happening. You only know my name because I stumbled upon WordStream’s theft and decided to get my friends involved. I am not more knowledgeable, more skilled or more angrily invested in this issue than you are (or can, or should, be). I draw pictures and I write stories and I worry about the shift I’m seeing in fandom after having been on this ride for even a few pre-livejournal rounds.

I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. But I am going to allow myself to step away for a bit, make my wife dinner, and catch up on our shows.

I trust you’ve got it from here.

[unionizedwizard]

tbh i know it's me being biased because irma is a summoner main but there's something so funnily accurate about the wol being a summoner re: the whole azem thing. convoker outfit huh! azem's special spell being Use Party Finder and summon allies HUH! and as we've established*, summoning is the missing link between creation magicks and regular sundered arcanima. though of course the funniest reveal of them all was to find out WHY the phoenix rotation had spells called shit like "brands of purgatory" (extremely ❓ for most of the MSQ) and that the true reason is that you pirated copyrighted material created by none other than lahabrea himself and then fixed it yourself. the DRAMA

*as we have obviously all read and agreed with my archon thesis on the topic

[aro-bird]

What's up with controversial YouTubers constantly blaming ADHD for their rancid actions like... that's not how ADHD fucking works??? It could worsen some issues you have and even be the reason for some but it wouldn't make you a fucking asshole????

[deadpresidents]

God damn your god damned old hellfired god damned soul to hell god damn you and goddam your god damned family's god damned hellfired god damned soul to hell and god damnation god damn them and god damn your god damn friends to hell.

Letter from a citizen to President-elect Abraham Lincoln, November 25, 1860.

I can't prove it, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this citizen didn't vote for Lincoln.

[tofupixel]

its crazy how many people are mad at me because they think i'm talking about my own art being plagiarised, and how dare i be so full of myself. no i actually care about others. it's actually pretty easy you should try it

[clove-pinks]

It happened AGAIN: a Facebook page with 83,000+ followers, "Attire's Mind," ripped off the content of one of my dress history posts.

Compare my 1840s readymade men's wear post with the inferior copy (that omits sources and links).

Today it was the Paris Musées redingote post. Notice how "Attire's Mind" uses my image edits (again), and also eliminates my citation while loosely copying the text.

If you are blogging about dress history here, especially if you are a small and obscure blog like yours truly, check "Attire's Mind" for stolen content.

It is particularly aggravating since he is clearly going the James Somerton route with this: stealing the work of passionate but little-known creatives, and making an inferior version that incidentally removes citations.

[rollercoasterwords]

like yeah obviously legality does not correlate to morality and i personally do not think ip laws should exist. however the reason i find it relevant to emphasize that selling fanfiction is illegal is not to make some moral stand about the sanctity of ip so much as to be like. hey this is the way it fucking is and if u break the law by selling fic u run the risk of creating larger legal troubles for entire communities of fic writers who just want to share their work for free. also more to the point the reason selling fic is so shitty is that it is a question of labor exploitation. i spent hundreds of hours creating something which you are now packaging and selling to make a profit without compensating me for my labor, which is not only exploitative but spits in the face of the spirit in which this fanfiction was shared—as a labor of love, meant to be free to anyone who wanted to read it. and the gag is that if u did want to fairly compensate me for my labor it would literally be thousands of dollars (assuming i’m charging even minimum wage for time spent writing & editing) which is why it isn’t fucking possible to sell fanfiction for a fair price!! all that on top of the fact that i (and many other fic writers) explicitly say “don’t sell or buy bound copies of my fic” just makes it flat-out undeniable that this is a fucking shitty thing to do, and i genuinely have no sympathy for people who go “wait what i’m not supposed to sell or buy fanfiction 🥺🥺🥺” like shut the fuck up i hate u

[phoenixyfriend]

I have begun watching The New hbomberguy Video

There's some fun bits, like "Where does--and I mean this as a compliment--the most fuckable twink I've ever seen in my life get off telling me how to manage my T-levels?"

But like... man.

I think one of the things that bother me about the Internet Historian case is that it seems like, if the guy had just reached out to Mental Floss, it could have been a really cool collaboration.

He could have just. Fucking asked. Cross-advertized it with the magazine telling their readers "Now this fan favorite is narrated by [internet famous person] with some amazing animation, based on the writing of [our guy.]"

[carrymelikeimcute]

hbomberguy really made a video ending like, five different careers just so he could make it 100% clear that he's a bisexual bear who owns fetish wear and would definately dom a fuckable twink.

Bizarrest dating agency tape ever.

EDIT - To the people reblogging this in outrage because 'he's not a bear' um... it's a silly tumblr post, fuck off.

[lady-raziel]

had never heard of James Somerton before but now very suspicious that his stranger things and nostalgia video essay directly compares it to ready player one when one of the few published works of mine on the internet from college was an analysis of stranger things and nostalgia that compares it to ready player one 🤔