--I want to thank Matt for letting me post this here. I also want to remind
everyone that if you feel ilke replying, PRIVATE REPLIES only.--
Every once in a while someone comes across a piece of fiction that seems
familiar. They find out they have read that chapter or scene before. The
unfortunate part is it turns out to be written by someone else before. The
original author doesn't know about the theft, and it is theft.
Two recent cases have been determined. The culprits are somewhat well known
author's in the fanfiction world. They have failed to accept culpability
for their actions by apologizing to the author's they stole from and
removing the passages from the work they pass off as their own.
Speaking as someone who does toil over stories and scenes, I'm appalled at
the behavior. I've included attachments that show the cases of Wishbringer
and Red Priest stealing scenes from Shade and Tonbo respectively.
What I'm asking is that you show your support for the authors who have been
stolen from by adding your name to a pettition that wiill be shown to the
sites that host the illegal work, and the authors that steal. It's gone on
for too long, and too many people allow it by applauding the work of people
who steal.
If you want to add your name to the list, which already includes over 50
names(thanks to those of you already on the list), email me
noirchloe@nyc.rr.com or Rezantis@catwho.net and ask to be included. If you
feel you want more information, you can ask for that also. And if you know
of anyone stealing scenes, please let the original author know.
Thanks,
Kenneth Payne(kpjam)
Again, private replies only.
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: RedPriest_--_Tonbo.txt
Tonbo is a fanfic author, who seems to have updated his site
(http://www.sempai.org/~tonbo/) last on the 4/05/2000.
When we go to his fanfiction page
(http://www.sempai.org/~tonbo/fanfiction/), we see that amongst his
fics, he has a lemon called "Why Don't You Try Me For Real Some Time?"
(http://www.sempai.org/~tonbo/fanfiction/try_me.html), which was
nominated for one of the best Ranma 1/2 fics of Feb. '98
(http://awards.thetop.net/1998/Feboneshot.html).
What does any of this have with RedPriest17 and his Ranma/Gold Diggers
crossover, "Broken Heart Combined"
(http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=483817, which was posted to
ff.net on Dec. 5th, 2001, years afterwards), you might ask? Plenty is
the answer, since chapter nine (The Spoils of Conquest... --
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=483817&chapter=9) of
RedPriest17's fic copies Tonbo's lemon relentlessly, grabbing sentences
and even entire scenes word-for-word and copying them, sometimes with
little or no change done to them whatsoever.
Even a casual observer would come to the same conclusion after examining
both materials closely. However, to those who need decisive proof, I
offer this -- RedPriest17's writing itself!
Here is a passage from RedPriest17's chapter 9:
//Britanny laughed heartily, as she forced herself to stand. Staring
straight at Ranma, she
smiled a bit hungrily. She was still too far away. If she didn't keep
distracting him, he
might be able to get the sash back on before she could get close to him.
Ranma laughed, as he forced himself to stand. Staring straight at her,
he smiled
deliberately. He was still too far away. If he didn't keep distracting
her, she might be
able to get the belt back on before he could reach her.//
And here is one from Tonbo's fic:
//Ranma laughed, as he forced himself to stand. Staring straight at
her, he smiled deliberately. He was still too far away. If he didn't
keep distracting her, she might be able to get the belt back on before
he could reach her. "You looked really nice bendin' over like that,
Akane. Really smooth! I didn't see any lines, though. Are you even
wearin' any panties, Akane?"//
While I could build a mountain from the evidence available, I feel so
strongly about this case of plagiarism that this single example is all I
need. No, I didn't accidentally copy and paste the example from Tonbo's
fic twice, first in RedPriest17's example, and beneath it. RedPriest17
is the one guilty of said copying and pasting. You can see for yourself
how he 'wrote' his chapter 9, by copying from Tonbo's fic and then
changing the content slightly to adjust it to script format, and
changing the names of the people involved, of course. Only here, he
actually forgot to delete the original passage after editing a copy of
it.
What did RedPriest17 do, when confronted about this in the reviews on
ff.net?
I quote:
//Author's special note: I would like to make note that there is a VERY
similar fic to this
chapter of Broken Hearts Combined. It's by an author named Tobon and
it's called "Try
Me For Real Sometime." My friend sent me a link to it, and all I could
say was this...
"HOLY SH*T! IT'S ALMOST THE EXACT F*CKING THING!!!"
So please. I am not trying to be a scrub in any way. And for 'copying',
I have to say
this. I am so sorry. But damn this is how I felt the fight would go. So
I have tried to
change my fight a bit. Sorry for the inconvenience to all.//
The above passage appeared after chapter nine was first posted, when
RedPriest17 reuploaded it with these new Author's Notes. As we can see,
instead of being a big man about the whole thing, apologizing and trying
to contact Tonbo for permission to use his work (which I doubt would've
been given after the fact here), he lies. This fallacy could've been
more convincing, had RedPriest17 deleted the passage from the original
fic that he had clumsily left behind when he reuploaded the ninth
chapter.
Now, we don't punish people for clumsiness. But plagiarism is anothe
thing entire, and RedPriest must be punished for committing it, and for
trying to laugh it off, while keeping the evidence on the net --
practically flaunting it in our faces!
And here we come to a choice. Just because RedPriest17 has a fanclub,
which considers him a good author, do we give him immunity for doing
what many others have been banned from ff.net and other places that
hosted them, or do we seek justice for this offense to the fanfiction
community at large?large?
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: wishbringer.txt
Alright. Here we have a series of extracts from both fics for your
comparison. You can check the relevant examples at the following links:
The plagiarism occured specifically in chapter 2 of Wishbringer's "Shin
Ryoga Muyo", which can be found here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=754992&chapter=2
or
http://rakhal.com/florestica/wishbringer/srm/srm02.html
The fic that is being ripped off, Shade's 'Private Bet #7'
(specifically chapter 2), can be found here:
http://www.rakhal.com/florestica/shade/pb7/pb7b.html
Now to the extracts.
>From 'Shin Ryoga Muyo'
---
Ryouko handed a strange object to Ryouga. Half distracted, she
said, "Could you hold this for a sec?" Ryouko asked.
"Uh, sure."
Ryouga looked at the object in question.
Two seconds later he realized exactly what it was. Ten seconds later
his jaw came up from the floor.
"MY... MY HOUSE?!"
"Sorry about that; didn't have any time, so I just shrank it and
brought it along. You don't mind, do you?"
Ryouga stared down at the now model-sized house again and
sweatdropped. "At least it couldn't get any worse than this," Ryouga
thought to himself.
---
>From 'Private Bet #7'
---
A distracted Ryoko tossed something square and flat at him.
"Could you hold this for a sec?"
"Uh, sure."
Ranma looked at the object in question.
Two seconds later he realized exactly what it was.
"MY HOUSE?!!"
"Sorry about that; didn't have any time, so I just shrank it and
brought it along. You don't mind, do you?"
There was even a tiny squished 2D figure lying on the front yard.
"Dad?!!"
Desperately trying not to break down into a gibbering wreck from the
multiple shocks to his system, the naive Masaki broke the first rule of
the "Anime Laws Of Stupid Things Not To Think About In A Crisis".
{Well, at least things can't get any worse then this.}
---
As you can see, this is clearly word for word similarity - note the
exact same punctuation marks as well. Another example:
---
>From 'Shin Ryoga Muyo':
---
In the Masaki Valley, a slumbering presence, long submerged beneath the
lake, started to stir itself to full wakefulness.
{MiiiyyaaAAAooooWWW!!}
Scattered crystals inside the heart of the ship arose from the floor
and swiveled into place as the main systems came back online.
The surface of the lake began to churn and froth as the ancient ship
arose from its watery grave to serve its mistress once more.
Ryou-oh-ki was resurrected.
"MiiiyyaaAAAooooWWW!!"
---
>From 'Private Bet #7':
---
In the Masaki Valley, a slumbering
presence long submerged beneath
the lake started to stir itself
to full wakefulness.
{MiiiyyaaAAA!!}
Scattered crystals inside the
heart of the ship arose from the
floor and swiveled into place as
the main systems came back online.
The surface of the lake began to
churn and froth as the ancient
ship arose from its watery grave
to serve its mistress once more.
Ryu-ohki was resurrected.
"MiiiYYyaaAA!!"
---
Again, this is clearly word for word copying, right down to the
punctuation marks.
Yet another example:
---
>From 'Shin Ryoga Muyo'
---
"Cool!" Ryouga cried, his face plastered to Ryou-oh-ki's currently
transparent environmental dome in awe. As he looked down upon the
shrine grounds and the forest that surrounded the area, he couldn't
help but be impressed.
"Now let's get outta here Ryou-oh-ki!!"
Ryouga was jerked out of his amazement as the ship cried again and
moved forward. The running battle between the two warships began as
Ryou-oh-ki climbed through the upper atmosphere in its quest to reach
the safety of deep space. The Ryu-Oh bombarded the smaller battleship
with hundreds of brilliant blue laser blasts from multiple log turrets
that sprang out of the vessel's outer hull. This destructive volley was
wasted on Ryo-ohki's advanced armor; in return, the pirate ship
unleashed a powerful strike of six enormous red energy beams from its
central core at the Juraian Battle cruiser.
The resulting explosion nearly knocked the First Princess off her
feet. "H... how dare you!!" Ayeka cried. The gloves were now officially
off!
---
>From 'Private Bet #7':
---
The running battle between the two warships continued as Ryu-ohki
climbed through the upper atmosphere in its quest to reach the safety
of deep space.
The Ryuu-O bombarded the smaller battleship with hundreds of brilliant
blue laser blasts from multiple log turrets that sprang out of the
vessel's outer hull.
This destructive volley was wasted on Ryu-ohki's advanced armor, in
return the pirate ship unleashed a powerful strike of six enormous red
energy beams from its central core at the Juraian Battlecruiser.
The resulting explosion nearly knocked the First Princess off her feet.
"Why you...!"
That did it, the gloves were off now!
---
Again, you can see more obvious instances. There are still more
examples:
---
>From 'Shin Ryoga Muyo':
---
Ryouga stared down at the his now model-sized house again and
sweatdropped. "At least it couldn't get any worse than this," Ryouga
thought to himself.
And with that, Ryouga put the final nail in his coffin.
Ryouko swore silently as her ship came to a sudden and complete
stop. "Goddamn! Stupid Power of Jurai!!" The space pirate angrily
gritted her fangs and began concentrating her energy, trying to break
Ryou-oh-ki through the now present barrier that was holding them both
captive. Her efforts were in vain, and a powerful field of
electromagnetic force began to develop around Ryouko's body.
When Ryouga reached out a hand to her she screamed a warning at
him. "Stay back!!" Ryouko cried and extended her hand in a stop
gesture.
He froze, his fingers inches away from her hand. It was just as well
that he did, as an instant later she was surrounded by a barrier of
blue energy with more then enough power to render him extra-crispy.
Drums started beating.
"Oh, now what?!?" Ryouga cried.
"Guardians... of... Jurai..." Ryouko whispered. She was in real trouble
now. Those logs had her but good this time. With only one gem the
pirate lacked the energy to defeat their combined power. "I'm in
trouble," she yhought in slight worry. She wouldn't admit fear, after
all. A demon space pirate such as her didn't have that word in her
vocabulary, naturally. Kamidake began pulling her into his subspace
interior.
"Hey! Let her go!!" Ryouko turned her head to see Ryouga charge at the
Guardian imprisoning her. It was a touching gesture, but futile. A
second Guardian with a red symbol on its front intercepted the boy
before he took more then a few steps and sucked him into a stasis
field.
Darkness descended.
---
>From 'Private Bet #7':
---
Ryoko swore silently as her ship came to a sudden and complete stop.
{Damn! Stupid Power of Jurai!!}
The space pirate angrily gritted her fangs and began concentrating her
energy, trying to break Ryu-ohki through the barrier that was holding
them both captive. Her efforts were in vain, and a powerful field of
electromagnetic force began to develop around Ryoko's body.
When Ranma reached out a hand to her she screamed a warning at him.
"Stay back!!"
He froze, his fingers inches away from her hand.
It was just as well that he did, as an instant later she was surrounded
by a barrier of blue energy with more then enough power to render him
extra crispy.
Drums started beating.
{Oh that's just great.}
"Guardians...of...Jurai..."
She was in real trouble now. Those logs had her but good this time.
With only one gem the pirate lacked the energy to defeat their combined
power.
{I'm in trouble!}
The blue symboled one began pulling her into its subspace interior.
"Hey! Let her go!!"
She turned her head to see Ranma charge at the Guardian imprisoning
her. It was a touching gesture, but futile.
A second Guardian with a red symbol on its front intercepted the boy
before he took more then a few steps and sucked him into a stasis
field.
Ryoko grimaced as she watched him get captured. Things had not gone at
all according to her plans today.
{Heh, guess I've lost some of my edge after 700 years, never would have
fallen for something like this before...}
Darkness descended.
---
And that was an extended extract. While this may have been in the
canon material, it does NOT explain why there is word-for-word
duplication, especially on the punctuation level.
The final example:
---
>From 'Shin Ryoga Muyo':
---
Unrenowned to him, A pair of unseen eyes twinkled with innocent
mischief as they watched the young man begin his attack.
This promised to be so much fun!
---
>From 'Private Bet #7':
---
A pair of unseen eyes twinkled with innocent mischief as they watched
the young man begin to panic.
This promised to be so much fun!
---
Look specifically at the capital 'A' in Wishbringer's copy. It would
appear that not only has he been using the copy/paste function of his
word processor, but he forgot to edit it properly after he was done.
Wishbringer has simply gone rampant with the copy/paste functions.
This is beyond the possible borders of coincidence. While I understand
that a great deal of this appears in the original serise, as I said
above, the retelling should logically vary some. The textual
descriptions are a reflection of the author's view of the series, and
for two authors to come up with this much text, exactly the same (right
down to the punctuation marks) is to my mind simply impossible.
I would also like to indicate the differences in style. Shade writes
in a very different style to Wishbringer's usual, and this is quite
apparent if you read chapter one and then chapter two in succession.
Shade appears, if you read his prose, to talk to the reader... and
Wishbringer's writings (outside of this plagiarised chapter, of course)
has a very different style to it. In addition to the obvious cutting
and pasting, this makes it obvious even to the casual examination.
This is not the first time that Wishbringer has been accused of
plagiarism, either. He was accused of stealing a scene for his "Ah!!
My God??" fic from Chris Angel's "Oh! My Brother!". Although I
unfortunately do not have a copy of the original piece of plagiarism, I
do have a copy of Wishbringer's rewritten copy... which still steals
prose.
---
>From "Ah!! My God??", Chapter 1
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=266403&chapter=2
---
Because, no matter what Heaven may look like, the Head Office always
looks pretty damn dull. Take a 20 meter by 20 meter room. Now, envision
the walls were painted white. There�s A picture of the earth from space
on the wall away from the door. Put a plain ash desk in the room, with
a Hewlet Packard PC with a Pentium 1000 Processor (Cause he gets all
the cool toys first!) at his right side. Finally, there�s a big,
comfortable looking velvet swivel chair behind the desk.
In the chair sat Kami-sama. At that time He was in His Odin form. He
had a long, bushy, gray beard, that flowed into His long hair. He wore
stained battle-leathers, and an eye patch. His craggy face was neutral.
---
>From "Oh! My Brother!", Chapter 1
http://www.yggdrasil.org/omg/omb/omb-1.txt
---
Whatever Heaven may look like, the Head Office always looks the same.
Take a 20 meter by 20 meter room. Paint the walls white. Put a
picture of the earth from space on the wall away from the door. Put a
plain ash desk in the room, with a computer terminal at one side, and a
gumball machine on the other. (Don't ask, I don't know, and He won't
tell.) Put a big, comfortable looking velvet swivel chair behind the
desk. That's the Head Office.
In the chair sat Him. Kami-sama. God. Jupiter. Buddah. You name a
supreme being, that's Him. At that time He was in His Odin form. He
reminded me of an offensive lineman. He had a long, bushy, grey beard,
that flowed into His long hair. He wore stained battle-leathers, and
an eyepatch. His craggy face was neutral. I expected someone taller.
---
This is word for word plagiarism of an extremely blatant variety. What
makes it more damning is that not only did he do it again in a later
fic - after being hauled up for his original posting of this - but this
is AFTER his rewrite.
Wishbringer's authors notes to that fic are below:
"Re-write notes: Ok, I give up. For months, I�ve been defending my
innocence in this chapter about plagiarism. And, you know. I say until
I die that I did not plagiarize Mr. Angel�s work. This re-write had
been done for a little while now, but I was just to lazy to put it out.
Well, here it is now."
This is not coincidence. Chance does not stretch this far.
I submit to you that with this evidence, there is no doubt at ALL that
Wishbringer was not plagiarising - blatantly. Whatever he may try to
claim, he is guilty of repeated instances.
He deserves to have his fanfiction removed from the internet. He knew
exactly what he was doing, and did it anyway. He's done it not once,
but twice, and I do not believe that we should allow him a third
opportunity.
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