Sofa King (and Friedo, and Elenfair), I am SO outraged for you. Though I’m not the greatest writer in the world, I am very fond of my words once I’ve placed them in a row to express my ideas, and can only imagine the fury you feel at some rat bastards making money off your work by selling it to conscience-free assholes to present as their own work.
Use those lawyer buddies and hit 'em hard, Sofa King. Don’t just settle for closing them down on their present site and letting them open back up with another name and ISP next week. Is there a way to get some punitive damages out of this, and make this NOT a worthwhile business for them to engage in?
On the practical side, though, do you have a copy of your original document with some proof that it is your? (A copy of the dated, graded paper, perhaps?) That’s part of what bothers me the most — the one who honestly created the document now has the difficult task of proving that he created it.
Seraphim: I loved the little outraged note from the plagiarist you shut down. “Do you have any idea how it feels to have your website shut down?” ---- yeah, maybe one-tenth as outraged as having seen my work stolen and pawned off as your own on your precious website, buddy. Bravo!
And has anyone linked Billy Rubin’s recipe for Sesame Fried Plagiarist into Zenster’s Recipe thread? I think it should be served with a little habanero salsa on the side.
ROFLMAO!!!
Okay, I have a scar where a gunshot wound once was. Clearer?hehe!!
YWalker: Habanero salsa. You are a genius. You get the first bite.[slight hijack]wonder if sesame fried plagiarist tastes like chicken?[/slight hijack]
Sofa King – stick it to the Man! I have a published guidebook. Then a really famous series published by another company plagarized my work. I won’t name names or anything, but it’s something like Lonesome World. And this is regarding fucking obscure little places in China that no one in their right mind would even consider going to. And my fucking pencil necked publisher didn’t want to do anything. So, my first published book is long out of print but the stuff I wrote has a second lease on life.
I had no idea plagiarism was so rampant! I’m working on a project for a friend, he wants me to help him co-write some sort of epic alien drama thingy from a female point of view, and I was considering posting my first finished installment here and on my own webpages looking for critique! Well … to hell with that now!
I’m also working on a series of novels, based around an idea I came up with while playing an online game a while back. I’ve shared much of the idea with others and even had a short, detailless synopsis online for everyone to see.
I am so glad that most of them are talentless hacks who couldn’t turn a plot into a readable story if their lives depended on it. Otherwise my 210 pages of “history” on this fictional world would be completely worthless by now, it seems!
When I resurrect tamerlane.org I am -not- putting any of my important writing on there. Of course since the only other thing I really have to display is my photos, that’ll make owning my own domain kind of pointless, non? >:(
Sofa, I hope you sue those guys for all they’re worth. My writing may not be good but it’s one of my most personal forms of expression. Anyone who fucks with that deserves all they’ve got coming to them. I don’t normally use strong language, but let me say I think TwistofFate’s words from Bossk’s “Burger King” rant thread really apply here.
I am too lazy to open another window so I won’t quote them directly. But there’s lots of “asshole” in it.
Not true – it’s just that those who are going to cheat and put the effort into it don’t get noticed (which is kinda the point).
To my knowledge, I’ve never had my work plagiarized without my consent. I have, on occasion, written papers for other people (either for profit or as a favor; going rate is $10-$15 per page, depending on the kind of research and preparation necessary). If I’m not familiar with the client’s writing style, I need a sample. It’s not that hard.
I still haven’t found the paper I wrote. However, I’m going to be spending this Thanksgiving at my parents’ place, the last place it could possibly be. I know where it should be, and I know it will take only fifteen minutes to check. If it’s not there, there is no case.
If it is there, then I have the option of going after these guys. If I have the smallest chance of succeeding or even of making those bastards have a bad day, then I’ll do it.
My personal dumb-student story: my mom taught a course in which a kid turned in a Dave Barry essay as his own. That’s right, kid. She’ll never notice that you lifted something from the single most well-known humorist in the United States!
And plagiarism can start early too. Waaaay back when I was in sixth grade(1966-1967) we had a great first year teacher who was into science fiction and fantasy. Okay, we get the standard instruction to “write a short story” only Mr. Bradbury said to make it a science fiction story. Did I mention the year? First year Star Trek was on television? So the stories are posted around the room on the walls and one kid lifted his story straight from Star Trek. It was the episode where the Galileo, one of the shuttles, goes down to the planet surface and it and its crew are attacked by some giant humanoid. Stupid kid didn’t even think up names for the vessels, just called them the “big space ship” and the “little space ship.”
Is it absolutely necessary to find the physical paper? I don’t see why. How will you prove that you had it in your possession all this time, if you do find it? How will you prove that you didn’t, say, have a friend buy the paper, and then key it in on your old typewriter? Is it the composition notes and/or teacher comments you’re after? Just curious.
should i be insulted that no one has ever stolen any of my poetry despite the fact that it has been prominently displayed on my personal website for nearly two years?
damn. i should steal someone else’s poetry to display. mine obviously sucks.
Man, I can relate entirely to your situation. I was at work, and the subject of how people from different cultures perceive time. I wrote a research paper on the subject once in college, heavily citing a particular book. I can remember the author, but I can’t remember the title of the book. That’s okay, I thought, Google will find it for me.
Well, Google got pretty close.
It found my goddamned research paper. FOR SALE. First damned hit. And the second. Same title. Same length. Same subject. Same number of sources. I can find out for certain if it’s my paper if I’m willing to cough up $9.98 a motherfucking page plus $20 shipping. From one of TWO separate research-paper purveyors.
And I’m more pissed than a panther with gasoline on its asshole.
::getting out some shis-ke-bob skewers:: Macro Man, you will now be fried in sesame oil and have various other unsavery things done to you. You can be our test subject to see what plaigarist tastes like. Yum!!
::getting out some shis-ke-bob skewers:: Macro Man, you will now be fried in sesame oil and have various other unsavery things done to you. You can be our test subject to see what plaigarist tastes like. Yum!!
Well, a friend of mine once scribed an essay at university, referring repeatedly to one source. He couldn’t recall the name of the work, but the writer’s name was still vivid to him.
No problem, he opined, a popular search engine shall retrieve it.
It seems the search engine hit the target. The bloody assignment was there. With a price on its head!
Named identically, with an identical number of words, and an identical topic! To ascertain the similitude, he must pay about $10 a page. Nearly double that for shipping.
The subject of conversation is a world-wide web page that purloined the fruit of his labours, and at an added cost is purveying it internationally to tertiary scholars, so they can misrepresent its authorship. My friend would refrain from misrepresenting his authorship. He is very bad. It will strike you as humourous that the second occasion of his labours rearing their ugly head electronically is now upon us.
Despite this, at the present hour, those people are constructing bulk amounts of offensive waste matter made from currency. There is not the smallest coin involved that he will behold.
Because it is never held to be plagiarism provided each word is changed before re-use, is it?
Crimsonmaster
