Latitude and Buttery both updated, and a link to Big Sexy Man has been added to the Adamao home page.

As always, you got fanfic or essays relating to Buffy/Wes, Spred, Gunn, blah blah blah, or you want to beta or something, just gimme a shout.

Plei, I don't think I ever asked you-- what was your reason for choosing the word "Adamao"? I like it, but I'd never heard it before.

On the unconscious- word-lifting front: my mother always mentions the time she read the phrase "earwax the consistency of guava jelly" twice in the same week in two completely different books by two very different authors. One must have read the other first, and later forgotten where they'd gotten such a striking phrase....

I always worry if a clever phrase that I think I've invented actually comes from somewhere else, like this board, Terry Pratchett, etc.

One time I used a particular turn of phrase, and got the nagging feeling that I'd read it in another fanfic. As it turns out, I very nearly plagiarized myself.

Oops.

Earwax the consistency of guava jelly? That's going to stay with me for a while. Jellylike earwax?

Eww.

I have to stop arguing with people who don't get it.

If you only lift selected phrases and the basic concept of the story, and don't acknowledge the inspiration, it's still plagiarism. Really. You don't need entire paragraphs to make it plagiarism. And the more phrases you borrow, the less verbatim the borrowing has to be.

Also, just because fic is copyright infringement, it's not plagiarism unless the writer claims it's their own. (Which, um, would be antithetical to the very concept of derivative fiction, but never mind.) Fic is infringement, infringement != plagiarism. And if you think plagiarism in fic is okay because we're all infringers and adopters, that's fine. But it's still plagiarism.

Gah.

t /rant

Plei, I don't think I ever asked you-- what was your reason for choosing the word "Adamao"? I like it, but I'd never heard it before.

I think it was mainly knowing the word and liking the way it felt with all the vowels. I wanted something short enough for me to type on a regular basis, where the meaning was there, but not entirely obvious.

I have to stop arguing with people who don't get it.

Ugh. I've been following this from the corner of my attention span, and I think I'll be thunking my head repeatedly.

If you only lift selected phrases and the basic concept of the story, and don't acknowledge the inspiration, it's still plagiarism. Really. You don't need entire paragraphs to make it plagiarism. And the more phrases you borrow, the less verbatim the borrowing has to be.

This is what I was always taught. In fact, even if none of it is verbatim, if you're taking the idea, if you're taking the structure, and you're not acknowledging it, you're out of line.

Sounds like the HP instance that first came up is way beyond this, though. Is there such a thing as Fic-Libs? Add a name, some places, and a couple of adverbs to your favorite fic...Presto! You're an author!

Yet another plagiarism instance! This one's a doozy. An online magazine with a stated focus on first Amendment issues, and apparently run by a high school student, accepted for publication an X-Men slash piece (M/X) for its July issue.

Except the piece had previously been posted in its entirety a year ago to a number of XM archives and lists.

When the writer of the original story went to the webzine and asked them about it, the plagiarist claimed she had handwritten copies of the story and could post them as proof, and the editors insisted on spending a week investigating the issue before taking the story down.

The kicker? The plagiarist forgot to take the original writer's email address off the story. When people brought that up, she claimed the original writer had hacked her Yahoo account.

Oy. Links to all of this may be found via metablog.

I'm still waiting for the first instance where someone steals posted fic, changes the names, and sells it to a magazine as original fiction. It's probably happened already, but nobody's noticed (yet).

I keep reading about the plagiarism stories. It's just so crazy.

It's scary since you're unprotected as a Fic writer. Can't be much legal recourse since they aren't legally your characters.