Hi sorry to bother you, but it seems you went through something simliar to what im going through. Im not sure what to do exactly. I was hoping you could help me out. I post fanfic to Archive Of Our Own. It seems another writer has taken a lot of elements of my story and made their own. I think the plot may be different, but the similiarities are there. What do you suggest i do?
1. Google up a plagiarism checker and do a comparison first. Scroll through and look to see how much has been lifted. Be sure before anything. With the last time someone lifted from me, their entire intro and outro were different, but several passages in the middle of the fic were lifted almost wholesale or with minor word juggling.
2. Report the fic to the AO3 Abuse Team. Be ready to wait a looooong time. It took like 2 weeks for me to hear back.
3. This is me, but I would make a public post about it. Don’t be rude or witchhunty. But make it clear there is plagiarism is going on, so that other people can also check to see. It’s an unfortunate truth that plagiarists are often repeat offenders, and your fandom fellows should be aware they are around.
4. Do not actually expect a satisfying conclusion. Both times I’ve been plagiarized, the people in question basically panic deleted their accounts rather than just the fics with stolen material. Which is frustrating because for one, they could just open a new account and do it again, and two, I would prefer the accountability of deleting the stolen work, apologizing, and doing better going forward. But when people are caught doing a bad thing, they rarely do that. So keep that in mind.
And I want to stress: don’t drag them. Make their actions public, but keep in mind that… plagiarism is a crime brought on by insecurity in one’s own work and looking for ways to get feedback. I’m not saying it’s a justified crime, but like… it’s one I most want to see people grow beyond.
Hope this helps.
