The Irony Knows No Bounds.

[icarus]

The Irony Knows No Bounds

You know, reading trinityofone's recent post, I'd like to say in a note of complete and utter irony, I have only one quote that I've borrowed:

In the Harry Potter AU, Beg Me For It, I refer to "Lucius and the Death Eaters" sounding like a rock band.

Where did it originate?

Cassandra Claire.

I thought that I'd read the Draco Trilogy after I wrote Beg Me For It. I wasn't a Harry/Draco or a Gen fan, preferring Harry/Ron and Harry/Snape. If it was Gen, I wasn't interested if it didn't have Snape. I know I finally read the DT somewhere in Jan-Mar of 2003 (after people complained about it... and I saw the quote "I dreamed I was a slice of lemon is a giant martini" on Fiction Alley and couldn't resist). I wrote Beg Me For It in Feb 2003.

Three years later I'm a wee bit fuzzy. *head scratching* Maybe the quote just stuck in my mind? Readers have pointed it out to me and while I've stuck with my original belief, I'm actually not quite sure any more.

At any rate, if there's anyone who won't complain, it's Cassandra Claire. *g*

Comments

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

This whole mess has got me unnerved, I can tell you. I mean, I can definitely understand the upset about taking pages and pages from other people's work and claiming it as your own - that's definitely plagerism. No if-ands-or-buts. But now it's branching into talks about crediting even one line taken from somewhere else, and crediting everything specifically line by line - we're all getting so paranoid that pretty soon, the author notes will be longer than the stories!

And then there's the whole fusion thing of putting together a book or movie together with a show. I've participated in those in the HP fandom, have 3 fused stories written, and there was never a problem with anyone writing the challenges or reading the stories anyone read. I know that when I write fusion stories, I read or watch the source a half-dozen times, absorbing it, and then write my version. Sometimes lines from the source are incorporated, or paraphrased, but I've always credited the original and never thought anything about it. Now I'm paranoid and I've gone back to add even more disclaimers, and I'm worried about the new story I'm writing - which actually doesn't have any lines from the original movie which was pretty dated, but it does have dialog from SGA and I don't know how much I need to put in my notes about that. Is it okay to say "some dialog from 1st Season episodes included" or do I need to say "in Chapter 6, the dialog between Rodney and Carson comes from the first scene in 'Hide&Seek'"? Frankly, I'm confused.

[cheshyre]

Personally...

If it's an HP fic, I'm not going to be upset to see uncredited HP lines in there. Likewise for any other fic wrt lines from that source. If it's a fic of X universe or even X&Y, then finding stuff from X&Y is to be expected.
Part of the CC problem is it's a HP fic with stuff from elsewhere that folks may not have been expecting (I've found quote sites on the web that attribute various lines from Buffy and elsewhere to CC).

And, I think, the other reason this is wank instead of old news is the way CC handled it.
If someone points something out and you slap your forehead, say D'oh!, post something like Icarus did above, I don't think anybody's going to hold it against you.
But bad_penny recounts shifting, contradictory, and sometimes untrue excuses (such as the nonexistent "single volume omnibus" edition of Pamela Dean)... what seems more like CYA than any genuine sentiment.
And that kind of behavior gets people's dander up.

All IMO, of course.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly honest: one, I really think I wrote that line before I read the DT, and two, it's not verbatum quote but merely the "idea" of referring to 'Lucius and the Death Eaters' sounding like a rock band.

There's a note of mockery to my admission here. I don't think allusions are a problem.

"To attack, or not to attack, that is the question. Whether tis nobler to be pounded by the opposition's artillery while maintaining position...."[1]

Icarus


[1] Credit goes to Shakespeare's Hamlet in reference to "To be or not to be."

[cheshyre]

Oh, I grok that about your post.

My point was that the severity of reaction is based in part to how one handles it, and CC never really gave an unequivocal mea culpa which might've put the issue to rest.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

But now it's branching into talks about crediting even one line taken from somewhere else, and crediting everything specifically line by line - we're all getting so paranoid that pretty soon, the author notes will be longer than the stories!

That's what trintyofone was saying.

Personally, I think the issue of the individual quotes is being conflated with Cassandra Claire's original plagiarism because people are so angry with her. So you get "she's a plagiarist -- and then she did this, too! And then--!"

Icarus

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems to me that the answer to the author's note problem would be to, you know, not use lines you took from other people. And yes, sometimes you're making a pop culture reference and that's fine, and sometimes you just forget that turn of phrase came from somewhere else and that's fine too, but honestly.

Besides, none of this applies to things taken from the source that's being ficced. But there's a difference between writing, say, Casablanca set in the Farscape universe, and lifting obscure dialogue from Casablanca for your use in a Farscape story. In the first case, you aren't taking credit for what you've lifted; in the second, you are.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Not really a fine line when you look at that way.

Icarus

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Of course, I tend to be a fairly black-and-white thinker, so.

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

Besides, none of this applies to things taken from the source that's being ficced. But there's a difference between writing, say, Casablanca set in the Farscape universe, and lifting obscure dialogue from Casablanca for your use in a Farscape story.

But isn't that what all the kerfluffle over An American President was about? That she was writing that movie set in the Stargate Atlantis universe, or with their characters anyways? I only got to read the 1st two parts before it was pulled so I can't remember, and I never saw what the objectors said, just her note that she'd pulled it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. I mean, every story in reel_sga, well, that was point. I suspect that the person who pulled it lifted entire dialogue and scenes, just changing the character names, which misses the point of the challenge. But I'm just guessing, I've only read two of the reel_sga stories.

Icarus

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Oh, actually, I don't know for sure--I'm not inside Atlantis far enough to have experienced that first-hand. My impression from what I've seen is that the author essentially just did a search-and-replace with new names, and that's what bothered people.

So long as she identified the media properties in question, though, I wouldn't personally call that plagiarism. Bad writing, sure; tacky, probably; but not plagiarism.