Good Bye & Good Luck

[find_sam at hotmail.com]

As the writer of the post I'm writing to has retired from the HP 
fandom, it seems pointless to reply. But I will anyway... I haven't 
voiced an opinion on the whole Cassandra Claire issue yet, and I 
would like to take my turn.

Michela Ecks wrote:
> Plagarism is wrong. Plagarism is theft. Please read.

Yes, it is. But this is *fanfiction* we're talking about. It's meant 
to be fun. IMO, fanfiction is not a 'serious' genre, although many 
would disagree. I feel this way because it's usually a hobby, unlike 
most professional writing. It's also normally done on a non profit 
basis, so the writers are doing it purely for their own and others' 
pleasure. 

As far as I know, this applies to Cassandra Claire (henceforth known 
as CC, because she has a really long name to type!). She's writing 
for the fun of it. She's not making money of out it. She enjoys 
writing it. I, and many others, enjoy reading it. Yes, in fundamental 
terms, she may have plagiarised. But GET OVER IT! To nitpick 
fanfiction to pieces ruins it for me.


> There
> were insinutations that she (CC) had  incorporated large chunks of 
dialogue from
> Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Black Adder and Red Dwarf.

IMO, it's not as if CC was passing these quotes off as her own, and 
hoping no one would notice. She's said on numerous occasions, fairly 
specifically, that yes, DD and DS feature lines which are taken from 
the abovementioned TV shows, word for word in some case. Plagiarism? 
Perhaps. But whether it is or it isn't, these one off quotes don't 
detract from the story at all. Personally, I feel they add to it - 
it's fun to be able to recognise a quote from these TV shows. Readers 
of Terry Pratchett, who has many references to pop culture in his 
books, will be familiar with this feeling. It's not so much 
plagiarism - it's more the writer 'winking' at his or her audience. 
The writer knows the references are there, the reader knows they are 
there. Both parties know that the references are not the original 
work/s of the writer. </ramble>
 
 
> Let me start this out by saying that I think plagarism is wrong.  
Plagarism
> is theft.  Plagarism is not right.  

Thanks for repeating that... didn't quite catch it the first time ;)

Plagarizing isn't being
> community minded.  It's being incredibly selfish and putting  
yourself above
> the community.

Okay, I don't know CC at all, but I seriously doubt that, when she 
put the Pamela Dean/Buffy/Red Dwarf et al passages/lines into DD and 
DS, she was thinking 'I'm putting myself above the community.' If she 
had wilfully plagiarised, ie, intentionally tried to pass off the 
works of others as her own, then it would be different. But, IMO, she 
didn't do this at all.

  It's also about giving the community your best that you can
> offer.  When you plagarize, you are  not giving the community the 
best that
> you can offer.

Again, I feel that CC put the references to other works in to build 
on the sense of the community. In a way, a throwaway quote from Buffy 
is sort of an 'are you paying attention?' to the reader. If the 
reader is paying attention, then he or she is rewarded with the 
pleasure of being able to say, 'I recognise that. Aren't I smart? CC 
and I are on the same level'.


> The last time I took an
> English class, we were told we were not allowed to plagarize.

The last time *I* took an English class, my teacher told me to quote 
critics, where relevant, in essays I wrote for my final exam. This 
was fine as long as I acknowledged the critic. To play devil's 
advocate, what is the difference between using a line from Buffy in 
DS and crediting where it came from, and quoting the work of a critic 
and saying where it came from? 

> Fan fiction is not inherently plagaristic.

I'm not sure where I stand on that issue, but I feel that you are 
contradicting yourself by saying this. How is copying 
settings/characters/plots etc different from copying a one liner or a 
passage from a book? 

  > Popularity and the amount of plagarism doesn't negate the act of 
plagarism.
> It isn't an excuse to plagarize.  There are many very famous people 
who do
> very stupid things.  Think Eminem, Charles Downey Junior, Scottie 
Pippen,
> Cal Ripken Jr.  The list of stupid celebs goes on and on and on.

This argument is completely baseless and, IMO, irrelevant to the 
topic at hand. There's a *huge* difference between abusing someone 
with a deadly weapon/taking drugs etc and plagiarism. I totally 
disagree with this as an analogy.

Fame doesn't
> negate the act.  The person shouldn't be let off the hook because 
they have
> a name or face people recognize.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. CC has already been 
punished; she was blacklisted on FF.Net. The only thing her fame, if 
you can call it that, has done is encourage her fans to go ballistic 
over at the PoU board. Maybe there'll be a few petitions and angry 
letters to FF.Net, but I believe - from Cassandra's responses - that 
CC is willing to accept her blacklisting, if FF.Net honestly sees her 
as having plagiarised.

>plagarism is the
> stealing of other people's creative efforts.  Where does 
originallity of the
> author who plagarized come in?  It doesn't.  The parts the author 
plagarized
> are not creative or original.

Hmmm, I'm not sure this is *always* the case. I'm reminded of the 
spoof of the Mona Lisa where she has a moustache. It's essentially 
plagiarised from Leonardo's original work, but it is still an 
original in it's own right. How this applies to the CC issue I'm not 
sure.

Also, by saying 'plagarism is the stealing of other people's creative 
efforts', I think you're contradicting yourself again on the whole 
fanfiction-is-not-plagiarism argument. By writing FF, aren't you 
fundamentally 'stealing' someone else's creative efforts? Where does 
the originality come in when you write a fic about Harry Potter - 
he's JK Rowling's creative effort. Again, I don't really have an 
opinion (yet) on whether or not fanfiction is inherently plagiaristic 
or not, but I don't think you can make allowances for straightforward 
fanfiction and not for other circumstances. 

> Cassandra Claire was caught plagarizing by the
> staff at FanFiction.Net and people sing her praises saying how 
creative she
> is. I'm left to sit and stew in my own juices.  I sit and go "No, 
she isn't
> creative.  She stole from other creative people." 
(snip)
> Cassandra lacked
> the creativity, indeed the finnesse, to rework and reword her story 
so that
> you couldn't identify it from the original.  She lacked the 
creativty to
> totally remake and remold an idea of someone else's into an original
> Cassandra Claire.  What she didn't wasn't original.  It wasn't 
creative.
> Plagarism isn't creative. 

This is just plain silly! Cassandra Claire took a few lines from 
Buffy et al and a few passages from Pamela Dean's books. This 
probably comprises 0.5% of DD and DS *at the most*. You cannot say 
she is not creative because of this; it's incredibly petty. I feel 
that her plots, her mature development of JKR's characters and her 
writing style are all very creative and unique. She is a creative 
writer, and to say she isn't simply because she allegedly plagiarised 
lines and passages from other works is unfair and unjust. I'm not 
saying she *didn't* plagiarise the lines/passages, but to say that 
her entire work is tarnished is not reasonable.

> Fan sites are run by fans...  (snip) They don't need to be fair.

I agree with this. While sites do have an obligation to their fans, 
if a fan is abusing that privelege then, IMO, the fansite should not 
be required to give a warning. Personally I don't think CC has 
stepped into plagiarism territory, but there you go.

My Final Words: 'While Cassandra Claire may have acted outside the 
written law, she did not act outside the spirit of the law'.

Sam, who just finished his longest post *ever* ;)