Plagiarism And All That

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2001: The (pre Fandom Wank) wank that started when Cassandra Claire, a famous writer in the Harry Potter fandom, got banned by Fanfiction.net after someone reported her for plagiarizing a novel by the author Pamela Dean. Cassandra Claire used a long passage of it in a chapter of her second story, changing only the names, and didn't give credit to the original author. At a much later date, she claimed that she copied the passage from the novel in her writer's notebook, came back to the notebook months later, found the passage, forgot that someone else wrote it, and then used it for her fanfic. However, at the time one of the main excuses touted was that she just didn't realize she was plagiarizing.

In the firestorm that followed her banning, it was pointed out her fics constantly quoted popular TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blackadder without attribution. Small quotations do not legally qualify as plagiarism (eg. no one is required to annotate "May the Force Be with You" or "Beam me up, Scotty!"), but it was contended that in the context of her fics, CC passed these quotations off as her own. It is true that a large section of the Harry Potter fandom still seems unaware that the basis of famous Draco Trilogy lines like "I've been called a lot of things in my life," said Draco, looking at the plate. "But never a vicious, cold-blooded piece of toast." are taken from TV shows, in this case, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ("Oz: Hey, I may be a cold-blooded jelly doughnut, but my timing is impeccable." is said by Oz in the episode "Beauty and the Beasts".) Most of these references were thought to have been annotated since the original wank.

After her banning, Cassandra Claire moved her stories to the newly founded Fiction Alley. Much of the notoriety that followed her came, in part, from a subset of her fans who vigorously, and often rabidly, struck out against any reference to Cassandra Claire's plagiarism, frequently retconning in an attempt to forestall criticism.[1]

This incident is one of several that led to the FW meme "Those damn Harry Potter plagiarists."

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Links

The Draco Trilogy by Cassandra Claire is no longer available on Fiction Alley. It was pulled from the Internet with regard to her published work, but can still be downloaded if you look really hard or if you know the right people to ask.

The FWGreatestHits post on Cassandra Claire: A good overall summary of the wankage. Includes lengthy arguments between CC's supporters and detractors in comments. (For a time, multiple domain names - including cassieclaire.com - were redirected to this post. Now, however, they point to the Amazon page of plagiarized author Pamela Dean. This grudge is fascinating, and we predict much wank if the domain owner is ever revealed.)