Reflection and Analysis

General: The Attitude of the Plagiarist

The manner in which plagiarists remain in denial of what they've done is honestly astonishing. A particular plagiarist came to my attention because they asked whether their use of scenes from the Harry Potter movies constituted plagiarism, even going so far as to claim that what they were doing was allowed because, a.) they used a disclaimer, and b.) because they were writing an AU. Neither of these assumptions were correct, and I told them as much. In fact, it very clearly says in the content guidelines for Wattpad that "adaptions or slight alterations to work, such as changing names, are a violation of copyright." Disclaimers and citations mean nothing when someone uses to much of the original work, which means taking scenes from movies nearly word-for-word, but also paraphrasing what happens in the movies.

Add to this, while they made changes to canon, their story does not count as an AU, as the purpose behind an AU isn't just making changes, but exploring said changes. In this particular case, the writer created a story where they added in a twin for Harry Potter, but none of the other subsequent were changes which would logically result, and instead amounted to the type of changes one would expect when a writer is personally self-inserting themselves into the story. Things which should have changed, didn't, and like many other Harry's twin stories, we see the OC also placed into the cupboard to live despite the fact there is no room for a second child, but we also don't see Petunia switching her devotion from her son to her niece, which is rather logical given Petunia's personality. Instead, the OC exists for romance and self-insertion purposes.

I confirmed for this person, that yes, they were indeed plagiarizing, to which they asked if they should delete the story. They complained about how much hard work they put into the piece, but also how said work had a rather major fanbase, which in their mind seemed to justify keeping the plagiarism up. However, the plagiarism needed to go, and I told them as much, for if they did not delete the plagiarism, the admins would need to, as the writer's blatant use of scenes from the movie constituted a violation of copyright, which in turn can get Wattpad into legal trouble with the copyright holder. And no, Rowling did not give permission to copy liberally from her work – which is an argument I once saw another plagiarist use, taking the whole "you can write fanfiction for my work" out of context.

I also pointed out the fact what they wrote did not constitute hard work either, as it typically takes less than one-tenth of the time it does to write something of one's own, but that formatting and other issues within the story also refuted the claim, even in the parts which were their own. I also told them that a following gained through plagiarism means nothing compared to the following one gets from actually doing their own work. Why? Plagiarism is cheating, but all the praise you get for those plagiarized parts belongs to someone else.

After this, the plagiarist got miffed and started making excuses as to why the plagiarism should be allowed to slide, including the fact they've been working on the story for twelve years now, which is odd, because they very clearly claim on their profile that they are a senior in high school, whose been writing since they were in the sixth grade, which is only six years ago, maybe eight if the writer hasn't updated their profile since they joined. The only exception would be if they were held back at least four years.

They also claimed the plagiarism should slide because they were only ten when they started writing the story, which would make the amount of time spent on it eight to ten years, and in this regard they would need to have been held back at least two years to make this true. However, the fact they did the plagiarism at age ten is no excuse, as the writer should have known better by they turned thirteen, and were old enough to have an account anywhere on the net.

To counter the claim that they actually put quite a bit of work into what they posted, they pointed out the fact it takes them a few months to write a single year at least. However, the amount of time I've seen it take for a newbie writer to get through an entire year, but also get the amount of depth with no plot-what-plot issues but also number of chapters and word count – that this writer got is actually around two to three years, which is eight to twelve times the amount of time it took this writer to do a single year. In other words, all they did was prove my point regarding the one-tenth.

They also complained that I didn't read the entire thing, and that the plagiarism only occurred in the earlier chapters of the story. While this is true, there are two problems. First, the plagiarized material must go, period. Second, the latter part of the story relied way too much on the plagiarized material, which means deleting the plagiarized parts would create problems with plot flow. Thus they argued that the earlier plagiarism should be allowed to slide. However, it doesn't matter if only part of your work is plagiarized, plagiarism is plagiarism.

The last thing they argued pretty much stipulated they felt that, if this was really a problem, the admins should let them time to fix said problem. Except, the admins don't have that kind of time, and by law need to remove the offending content as soon as it comes to their attention. Which, might I add, their comments are posted in a place the admins and ambassadors can easily see, but also a lot of other people who don't take plagiarism lightly. There was no way this story wouldn't come to the attention of the Wattpad admins.

So, said plagiarist found the first part of her story deleted, and thus now finds herself missing all of year one, and all of year two, and rightly so, as the work shouldn't have been posted in the first place – that's how the admins see it. However, the plagiarist now complains on their profile that the admins have treated them unfairly, and want to know how to get the plagiarized bits back. Yes, they say that they will modify these pieces to comply, but the funny thing is, they also said they would not even make an attempt had the admins not told them otherwise.

What they do not realize is how lucky they are that the entire story didn't get deleted, which would very much have been in Wattpad's rights to do so. What they also don't realize is that it is possible to fix said story without getting said parts back, but unfortunately I do not think they are at the stage of writing where they can do such a thing. I'm aware the writer thinks their writing is good, as they declared they would have a meet and greet for their fanfic at the launch of the Cursed Child, where they would have their first reading of said fanfic, but the OC is a Mary Sue – a rather bad one at that.

That's actually pretty normal in regards to plagiarists who do this particular type of plagiarism. They're writing to self-insert themselves, and aren't thinking about the story as a whole. To them, the experience is an RP with no rules simply because they are the DM, but in reality there are rules. For example, their story doesn't qualify as an AU due to the fact everything which happens is impossible, and while AUs do have an infinite number of possibilities, these possibilities do not include impossibilities.

I'll end this by saying I don't pity the writer for losing the plagiarized bits. I pity the writer, however, because she thinks she's been maimed, when in reality the person who was slighted was the copyright holder, the original creator. Plagiarism is not a "victimless crime", nor is the plagiarist the victim, crime being the operative word here due to the fact it is possible to plagiarize Shakespeare, and not be taken to court for it, but still be guilty of stealing Shakespeare's work.

Plagiarism, I might add, is one of the major taboos in writing, a major don't. Those doing the plagiarism do not think of the feelings of those they're stealing the work from, and yet expect others to care about how they feel when they're told off, or even lose what they've plagiarized. So, I've never had any sympathy for plagiarists, just ire at the fact they cruelly ignore the other persons feelings.