Give me all your poison, and give me all your pills, and give me all your hopeless hearts and make me ill. You're running after something that you'll never kill. If this is what you want then fire at will.
- Thank You for the Venom - My Chemical Romance.
Is there a more pathetic, wretched and disgusting a creature than the plagiarist?
Lemme think.
No. Probably not.
What could be more vile than a thief so bereft of imagination, or talent, or ability, that they feel compelled to steal that which has been created by another person?
Oh, wait! There is something more vile!
What's more vile is the lowest, most loathsome, artistically redundant piece of human garbage who does the above and then accuses the creator of being the thief. That's what is more vile.
And there's worse, even!
Worse? You're thinking. What could possibly be worse than that? Is there more pathetic a specimen?
Oh, yes.
Yes, there is.
More pathetic a specimen is the excuse for a human being who does all of the above and then claims they have officially filed copyright on the work they stole and that they are filing a law suit against you.
I call this extortion. That's what the law calls it too.
Now, I've no desire to give these morons (plural, yes, because there's more than one moron in this equation,) any more exposure than they've already had. But, I've not been allowed to properly state my case to the plagiarist-harboring website, nor respond to the thief 'herself,' since they unfairly banned me for 'spamming' their PM boxes. The 'spam' was the evidence they asked for. So, this is the only recourse I have to set the record straight.
So, briefly as I can, this is what happened with – let's call it – amateurwritersisus.dork. (That may be unkind to the decent members of that particular community. But, hey, some of them took part in defending a plagiarist even when completely ignorant of any facts, and told me not to cause flameage on their forum even when it was the thief who started it.)
I discovered a plagiarist using two of my short stories on amateurwritersisus.dork. I contacted the forum twice over the course of two weeks and got no response. I then had to sign up for an ID on the forum, find out who owned it, and sent them a PM, outlining the situation again and asking them to help, very politely, I may add.
He took a few days to respond and when he did, IMMEDIATELY, the plagiarist, 'Princes-Tuna' started a thread stating that the stories belonged to 'her' and I was the thief. Can you believe it? I couldn't. I was absolutely stunned by 'her' front.
So, I spent the next 10 hours (seriously) sending 3 of the moderators evidence of my copyright. But, of course, being rank amateurs and not knowing the first thing about publishing, nor writing in general, they informed me that nothing would stand up in a court of law (even although I had not mentioned litigation to them at that point,) except an official copyright document. This is not so. I have a history with the very characters in the stories dating back to pre-2000. Both stories were extensions of scenes in my novel 'Vampire Red.' The stories have been online since 2004. An 'official' copyright document is not required by a court of law to prove ownership of a work. I also pointed out to them another two cases of plagiarism on their own forum by the same user. They informed me that it was OK, what I had found was 'her' under a different ID on another forum. A talented 'lass' indeed, since she managed to age by 13 years and sprout a penis in the space of 30 seconds.
Now, one moderator on the forum – I shall call him 'Dull Raving' – immediately leapt to the defense of the thief, making a big display of having seen 'handwritten copies' of the stories. (Yeah, I know – how fucking scientific. What they gonna do, use carbon dating?) He personally vouched for the plagiarist as his personal friend, blah, blah, yada, yada. Thus, when I sent the evidence of my copyright to them, I stated that I was CCing the owner and another moderator with each message as I did not feel that 'Dull Raving' was impartial since he claimed to know the thief personally. So, I did just that, I CCd each message from each moderator to all 3 of them. Then I was accused of 'spamming.'
Funny thing – the thief, the mod, the mod's 'military lawyer, (!)' the mod's sister, and one or two other 'users' on the forum ALL misspell and misuse the same words, all lack punctuation, correct grammar, and all capitalize words in the middle of sentences! Fancy that! They must have all gone to the same school.
So, the upshot was this – they didn't even look at my evidence. They did not ask the thief for any proof of copyright since they felt the burden of proof was on me as the complainant. They didn't deem it necessary to ask the plagiarist for any evidence. They only removed the stories after I threatened to sue them for libel, since 'Dull Raving' edited the story pages to declare 'NO PROOF OF PLAGIARISM WAS GIVEN.' This was, indeed libel, since it was a lie, calls into question my honesty, and my ownership of the works and my right to use them, and left all who saw the thief's lies with questions as to whom was telling the truth.
It's strange that a wee website like amateurwritersisus.dork needs to see official copyright documents to prove ownership, yet I've never been asked for anything of the like by any of the representatives who deal with the copyright and plagiarism issues for Yahoo!, LiveJournal, AOL, MySpace, MSN – whomever. But amateurwritersisus.dork, well, they're special. They know copyright law and protocols better than multinational corporations and legal specialists in the field.
Oops.
My bad.
What was I thinking?!
Unfortunately, the owner of the forum has now seen fit to be the most ingratious little twit I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. 'PeeWeeSpider' is now talking smack about me on other sites he frequents. (He thinks I don't know. *rolls eyes*) His naiveté is actually quite charming, really, since he doesn't realize that posting the entirety of a private e-mail is actually copyright infringement, and subject to the same copyright laws as any other form of writing. Oops! But, I'll not hold his ignorance against him, bless him. He's just a kid who has fallen under the influence of an utter twat whom he seems to look up to for some inexplicable reason. I feel sorry for the li'l guy.
Also, after a whole day of ridiculous claims and threats from the psycho-moderatorr who began harassing me via e-mail on behalf of amateurwritersisus.dork, I'd had about enough of these idiots.
These are just a select few of the various claims and threats of the day from made by 'Dull Raving' -
* Claimed to be a military lawyer who was suing me for 'slander' on behalf of the British Army. (Would be libel, actually, since the incident took place in a considered-published venue, but never mind facts or accuracies – suspend all that when dealing with cyber-psychos and the mentally challenged.)
* Claimed he tracked my location via UK Army satellite. (Yes, really.)*insert cuckoo noise*
* The military lawyer mysteriously metamorphosed into the legal representative for the thief who had filed legal copyright on my work in the UK.
* Claimed that if I did not remove all trace of the stories from my websites and blogs that I would be sued by the thief for copyright infringement and plagiarism.
I shit you not. I must admit though, out of all the crazies I've dealt with on the internet, this is the best one. I gotta give him that. He's been a source of constant amusement for nearly 3 weeks now. This one's even better than the dude who was uber-pissed at me because I wouldn't tell him where all the vampires were at.
Again, thinking of all the good people who frequent that forum, I don't wish to slight them in any way and if this causes offense for that I'm sorry, but I've been treated shockingly by the two moderators and the owner. They scorned me, disrespected me and dismissed me. I hope the users of that particular forum understand.
I deserve, at the very least, the same common courtesy that anybody and everybody deserves. No more, no less. I was not given even that. I was not allowed to fully state my case and my evidence was ignored completely because of the lies the owner was told by a head case he unfortunately trusts.
The fact remains that this poor wee boy was manipulated by his egocentric Walter Mitty of a moderator. Perhaps some day, 'PeeWeeSpider' will educate himself on some of the things he's been passing judgement on, and not take as gospel the word of the likewise-ignorant and downright dishonest.
When I sent the moderator, 'Dull Raving' e-mailed evidence that I couldn't send via the forum PMs, I referred to him by his given name.
He asked me, "How the hell you know my name is a query" [sic]
I replied, “Your name is on your website.”
This is the mentality I'm up against. It is very difficult to reason with, and, indeed, even decipher what exactly it is he's trying to say most of the time.
And he's the one who spent a whole day telling me 'duh!' and how stupid I am. Oh, and that I'm a “wolly' [sic.] Dude really should learn how to talk and spell beyond a third grade level. He and his friends / alter-egos / multiple personalities should all take a course together.
Am I being spiteful?
Yes, I am, but I have every right to be. But, I stress, that there is not one word of inaccuracy in this post. That would be because I am not a liar. I leave that to them.
I'm not normally spiteful by nature – that's not the type of person I am - but I've never, ever been so insulted, so utterly slighted by anyone or anything in my entire life. These characters – MY characters - I've lived with them, cried with them, bled with them, laughed with them, for years. They're part of me. I made them. They're mine. And for somebody to try and take them from me, for somebody to try and take away my right to write about them, to tell you their stories, you may as well cut my hands off.
If that sounds extreme to anybody, they're obviously not a writer. Any writer, whether we're good or bad, uncommonly brilliant or spectacularly inept - ANY writer - knows how I feel and understands why I am so angry at these people and why I cannot just forget what they did and what they allowed to happen.
'Dull Raving' himself could never understand because he is not a real writer. Writing lame game-related fiction with characters created by somebody else, set in worlds created by somebody else, is just not real writing. That type of keyboard masturbation is for the creatively bankrupt and those with way too much time on their hands. (I'm not talking TV or movie tie-in writing here, you understand. Not at all.)
In closing, I just want to say that I'm surely a much better writer than I ever thought I was since so many 'writers' want to claim my stories (especially my vampire stories,) as their own, want to accept praise-by-proxy for creating them, want to be known to their peers who visit their blog, or website or forum, as the person who wrote them.
But, you know what? I wrote them. Me.
And I'll keep on writing them.
I'd like to see somebody with guts enough to try and stop me.
And shit like this just takes me a step closer each time to making an effort to do something with my writing instead of just writing for fun, like I've always done. I'm semi-professional, yes, - which means I've been paid for writing various things, a screenplay, some short stories, custom fiction for private and professional clients - but everything I've been paid for more or less fell into my lap without me really doing anything to look for it. That's website optimization for you! ;oD
Maybe it's time to actually make an effort and start subbing material. I don't do that unless I hear about something I find really interesting and I just have to sub it. That isn't a regular occurrence! Maybe it's time to seriously try this writing thing for real. I guess I should finish that bloody novel then, shouldn't I? That'd be a good place to start.
Oh, and, 'Dull Raving,' 'Princes_the_Plagiarist,' whatever-the-fuck-your-name-is-this-week, whichever gender of alter ego you're currently masquerading as, a parting message for you and only you...
Merci pour le venin.
You know what that means? You like quoting French phrases, don't you? And setting up fake MySpace accounts to troll my blog and post nasty messages. Yes, I know you do.
It means thank you for the venom.
Venom can kill or cure. A shot of venom can save your life or snuff it out. But if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger.
I'll have a long, tall glass of it, thank you.
Love & Bloody Kisses...
- Alex.
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