Recently there have been new reports of plagiarism on Absolute Chaos.
I will reiterate right now that plagiarism is NOT tolerated, and you WILL be caught. We are pretty good at apprehending the "suspects".
Given that these issues have been brought up I'm going to give you all a little lesson. For anyone who has considered copying someone else's fic (even if it's from 1998) or anyone who is interested in knowing how people are caught in the act, I give you lesson number one from Professor Julilly's Moderating101 manual.
Plagiarists and the internet.
People who want to copying the hard work of other's rely on the anonymity of the internet. They believe that by turning an NSync fic into a BSB fic or a BSB fic into a Busted fic that no one will catch on, because no one can read every fic indexed on the internet... right?
That is true, to a degree though many people read outside of the fandoms that you may read, and occasionally come across familiar works. These people, or "informants", will contact moderators with information regarding similar works. This is the top way that plagiarists are found.
There are many other ways that people like myself, Mare, and Chaos can implement to catch thieves though. There is a fantastic feature on the internet-machine called Copyscape. You put in a website, and it will find every other page on the internet that is either identical or too similar to be coincidence. By the power of Google, we can perform random checks on those who may have been accused of plagiarism.
Another helpful tool to use against plagiarists is Google Alerts. You can put in information (like a website, say) and it will periodically check its own databases in search for plagiarism.
The internet is very well indexed thanks to corporate giants like Yahoo, Google, and MSN.
If you want to have your name on a not that well known, mediocre, fanfic at least put your fingers to better use and write it yourself.
That concludes today's lesson, but tune in next time for the next thrilling instalment: Bouncing messages, and how to properly type your own email address.
