: Wait for it...
Cynthia Eden, a paranormal romance/suspense author, has a problem: her professional work has been plagiarized. At length. Word for word. By a Twilight fan.
Well, search/replace can be pretty tough on the ctrl+H fingers.
The story has been pulled after about 200 complaints; Smart Bitches added, "And the fanfic rip off was so good that folks made (and then have since removed) Bella-as-a-firefighter fan art. The reviews were all positive until the plagiarism was spotted." As of this writing, Misconception76 has not yet replied to Cynthia Eden's PMs, but she has explained herself:
"It was an experiment with a friend of mine."
Cynthia Eden, a paranormal romance/suspense author, has a problem: her professional work has been plagiarized. At length. Word for word. By a Twilight fan.
I was alerted that a person using the online name of Misconception76 had posted a story called The Devil’s Dance on fanfiction.net. (Here’s a link for you: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7129614/1/The_Devils_Dance). At the beginning of her work, she includes this disclaimer:
“The Twilight Series character names belong to Stephanie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.”
You see, she’s renamed my characters Edward & Bella. My SSD Agent Kenton–he’s Edward. My tough female firefighter? She’s Bella.
She changes the names, acknowledges that she’s using them from the Twilight books, and then Misconception76 goes ahead to use my entire Deadly Heat story. She changes the POV (using “I” instead of 3rd person), but everything else is the same. For pages and pages and pages.
She adds comments at the beginning and end of each chapter–talking about how hard it is to write. How characters can be difficult.
Well, search/replace can be pretty tough on the ctrl+H fingers.
The story has been pulled after about 200 complaints; Smart Bitches added, "And the fanfic rip off was so good that folks made (and then have since removed) Bella-as-a-firefighter fan art. The reviews were all positive until the plagiarism was spotted." As of this writing, Misconception76 has not yet replied to Cynthia Eden's PMs, but she has explained herself:
"It was an experiment with a friend of mine."