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St. Ignatius of Antioch ([info]ignatius) wrote in [info]fwgreatesthits,
@ 2004-10-14 00:35:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood:Fan-Fucking-tastic

The Cassie Claire Primer
I figured this would be a good resource to point people towards when Cassie invariably comes up in another wank, and someone wonders who she is, and why she's always mentioned. I used to read her Draco series back in the day on ff.net, so I’m pretty sure I have the timeline down.


Cassie’s Draco series was extremely popular on ff.net, until it was deleted because parts of it were plagiarized. There were two types of plagiarism going on- first, the use of direct or bastardized quotes from various TV shows and media, Buffy, Newsradio, ect. Some of her fans made a game out of trying to figure out all of the quotes, but others had no idea where she got her sharp turn of phrase- especially since, before the plagiarism scandal, she gave no credit at all to her sources.

(Edited in on 12/9/04: During a current wank, a helpful anonymouse gives us some examples of her manipulating quotes.)

The second kind of plagiarism was a bit more serious- a long passage from a Pamela Dean novel found itself in the middle of the second story, with just the names changed. Cassie then claimed she had written the passage in her journal years earlier, and when she came back and reread it, she thought it was her own original work. (...wtf?) So she changed the names and put it in her story. It remains there today- apparently in the meantime, Pamela Dean gave Cassie permission to use it. I’ve heard Cassie fangirls claim that it’s not really plagiarism, since she has permission, but she most definitely did NOT have it when it was originally posted.

Other people have posted other accusations of plagiarism or idea-stealing too.

So. Meanwhile. Cassie gets kicked off ff.net, and other popular authors and friends of hers pull their own work off too, as a show of solidarity. Because ff.net is so unfair! And also jealous h8ters. Soon after this, FictionAlley opens, hosting Cassie’s fic. From what I understand (and please [info]zorrorojo, forgive me for this analogy) the relationship between Cassie and FictionAlley is about the same as the relationship between Fandom_wank and JournalFen. Both FA and JF were in the works before Cassie or FW found themselves booted and in need of a new host. But the opening of the sites were pushed up and irrevocably linked with their respective, er, wankers.

In the meantime, Cassie turns up on Livejournal. She writes the extremely popular LOTR Very Secret Diaries (which you are totally NOT allowed to continue, even though it looks like she’s abandoned them). She insulted a fic over on GT, and got stalked and harassed by the psycho husband of the author. She continued to write, and write, and write, her Draco series (also, some Harry/Draco pr0n.) Basically, she became the BNFiest BNF.

Though all was not always well within her group of friends. [info]bnfshavemorefun has an entry describing the fallout between herself and Cassie, which made [info]fandom_wank several times in 2003.

Also in 2003, Cassie attended Nimbus. And yes, there was wank on that too.

She’s become so big, and synonymous with HP wank, that she gets mentioned all the time, even when the wank doesn’t involve her. (See the Cassie Claire Is Everywhere law.) Her journal gets posted to FW even on (IMO) dubious wank. She also gets name dropped all the time when the latest troll journal wants to kick up a fuss, or people want to speak out against what they perceive to be a negative aspect of fandom. Fanfic_hate? All over her.

The wankiest part of the wankapalooza that is the Cassie Claire experience is definitely her fangirls. Bless them. They’re like clockwork; they show up whenever Cassie’s mentioned. My favorite was the one who claimed that Cassie was super nice, because she actually acknowledged my existence that one time OMG! Sadly, that link’s lost to the ages.

Latest news: Cassie may have coerced her fangirls into buying her an ipod. Or her friends got together and bought her one. Whatever. Does it even matter at this point? It’s Cassie Claire. Ergo, it’s wank.

Edited 12/9/04 to clarify and expand, based on comments received (and also to add the comment noted in parentheses above):

[info]stellabymoor emailed me a copy of DS9 (the chapter that contained the portions of the Pamela Dean novel) saved from ff.net in January, 2001. Apparently, Cassie had this note at the end of the chapter:

"Credit for the inspiration for this conception of the wizarding afterlife goes to a book called The Secret Country, alas, I no longer recall who wrote it."

The Secret Country was Pamela Dean's book. Credit only went to “inspiration of the concept” of the wizarding afterlife, nothing about inspiration for any passages, and no mentions of Pamela Dean by name. Actually, "The Hidden Land" was the Dean book the passage actually came out of, but I heard someone say before that The Hidden Land was once called The Secret Country, and then it got split up into two books. Or something.

I believe the copy Stella sent me was correct because I did some independent research, and this matches what Xing gave as a defense when s/he booted Cassie from ff.net years ago.

I should also say that, while I’ve heard the “Cassie copied it into her journal and forgot it wasn’t hers” story many times, I can’t find a record of her saying it, so that part might be just oft-repeated hearsay, not the truth.

And since I’m finally updating this, let me include the latest wank Cassie’s currently involved in: After Cassie and her friends have their laptops robbed, fandom donates thousands of dollars in a matter of hours to replace them. Orchestrated by Heidi, of course. Wonderful display of fandom’s generous nature, or horrid abuse of BNFiness? Everyone’s got an opinon.

Edited 7/26/05: If you’ve been clamoring for a tl;dr breakdown of Cassie’s bannination from ff.net, then you’ll just love this subthread in the comments. Heidi takes offence at purplepopple’s comment, and (after suggesting the mods delete it, as it apparently contains “defamation”) replies with lots and lots of cites and links. White_Serpent replies with even more cites and links. I don’t even know why everyone’s arguing, as no one is denying that Cassie did what she’s accused of doing, and Heidi even confirmed that the author’s note included in DS9 was the one provided by Stella and posted above.

Edited 6/21/06: The Msscribe Story, posted by [info]charlottelennox, is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in Cassie Claire. The first chapter details early Harry Potter fandom and more information on the stalking incident, and goes from there into the story of a woman desperate to be in Cassie's Inner Circle, and the chaos (and sockpuppets) she created pursuing that goal.


Any corrections or additions? Comment away.



(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

Yes, there's more. It's really not that interesting. But it is continued...
[info]heidi
2005-07-07 07:21 pm UTC (link)
My memory on this may faulty, but I do recall someone saying the day
Cassie was blacklisted that Pamela Dean had already been contacted and
said that she didn't give Cassie permission to quote from her story; I
wish I could find it because you seem to claim that Pamela wasn't
contacted until *after* Cassie was already blacklisted and had her
fics and reviews deleted, and that strikes me as weird and problematic
because what if she had given permission? Doesn't it make sense to
contact the copyright owner *before* deleting someone's fics and
reviews and account? I'll keep looking to see if I can figure out why
I thought Pamela was contacted sometime before the 23rd. If she was,
though, then that would make your statement that "about a week after
she'd been propogating that lie, the staff at FanFiction.Net ... had
already been in contact with Pamela Dean who said nope, no
permission," a bit of a mischaracterisation in terms of chronology.
But, again, point me to where Cassie said she had permission before
the 23rd of June.

She got permission through conversations with Pamela's agent, btw, and
in August and September of 2001 I worked with said agent to finalize
the language which Cassie used in her fic thereafter. I remember it
well because we were supposed to get in touch in the middle of the
following week; we postponed it for months, though, because the
following week began with 9/11.

Btw, you weren't being terribly quiet about this subject in June of
2001 when Cassie was being harrassed by Jeff, were you? In fact, at
that point, once you realised that he was threatening Cassie and
threatening to complain to Warner Bros about Sugarquill, whose mods
had been instrumental in identifying who'd been sending death threats
to at least one teenager, as well as harrassing emails to Cassie, and
posting defamation about me, you were very helpful in tracking his
online activity and defamation too.

There really is no reason for people to, at this point, trust their
memories in any of this. Much of the salient information is available
online via the links I have given in this post, and what isn't online
anymore are things posted to the Sugarquill boards before they moved
off of EZBoard, the FFN forums before they were deleted later in 2001
and the Writer's University posts from December of 2001 - I have a
number of the latter, thanks to your forwarding them to Stacey, but I
won't make them public as I don't own the copyright in them.

Oh, and speaking of the Sugarquill boards, did you save copies of the
post(s) I made there that inspired you to email the law firm I was
then an associate with, when you asked them whether it was appropriate
for an attorney to go online and discuss the copyright and the fact
that plagiarism, as a word, isn't included in it? I'd love to have it
for my archives.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Part 7
[info]white_serpent
2005-07-25 07:36 pm UTC (link)
My memory on this may faulty, but I do recall someone saying the day
Cassie was blacklisted that Pamela Dean had already been contacted and
said that she didn't give Cassie permission to quote from her story; I
wish I could find it because you seem to claim that Pamela wasn't
contacted until *after* Cassie was already blacklisted and had her
fics and reviews deleted, and that strikes me as weird and problematic
because what if she had given permission?


Michela does not say that. Read more carefully. She says that, by the time Cassie got into contact with Pamela Dean, she and the staff at fanfiction.net had already been in contact with Pamela Dean. She makes no statement on whether that original contact happened before or after the 23rd. However, as I recall, Michela was in contact with Pamela Dean in the week during which ff.net was investigating the plagiarism (she did forward me the emails four years ago). To my recollection, Michela has stated before that she emailed Dean because she was sure there must be some mistake-- that Cassie had permission to use the text, or that it wasn't really from Dean's books. I have no idea when Cairnsy contacted Pamela Dean (or if other staff members did so). I just know that Cairnsy did, and that the contact took place before Dean emailed me on 6/27. And, since we're talking about Pamela's reaction, she wasn't complimented by Cassie's use of her work; again-- I have the email.

Btw, you weren't being terribly quiet about this subject in June of
2001 when Cassie was being harrassed by Jeff, were you?


And, again... 2001? Four years ago.

And, just as a note, I believe that Michela said "the other side" had been quiet.

I am quite interested to see that you think Michela is "the other side." I would think that "the other side" might be the person who actually filed the plagiarism complaint, which, as you must surely realize, was not Michela. She claims to be an innocent bystander who got some information out of her contacts at ff.net, contacted Dean, and emailed Cassie a warning before the deletion. Cassie never received the email, either due to email problems on one end or the other, or due to Cassie's vacation. Michela did, however, get booted from several lists as a result of her stance, get hatemail, and have the fanfic liberation front after her blood for awhile in Cassie's name (or, wait, wasn't it that they thought someone should "staple her cunt?"), so, if she's sensitive on this issue, I can hardly blame her. I know she doesn't appreciate it that neither you nor Cassie apparently made any effort to get the fanfic liberation front off her back.

You must agree that "the other side" has been extremely quiet-- by which I mean me. And I've been quiet, because I essentially believe Cassie's main excuse (excuse #2, by my count) that she thought this was acceptable. So, I've been content to let her try to fix it. As "fixing it" goes, I don't think she's made a particularly impressive effort at annotating her stories. So, in addition, I've been content to let her keep the stories posted, have lousy disclaimers, and have them google-indexed. I considered the plagiarism complaint and blacklisting a warning to both Cassie and archives hosting her writing. If she gets herself (and FictionAlley) sued? Hey, not my problem, but I'll be laughing.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 7
[info]heidi
2005-08-08 06:30 pm UTC (link)
Pamela wasn't contacted until...
I meant Pamela wasn't contacted by FFN. See my reply to #6 for the long and dull explanation of why I care about this.

What, btw, is the fanfic liberation front? The name sounds familiar, but I have no idea why or what they are.

If she gets herself (and FictionAlley) sued? Hey, not my problem, but I'll be laughing.

So would I be! It would take about twenty minutes for me to get such a lawsuit dismissed as being outside the statute of limitations, which is three years for a copyright infringement claim.

Seriously, as I've said elsewhere, I think it would be grand to have the issue finally decided once and for all by the Supremes. Papers and magazines and publishers get issues settled in court or by courts all the time. In fact, my first project back when I was at the NY Times in 1995 was mopping up all the rights to all freelance articles so the Times could use them in databases on their site and in LEXIS; at that time, we were sure that the lower courts would rule in favour of the Times on the Tasini matter, but we wanted to have a "better safe than sorry" situation going forward, and going back as much as possible, which turned out to be a good idea since the Supremes did end up ruling agains the Times and others. Four years ago, I thought the likelihood of a court case on fanfic was relatively high; now, I no longer think it will ever happen, so all we can do is look to other cases, like the Gerald Ford memoirs case or the Nixon recordings, to see what analogies we can draw. And the analogies indicate to me that you'd have to take a lot more than a few paragraphs or even a page from a novel-length work to have an actionable infringement situation. But reasonable minds may differ.

The thing is, for me, this is real-world-work kind of interesting. I do IP law. Have done for over ten years now. I like the quirks and the arguments and the vagueries - it's all a bit of an intellectual exercise. And that's why I get quoted in the NY Times on issues like the MPAA's attempt to crack down on allegations of trademark infringement by fansites. I don't do this because I fangirl Cassie. I do this because I fangirl IP law. I love the stuff.

I know, I'm weird that way.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 7
[info]white_serpent
2005-08-08 08:10 pm UTC (link)
The Fanfic liberation front used to have a site which listed the "Many crimes of Michela." It also had a big section on supporting Cassie. And, as I recall, it also posted personal information on Michela and suggested people track her down and get her. It no longer appears to exist, but it was around for quite awhile. It was one of the first sites that you used to find if you google-searched for Cassandra Claire.

So would I be! It would take about twenty minutes for me to get such a lawsuit dismissed as being outside the statute of limitations, which is three years for a copyright infringement claim.

The fact that infringing material is still posted does not matter?

And the analogies indicate to me that you'd have to take a lot more than a few paragraphs or even a page from a novel-length work to have an actionable infringement situation. But reasonable minds may differ.

So, let's ask a hypothetical question. Suppose I create a piece of "fanfiction" that is 500 pages long. To do so, I lift 1 page each from 499 different 300-page published works, change the names, and alter a couple of words. Then I have about a page of bridging material (total) between the sections. Is this actionable infringement? Why or why not? At what point does something become actionable? Would it be different if I lifted 250 pages and wrote 250? Or if I lifted 50 pages and wrote 450?

Your thoughts on the Nora Roberts/Janet Dailey situation? Or the recent settlement after a sentence was lifted verbatim and cited, but not placed in quotation marks? Most of these things seem to get settled out of court.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 7
[info]heidi
2005-08-17 03:17 pm UTC (link)
I found The Many Crimes of Michela - it's at this page and there's no mention of Cassie there. It seems from reading it that someone hates Michela for reasons having nothing to do with Cassie. When poking around that page, I found some animosity towards Michela dating from Feb/March of 2001, many months before Cassiegate, so clearly, there were some Issues that predate Cassiegate and while it's possible that they glomped onto Michela's behaviour during Cassiegate as yet another "crime", it had nothing to do with anything requested, asked for or suggested by Cassie, me or anyone at all connected to us.

The fact that infringing material is still posted does not matter?
No, it doesn't. If there was a change in circumstance of the material's availability - say, there was suddenly a mandatory charge to read it - then the statute would not be of help, but as long as the nature and quality are the same, then no, it does not matter.

Suppose I create a piece of "fanfiction" that is 500 pages long. To do so, I lift 1 page each from 499 different 300-page published works, change the names, and alter a couple of words. Then I have about a page of bridging material (total) between the sections. Is this actionable infringement? Why or why not?
It would not be actionable and my God I would love to read it. I can't imagine how it could be done in any way other than pastiche or parody - say you took 500 Mills & Boone or Harlequin novels and pulled them together that way, it might be readable as a story/narrative. But a random 499 novels, with a page pulled from each, that wasn't done to be a parody? Impossible. If you lifted 250 pages from, say, a 7000 page work, then that also might not be actionable - it's the amount from the original that makes a difference, which is why there are arguments that, say, a few dozen words from a poen is much more of an infringmenet than a few hundred words from a novel, especially where the second work is not sold. Now, on the Roberts & Dailey situation, I think it's different because the work was available for sale, and because there was no indication in the book that that content came from somewhere else. The reason she got in trouble was not because she took, but because she made money directly from the taking. I;m not sure what other recent settlement you're refering to - Doris Kearns Goodwin?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 7
[info]white_serpent
2005-08-17 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Damn! It's still up. That's a pity; she has worked things out with some of them, at least.

These were her stalkers; I believe she went to the police over it.

Yes-- it used to have a page on Cassie. I do realize (and so does she) that you didn't request it. She just would have appreciated it if someone from your camp had said they didn't represent you.

On the time limit question-- it would seem to me to be of very little use to hold copyright for the author's lifetime and 50 years beyond the author's death if one cannot prosecute for infringement beyond three years after the infringement occurs. Now, if you're saying you can't prosecute beyond three years after being notified of the infringement, that's a different issue.

I'm not saying Pamela Dean would sue for the material, I'm wondering about other authors.

My impression was the amount of the original in use was considered in setting penalties, and not, necessarily, in determining whether infringement occurred.

On the other case, I'll need to look up the details. I believe it was on CNN at the time.

See, I think a large part of this is general fandom perspective. We have the view that we "borrow;" we don't "steal." And, in addition, since we don't hold copyright to our own work (this is debatable and has been debated), fandom historically has come down very hard on plagiarism because we don't want other fans lifting from our work and getting credit for it. A couple of examples here and here. One is of lifting of portions of text, the other is of claiming credit for entire works.

The ethics of fanfic MST3Ks have also been debated-- from one perspective, they're parodies. From another, several are mostly the work itself with a few snarky comments.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Part 7
[info]white_serpent
2005-08-17 09:45 pm UTC (link)
The case I'm thinking of was more recent-- it received press in the past six months. IIRC, it involved a history professor and an article. A sentence was taken from another source and cited, but not placed in quotation marks, though it turned out to be an exact quotation. Some sort of settlement was involved. It's one of those "damn, I can't remember the name or the text or the title"... so I start searching the CNN for plagiarism, sentence, quotation marks, and so on, and get either no hits for the combination or too many hits for any of the individual pieces for them to list results. (I've tried google, but-- same problem. Search engines are, at times, of limited utility.) I have some vague recollection that the historian involved apologized and made changes himself.

The Goodwin case involved substantially more material. Here are two other cases in a more academic setting.

And, of course, it is true that Stephen Ambrose got off scot free for his own plagiarism, and that certainly involved profit.

Most of what happens wrt plagiarism never hits the courts. And many people seem to get away with it, especially if they're popular. Others, though, suffer fairly severe social consequences.

Research indicates that you are correct about the SOL. But it's difficult to say.

It appears the SOL in online publishing has only been addressed once, in a defamation case. In that case, the courts found that the date of first publication was the only relevant date in determining the SOL, which would tend to support the idea that none of the copyright holders could do anything about DD or DS directly. Though, as the article writer notes, online information is eternal, and websites are "republished," and it is not clear if courts would address copyright infringement in the same way as defamation.

And I do note the following from the article I've linked:
If the infringement is such that the copyright or trademark owner could not have reasonably discovered the infringement until some later date after the infringement occurred, then the SOL is tolled until the owner actually discovers the infringement, or reasonably should have discovered it, whichever comes first. In an Internet context, this could result in the SOL being tolled in situations where an infringer somehow hides the infringement (such as by storing another's copyrighted work on a limited-access cyberspace database), or if search engines don't pick it up.
I don't think the full text of the DT was google-indexed until fairly recently.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Part 7
[info]white_serpent
2006-05-05 06:56 pm UTC (link)
I;m not sure what other recent settlement you're refering to - Doris Kearns Goodwin?

The recent publicity about the Viswanathan case means that old plagiarism cases are being dredged up, so I've finally been able to track this down. (It's been bothering me.) I thought I'd reply to give you the links.

I was referring to Laurence Tribe. The press coverage at the time focused on the lifting of a 19-word sentence verbatim from a book he had listed as a source (you can see that emphasis in the linked article from The Crimson). However, The Weekly Standard's original expos#233; is substantially more in-depth than the other press coverage and shows other borrowing from the other author's voice-- though that's uncredited paraphrase, not verbatim lifts.

The last I'd heard, the book was pulled.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 7
[info]white_serpent
2006-05-05 06:57 pm UTC (link)
*exposé
(I'm always forgetting that blasted ampersand.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Part 8 -- and done.
[info]white_serpent
2005-07-25 07:38 pm UTC (link)
Now, Heidi, I suggest you stop spreading your brand of misinformation and trying to deliver smackdowns to Michela on Wikipedia, fanthropology, and here-- of all places-- on a community affiliated with fandom_wank. Because, quite frankly, you're not winning any of these arguments and you're making yourself look either ignorant or deceitful-- you pick. You're also stirring things up, and, as a result, someone is eventually likely to go running to Cassie's publisher with the whole story. I'm not threatening that I will do it, because I won't. If I wanted to, I would have done it long before now. But there's plenty of evidence out there of what happened, and it only takes one. And, just to be crystal clear? If you push her, that "one" may very well be Michela-- because she dislikes you and Cassie a great deal more than I do. And she certainly has possession of every bit of information that I have, seeing as we corresponded four years ago at the time of the blacklisting (I contacted her in the first place because of her essay on why plagiarism is wrong and, of course, the fact that she got booted from the mailing lists for posting it).

There really is no reason for people to, at this point, trust their
memories in any of this.


How very fortunate it is, then, that I wrote a summary back in 2001. My memory was extremely good then.

Much of the salient information is available
online via the links I have given in this post,


I have helpfully provided a few more.

There's still more I can say about this incident. After all, Cassie and I exchanged some email at the time. I particularly enjoyed the evolution of her excuses, given I was also reading all of these mailing lists.

Lesson: never assume that the "other side" doesn't know what you're saying.

As for me? If the fangirls flame me at this point, I guess I'll deal with it. Personally, I'd rather not mess with them, which was the main point of remaining anonymous for years. But, fine, whatever-- I'm sick of reading your inaccurate posts on the situation. I've provided a substantially more accurate summary of the situation than yours. If you have questions or would like to respond, do it here. You and Cassie are both banned from my livejournal. If I have to, I'll just add fangirls to the ban list. I've never sought any sort of twisted fame for this; in fact, I look back on the entire incident with irritation. I live on the fringes of HP fandom and I'm happy there.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 8 -- and done.
[info]heidi
2005-08-08 06:42 pm UTC (link)
Now, Heidi, I suggest you stop spreading your brand of misinformation and trying to deliver smackdowns to Michela on Wikipedia, fanthropology, and here-- of all places-- on a community affiliated with fandom_wank. Because, quite frankly, you're not winning any of these arguments and you're making yourself look either ignorant or deceitful-- you pick. You're also stirring things up, and, as a result, someone is eventually likely to go running to Cassie's publisher with the whole story. I'm not threatening that I will do it, because I won't. If I wanted to, I would have done it long before now. But there's plenty of evidence out there of what happened, and it only takes one. And, just to be crystal clear? If you push her, that "one" may very well be Michela-- because she dislikes you and Cassie a great deal more than I do. And she certainly has possession of every bit of information that I have, seeing as we corresponded four years ago at the time of the blacklisting (I contacted her in the first place because of her essay on why plagiarism is wrong and, of course, the fact that she got booted from the mailing lists for posting it).

Please don't take any hatred against me out on Cassie. She didn't know I was posting my comments last month and she doesn't know what I'm posting now. I have my own grudge against Michela, and it entirely stems out of the fact that in the week or so after Cassiegate, she emailed my law firm to complain about the fact that I was posting things like the definition of plagiarism and the contents of the Copyright Act on various websites (and other than on FFN, it was with the webmasters' permission).

Now that the Wikipedia article has been deleted and Michela has been told by admins over there (who, btw, were never contacted by me, by Cassie or by anyone else in any way connected with us) that it's not the place for personal attacks, there's no reason for any of this to bubble up there either. And regarding Fanthropology, Michela posted it soliciting edits, comments and clarifications - I gave them, on this matter and on other things which I think we can all agree are quite mundane. I may think she's obnoxious and disliked (to quote 1776, and being compared to John Adams is no small feat or inherently critical) but that doesn't mean I think she should look like an idiot for saying things that can easily be corrected with accurate links, dates and information.

I also know at least one reason why Michela dislikes me. It's because she sent me a paper to look over in May of 2001, and between my sister's wedding and my husband's contracting menengitis, I wasn't able to look it over and send her comments before Cassiegate erupted and I decided I just wasn't interested in helping her. But that's between her and me, not her and anyone else, and if she takes her dislike for me out on Cassie, that is beyond vile, in my opinion. But, of course, reasonable minds may differ.

Now, why I am somehow now supposed to avoid F_W, and all related fora, is something I haven't quite figured out either. But if it'll stop the bullshit and threats of attacks, I'm happy to delete my JF account. Your paranoia makes me just flumoxed - you banned me from posting comments in your LJ? I'm just amazed that you think so intensely of me that you find that necessary, especially because, until this set of posts you made, I had no clue who you were. At all. None. Now, in terms of accuracy, I think our various posts viewed together provide an interesting overview of the facts of the situation. It's how people interprit it that comes into question all over the place. My interpritations are based in law; I assume yours are based in some version of personal ethics? Good for you - hope you're a hoppy frood (originally coined by Doug Adams) about it. Reasonable minds may differ about interpritation.

Can it just end here? Or is there anything more to really say? What, at this point, do you want Cassie to do, other than invent and use a Time Turner?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 8 -- and done.
[info]white_serpent
2005-08-08 09:56 pm UTC (link)
Please don't take any hatred against me out on Cassie

I don't hate you. I don't think Michela does either.

Now, why I am somehow now supposed to avoid F_W, and all related fora, is something I haven't quite figured out either.

Again. That's your choice. But F_W has a rather enormous readership. Some of them appear to care about this more than I do. I think bringing things up over here is likely to get them more publicity than I assume you want.

But if it'll stop the bullshit and threats of attacks, I'm happy to delete my JF account.

I am not threatening you. As I said: I prefer to sit back and laugh. Michela is not threatening you either.

But, note that-- if you look on the Wikipedia talk thread-- someone there wanted to set up a campaign to boycott Cassie's upcoming books and notify Cassie's publisher. And that was not me, and it wasn't Michela either. I don't have any intention of reporting Cassie, and I believe I made that very clear.

Michela has indicated she doesn't care enough to bother, but I can't speak for her, and that could change. Seeing as anyone else interested in doing it is neither of us and we have no clue who they are? I have no clue how serious they are or aren't. But, for people who are angry-- and there are some-- I don't think putting things on a forum with wide readership is the best way to go.

When you intimate that Michela is guilty of defamation and your citations ignore several facts of the matter and it's somewhere I happen to read, I am likely to respond, though.

Your paranoia makes me just flumoxed - you banned me from posting comments in your LJ?

Heidi, you were banned from my LJ several months ago-- long before this. As obscure as I am? I doubt you ever would have noticed. But I didn't particularly want to talk to you, so I pre-banned you. I screen anons, too. Feel free to ban me in return. But, given I haven't come over to your livejournal to post anything (or any of Cassie's for that matter) anytime in the past four years, I'm not likely to do it in the future, either. Your call.

If we're going to have this discussion somewhere? I think this is probably the best place for it.

My interpritations are based in law

In terms of law: fanfiction is copyright infringement-- it infringes on the creator's exclusive right to derivative works. It's also good advertising-- many authors appear to consider it in that light. Rowling appears more interested in the "good advertising" aspect; others, like Robin Hobb, are caught on "copyright infringement." Legally, any of it could get us sued.

Stepping back from the legal perspective... plagiarism makes authors angry. Not flattered. It tends to not be viewed as "good advertising." We already are on shaky ground. Legally, all of it can get us sued. Realistically, plagiarism is more likely to get us sued than mere fanfiction, because plagiarism makes authors angry. If you're angry, it becomes worth your while to go after people.

The same thing is frequently said when people try to get money out of their fanfiction-- yes, the fanfiction can get them sued already. Legally, it's all much the same thing. However, conventional wisdom states that making money off of fanfiction makes copyright infringement suits more likely. Not because you're really in any different place legally, but because you've made someone care.

And, as I said, I'd rather not see it tested.

Clearly, our personal standards are different. Legal issues aside, the idea of copying prose from someone else-- especially several lines of it-- makes me feel ill.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 8 -- and done.
[info]heidi
2005-08-17 03:26 pm UTC (link)

In terms of law: fanfiction is copyright infringement-- it infringes on the creator's exclusive right to derivative works. It's also good advertising-- many authors appear to consider it in that light. Rowling appears more interested in the "good advertising" aspect; others, like Robin Hobb, are caught on "copyright infringement." Legally, any of it could get us sued.

Legally, any of us could get sued for a dozen things we do each day, but that doesn't mean the litigant would be successful. I also, as I said elsewhere, do not believe that all fanfic *is* copyright infringement, and I'll respond to your quoting my four-plus-years-old-post down below. You clearly believe something that I don't find accurate under current US law, and nothing I say will convince you to change that belief. We are at an impasse, but that does not mean that, as a matter of law, you are correct. I feel that you are, in fact, quite incorrect.

Stepping back from the legal perspective... plagiarism makes authors angry. Not flattered.
And Lee Goldberg and Robin Hobb think that any fanfiction makes writers angry, and some of the authors responding on Lee's blog even feel that fanfiction *where the source-author says it is fine* is a Terrible Thing. Does this mean that those of us in fandoms where the author is fine with fanfic, as a general rule, should throw up our hands and say "Lee and Robin are irked! Alas! We will stop now!" or should we ignore them because they're talking out of their elbows when it comes to properties they neither own nor control?
The same thing is frequently said when people try to get money out of their fanfiction-- yes, the fanfiction can get them sued already. Legally, it's all much the same thing.
No, it's not. Go look through copyright textbooks and caselaw and see the demarcation between trademark/copyright infringement and fair use, and the interplay of commercial vs noncommercial usage in said circumstances.

Clearly, our personal standards are different. Legal issues aside, the idea of copying prose from someone else-- especially several lines of it-- makes me feel ill.

And I thought of you - and this line - last night. Do you watch Smallville? I watched a repeat last night where Chloe said to Lionel, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into... the hallways." That, other than the last word, is from Jaws. I personally know that but someone born after, say, 1992, very well may not. They'll just think it's a clever line Chloe said. And I watched the credits and there was no indication to say that the line came from Jaws.

Does that sicken you? And how does it differ from Cassie using a line from Buffy in a chapter of the Trilogy? Have you read Isiscolo's post on using lines from Oz in her fanfics? It might give you some perspective on why authors do just that. It's a part of the folklore of communications, and it is neither nefarious nor, given that one cannot copyright a phrase, regardless of how clever, illegal.

(more replies later - I'm off to lunch)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Part 8 -- and done.
[info]white_serpent
2005-08-17 04:21 pm UTC (link)
We have different views of the legality of fanfiction in general, which-- as a legal test has never occurred-- is perhaps not unexpected.

And how does it differ from Cassie using a line from Buffy in a chapter of the Trilogy?

Ah! I believe to some degree that we really are talking at cross-purposes, Heidi. It may still not affect your perspective, re: this entire situation, given what you said in response to my hypothetical 500 page fanfiction.

I do not object to the use of a line from Buffy. I do not even object to the use of five random quotes per chapter. That's referencing, it's common. If that's what we were talking about, you wouldn't hear me whining at all.

What bugs me is that it isn't five quotes per chapter, it's multiple line exchanges quoted in their entirety, and it's done a lot more than five times per chapter. When reading DD and DS four years ago, Draco (and others) spent so much time morphing into characters from Buffy, Red Dwarf, and Black Adder that I could hardly keep anything straight. I've seen a lot of quoting in fanfic-- because I've read enormous amounts of fanfic over the past 7+ years across multiple fandoms-- but I've never seen it to this degree.

It was distracting, it was annoying, and it was out of character. And it happened frequently. Even now, only a very small fraction is cited.

But, again, it's one of those things that makes me go, "Oh, well. Not for me." Because at least it's a different medium. Though I did find at the time (and still find) lists of quotations taken from a television show and attributed to Cassie on quote pages on the web-- which suggests that several people really didn't realize what was happening.

The borrowing out of books is worse, still, from my perspective-- because that's the same medium. And, again, it's not something that happened once, and it's not something that I think Cassie did accidentally. It's something that happened several times at least, and it was done deliberately.

I can recognize books others point out to me, and I found the Pamela Dean lifting because of DS11 and the fact that I'd read The Secret Country fifteen times by 2001. Even then, I only recognized two lines-- then I opened the book and recognized a lot more. So, I really don't know how much lifting of prose there is overall-- I can see the stuff I found on my own, and what others have found.

It does make me wonder what people are fans of-- is it Cassie's writing, television quotes, or lifted prose? And is it really possible to tell them apart?

Still, I think we've both made our perspectives clear. You founded FA to host it (at least in part) and don't feel it to be a problem. Actually, I hope you're right from a legal perspective. I found it objectionable and ff.net agreed, so they deleted it.

Out of curiosity, is your perspective different on lifting from writing by other fans?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Part 8 -- and done.
[info]white_serpent
2005-08-08 09:56 pm UTC (link)

What, at this point, do you want Cassie to do, other than invent and use a Time Turner?

I do not particularly want anything. Four years ago? I would have liked it if Cassie had said (1) yes, I copied; (2) it wasn't the only thing I copied; (3) I'm going to completely revise the story OR pull it down/keep it on private mailing lists until such time as I've received permission for all the incorporated material. That didn't happen. What happened instead was a series of excuses, followed by reposting the story on the web with very few things actually addressed.

Now, I mostly watch from the sidelines. I'm curious to see what happens in the future. It may very well be that nothing does. It may be that something will.

I don't think there's more to say-- I thought I said my piece on C&R four years ago. But, since you've asked questions, I've responded.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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