Talk:The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle

Clarifications

Here's someone on twitter who thinks the plagiarism didn't happen at all: Dear journalists of the world, perhaps anonymous livejournal/internet posts aren't the most reputable sources. Just saying. [1] I'm assuming in response to a Daily Dot article, not by Aja, in early August about The Mortal Instruments. [2]. See also [3]

Another angle is that it totally happened, but doesn't matter for publishing. Some author wrote a blog post like "Crimes Against Fanfiction" and explained why he didn't care, but not refuting that it happened. Scalzi or Hines?--æþel (talk) 13:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC) ETA: Scalzi--æþel (talk) 23:40, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

There is also the slightly confused article What Is ‘The Mortal Instruments’? A Guide for Grown-ups that links back to Fanlore and seems to think the plagiarism debacle was about her professional books and that they were somehow a modified version of her fanfic. If Fanlore gave them that impression, we are doing something wrong. :(

And then, by (reportedly) modifying The Draco Trilogy, she came up with the present Mortal Instruments books. Which promptly, because attribution standards are in flux and because this is the Internet, resulted in charges of plaigiarism. I offer no opinion as to these charges, because I haven’t had time to investigate them, but in general they seem to consist of the concern that Rumelt did not footnote all the references to popular culture her books make.

In general, it seems hard to understand for a mainstream audience (who think that fanfic is plagiarism anyway), that someone might be worried about correct sourcing within a fanfic. --Doro (talk) 19:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Apparently fans who've read both The Draco Trilogy and the Mortal Instruments books say that she recycled some bits from the fanfic for the published novels, but that the parts that were recycled were from the original bits. Cassandra_Claire#Profic_Career. The trilogy title itself is recycled from a 2004 fanfic, but that happens with titles in publishing all the time. Someone should create a The Mortal Instruments page to explain all this.--æþel (talk) 19:46, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I added some of these links to Cassie-related pages (this page, The Draco Trilogy, Cassandra Claire, Plagiarism) and tried to add more context. I just found another newspaper claiming that the books were based on the Ron/Ginny fic.[4] And they link to us, not that we ever made such a claim (I don't think?). I never read the Ron/Ginny fic, but I assumed the only thing it had in common with the published novels was the title.--æþel (talk) 03:45, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I've been away and haven't had a chance to read these articles, but I can confirm that "Mortal Instruments" the Ron/Ginny fanfic is unrelated to the pro series. And I'm pretty certain Fanlore has never implied otherwise, and Cassandra Claire#Profic Career does say that TMI is not a rewrite of DT. But both those misconceptions seem to be fairly widespread, so I agree that a The Mortal Instruments page would be helpful to clear things up. It's on my to-do list! --sparc (talk) 07:44, 27 August 2013 (UTC)