Stuck on a scene? Just plagiarize!

[jaF0]

Much ado about nothing.

(Ooopppsss, did I steal that??)

 

[XerXesXu]

People do line up for my opinion. By your metric, that makes my opinion the most valuable one imaginable.

It's plagiarism.

Really! People line up and PAY good money for my opinion, so excuse me if I'm not impressed by your credentials.

Here's a 'pro bono publico'. It's not plagiarism.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Really! People line up and PAY good money for my opinion, so excuse me if I'm not impressed by your credentials.

Here's a 'pro bono publico'. It's not plagiarism.

Don't hurt your back moving those goalposts. Lift with the knees.

 

[MrHereWriting]

Don't hurt your back moving those goalposts. Lift with the knees.

He did say...

No, it's not (for the reasons we've been through before). If you believe what you 'think' is important, apply the acid test. Go to your front door and open it; do you see people queuing up to find out what you think? There may be a person who thinks you've not paid your electricity bill for two months and has come to disconnect you. If, otherwise there's nobody, that's who cares what you think - nobody.

Awkward, if you have people lining up outside your front door, then points to you.

 

[jaF0]

I pity the Fools.



(Dang, there I go again.)

 

[lilshymynx]

How do you define "someone else's work"?

8letters did reference one of the works in his forum post, which is how this started. (Shame on him for not remembering the second.) So, by referencing the author and giving them credit in the author's forum under his extended notes, then he REFERENCED the author(s) and is not guilty of plagiarism.

Case closed.

This is what 8Letters said in his author's notes post about that scene for the story in question:

"I started working on it full-time after I published “My Sister, A Modern Rapunzel”. I had just the final sex scene to write. I had worked out in my head how I wanted the sex scene to go, but I had no idea how to write it from a female POV. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories until I found one that had one woman receiving and then giving oral sex similar to what I wanted. I started with that, ripped out the dialog, and put in my own. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories again to find one that had a sex scene where one of the woman used a vibrator on another. I ripped some things from that. Hopefully, I came out with something that is focused on the two bisexual women while remaining hot for male readers."

Please show me where he gives attribution for the parts that he took from the 2 stories he used.

This thread was started by an ex beta reader who had a bone to pick with him. (I know. I was told.)

PM 8letters if you like, he may inform you as well. But I saw how the thread starter came at him, and their intentions were too transparent not to notice. (And that was before I got the story.)

Really. And what were you told? What bone did I have to pick with him? What were my "transparent" intentions? Can you read minds? Can he? Please enlighten me and tell me what I was thinking when I contacted him.

The last communication I had with 8Letters prior to this incident was via email. I sent him 2 emails on 4/20/2022 where I spoke positively on the reception that his re-write of his story "A Week at the Lake with My Sister" was getting. This was a story that had been receiving negative comments on the last 2 chapters and it weighed heavily on him. We discussed the story extensively and our discussions were part of the reason that he chose to re-write the story. The scores were looking positive and I commented on that as well as asking what his plans were for the two chapters that he re-wrote.

Prior to reading the author's note above I had zero animosity towards 8Letters. So any idea that I had a bone to pick with him just boggles my mind.

As for "how I came at him"

I emailed him on 12/25/2022.

The subject line of that email was - Disappointed.

And it opened as follows:

"8Letters,

It disappointed me greatly to learn how you "write" your stories."

Yup, I really laid into him there. Just kicked my flamer up to 11 and let fry.

 

[XerXesXu]

Much ado about nothing.

(Ooopppsss, did I steal that??)

You'll soon have us arguing bout how many Angels can dance on the end of a pin. Depends on the Angels, depends on the pin.

 

[MrHereWriting]

This is what 8Letters said in his author's notes post about that scene for the story in question:

"I started working on it full-time after I published “My Sister, A Modern Rapunzel”. I had just the final sex scene to write. I had worked out in my head how I wanted the sex scene to go, but I had no idea how to write it from a female POV. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories until I found one that had one woman receiving and then giving oral sex similar to what I wanted. I started with that, ripped out the dialog, and put in my own. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories again to find one that had a sex scene where one of the woman used a vibrator on another. I ripped some things from that. Hopefully, I came out with something that is focused on the two bisexual women while remaining hot for male readers."

Please show me where he gives attribution for the parts that he took from the 2 stories he used.

I started working on it full-time after I published “My Sister, A Modern Rapunzel”. I had just the final sex scene to write. I had worked out in my head how I wanted the sex scene to go, but I had no idea how to write it from a female POV. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories until I found one that had one woman receiving and then giving oral sex similar to what I wanted. I started with that, ripped out the dialog, and put in my own. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories again to find one that had a sex scene where one of the woman used a vibrator on another. I ripped some things from that. Hopefully, I came out with something that is focused on the two bisexual women while remaining hot for male readers.

Shame on him for forgetting, and not mentioniong, both of the original authors' names.

Really. And what were you told? What bone did I have to pick with him? What were my "transparent" intentions? Can you read minds? Can he? Please enlighten me and tell me what I was thinking when I contacted him.

Yes.

I know what he told me and I saw how eager you were to embarrass him. Doesn't take a mind reader to know you were holding a grudge. When I sent him an email about the thread you started, (that's how he found out about it) he told me how he knew you and why you had a falling out.

The last communication I had with 8Letters prior to this incident was via email. I sent him 2 emails on 4/20/2022 where I spoke positively on the reception that his re-write of his story "A Week at the Lake with My Sister" was getting. This was a story that had been receiving negative comments on the last 2 chapters and it weighed heavily on him. We discussed the story extensively and our discussions were part of the reason that he chose to re-write the story. The scores were looking positive and I commented on that as well as asking what his plans were for the two chapters that he re-wrote.

Prior to reading the author's note above I had zero animosity towards 8Letters. So any idea that I had a bone to pick with him just boggles my mind.

As for "how I came at him"

I emailed him on 12/25/2022.

The subject line of that email was - Disappointed.

And it opened as follows:

"8Letters,

It disappointed me greatly to learn how you "write" your stories."

Yup, I really laid into him there. Just kicked my flamer up to 11 and let fry.

Who are you to demand an explanation from him?

If you're a good beta-reader, good for you. I'm sure you're making some authors happy.

And, I know what he told me, and I know how you titled and worded your post. I'm inclined to believe 8letters.

 

[Bramblethorn]

How do you define "someone else's work"?

If you want to discuss that in a general context, I'd suggest creating a separate thread for it. It's an interesting question, and coming up with a satisfactory definition that covers all cases seems like the kind of thing that could keep an army of lawyers and philosophers busy for many lifetimes.

In the specific context of this thread, I'm content to point at the examples I highlighted back near the start, and say that those are very plainly "someone else's work", without getting sidetracked by talking about the general case and arguing countless questions that are interesting in themselves but not relevant here.

8letters did reference one of the works in his forum post, which is how this started. (Shame on him for not remembering the second.) So, by referencing the author and giving them credit in the author's forum under his extended notes, then he REFERENCED the author(s) and is not guilty of plagiarism.

He did reference it in a forum post, but not the one that started this.

Here is the "Extended Author's Notes" forum post, dated November 18 2022, last edited December 27, 2022. (In Story Feedback, not AH - SF is a relatively quiet forum and hence a lot of people in AH wouldn't have seen it until it was brought to their attention here.) This is the relevant part:

I had just the final sex scene to write. I had worked out in my head how I wanted the sex scene to go, but I had no idea how to write it from a female POV. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories until I found one that had one woman receiving and then giving oral sex similar to what I wanted. I started with that, ripped out the dialog, and put in my own. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories again to find one that had a sex scene where one of the woman used a vibrator on another. I ripped some things from that. Hopefully, I came out with something that is focused on the two bisexual women while remaining hot for male readers.

As you can see, although that post acknowledges using other people's material, there is no mention of whose material he used or which stories it came from. That's not "referencing the author/s".

On December 29, LSM started this thread, pointing to that post. Various people discussed it, trying to work out whose material was used.

On December 30, 8L posted in this thread and an identical post in the Author's Notes thread, in which he said that one of those stories was JCMcNeilly's "A Girl Named Mitch" and he couldn't remember the other one. As far as I'm aware, that is the first time he credited JCM/"A Girl Named Mitch", more than a month after the original Author's Notes forum post.

Since that post appears in the thread below his Author's Notes, I guess it's technically correct to say that he referenced them "under his extended notes", but only after the discussion was well under way and people had started trying to identify the sources. That doesn't retroactively make the original plagiarism not-plagiarism.

Had he actually credited JCM and the other author in his original Author's Notes post, that would have been better, but still not good enough. Most people who read a story on Literotica aren't going to click through to a discussion-forum post; even now, with a bunch of us here discussing it and revisiting that thread to check what was said, it only has 1k views against however many tens of thousands the story got. Something like that needs to be credited in the story that uses it.

Had he done that, acknowledging both authors and preferably naming their stories, that wouldn't have been plagiarism. I'd still consider it crappy to do so without first getting the other author's permission but not the plagiarism variety of crappy.

I know: Neither he nor the author of the Mitch story are famous enough for people to "get it."

Not sure what you're saying here, sorry.

PM 8letters if you like, he may inform you as well. But I saw how the thread starter came at him, and their intentions were too transparent not to notice. (And that was before I got the story.)

Really? You saw the discussions they had via PM before she started this thread?

If it didn't make you feel guilty, what do you care?

I like to point out shitty manipulation tactics when I see them. "See what you made me do" is definitely one of them.

Except that 8letters has to post his Extended Author's Notes first in order to be place a link to the post in his stories. He then edits the post to post a link to his story in the notes.

He referenced first, posted the story second. (As it is, when I finish a book or movie, I don't stay to read the credits.)

This, again, is simply false. I don't know exactly when the story posted, but it was December 27th at the very latest, because that was the last time he edited his original Author's Notes post which includes a link to the story. The first post he made that actually "referenced" JCM was on December 30th, three days later, after this discussion was underway.

If for some reason you had been under the impression that he credited JCM by name before the story was posted, your position in this discussion is easier to understand. But now you know that didn't happen, does your position change?

 

[Bramblethorn]

If you're a good beta-reader, good for you. I'm sure you're making some authors happy.

Can confirm. lilshymynx has beta-ed for me and I appreciated her thoughtful input, would recommend.

 

[MrHereWriting]

If you want to discuss that in a general context, I'd suggest creating a separate thread for it. It's an interesting question, and coming up with a satisfactory definition that covers all cases seems like the kind of thing that could keep an army of lawyers and philosophers busy for many lifetimes.

In the specific context of this thread, I'm content to point at the examples I highlighted back near the start, and say that those are very plainly "someone else's work", without getting sidetracked by talking about the general case and arguing countless questions that are interesting in themselves but not relevant here.

It was someone else's work, and it was used to draw comparison to other authors using someone else's work.

He did reference it in a forum post, but not the one that started this.

Here is the "Extended Author's Notes" forum post, dated November 18 2022, last edited December 27, 2022. (In Story Feedback, not AH - SF is a relatively quiet forum and hence a lot of people in AH wouldn't have seen it until it was brought to their attention here.) This is the relevant part:



As you can see, although that post acknowledges using other people's material, there is no mention of whose material he used or which stories it came from. That's not "referencing the author/s".

On December 29, LSM started this thread, pointing to that post. Various people discussed it, trying to work out whose material was used.

On December 30, 8L posted in this thread and an identical post in the Author's Notes thread, in which he said that one of those stories was JCMcNeilly's "A Girl Named Mitch" and he couldn't remember the other one. As far as I'm aware, that is the first time he credited JCM/"A Girl Named Mitch", more than a month after the original Author's Notes forum post.

Since that post appears in the thread below his Author's Notes, I guess it's technically correct to say that he referenced them "under his extended notes", but only after the discussion was well under way and people had started trying to identify the sources. That doesn't retroactively make the original plagiarism not-plagiarism.

Had he actually credited JCM and the other author in his original Author's Notes post, that would have been better, but still not good enough. Most people who read a story on Literotica aren't going to click through to a discussion-forum post; even now, with a bunch of us here discussing it and revisiting that thread to check what was said, it only has 1k views against however many tens of thousands the story got. Something like that needs to be credited in the story that uses it.

Had he done that, acknowledging both authors and preferably naming their stories, that wouldn't have been plagiarism. I'd still consider it crappy to do so without first getting the other author's permission but not the plagiarism variety of crappy.

This place isn't professional. Admitting that they weren't his original words is good enough for me, and it also led to one of the two original stories. (8 should have remembered the second.)

Not sure what you're saying here, sorry.

"Get the reference" in such ways as sitcoms satire movies, or characters quote other characters from other mediums.

Really? You saw the discussions they had via PM before she started this thread?

That's not what I said.

I like to point out shitty manipulation tactics when I see them. "See what you made me do" is definitely one of them.

I don't agree with it either, but pointing it out is for your satisfaction. Much like people wanting 8letters to feel and act a certain way. It's a personal philosophy, but much like sayin "what do you care" about 8letters behavior, who am I to question yours?

This, again, is simply false. I don't know exactly when the story posted, but it was December 27th at the very latest, because that was the last time he edited his original Author's Notes post which includes a link to the story. The first post he made that actually "referenced" JCM was on December 30th, three days later, after this discussion was underway.

If for some reason you had been under the impression that he credited JCM by name before the story was posted, your position in this discussion is easier to understand. But now you know that didn't happen, does your position change?

I know, at least from what 8 has said, he has to make the Extended Story Notes first in order to post a link to the notes in his stories. Once his story is out, he can then edit his post to post a link to his story. So, he admitted he used someone else's story before he posted his own.

As for referencing, he admitted he "ripped" a scene from other stories, and used his own dialogue. In this place, the admission is good enough for me. Then later, without being coy about it, he did his best to remember what stories he used. Now, did he use the authors' names, nope, and that's on him.

 

[AwkwardMD]

What is this argument for, at this point? There are no stakes. No amount of consensus, one way or the other, can censure 8L, ban him for life, reinstate him with full honors, or charge him a fee per stolen word. This was always about his reputation, and that's thrashed. It's just gone. It's been gone for months. Nobody is budging. Since then, two of you have sucked off a more successful, albeit butthurt, author and a Mod has wasted everyone's time with fun conflations of lesser anecdotes.

I worked out every other day for the past two weeks and worked out 10 times. Hope that helps!

 

[MrHereWriting]

What is this argument for, at this point? There are no stakes. No amount of consensus, one way or the other, can censure 8L, ban him for life, reinstate him with full honors, or charge him a fee per stolen word. This was always about his reputation, and that's thrashed. It's just gone. It's been gone for months. Nobody is budging. Since then, two of you have sucked off a more successful, albeit butthurt, author and a Mod has wasted everyone's time with fun conflations of lesser anecdotes.

I worked out every other day for the past two weeks and worked out 10 times. Hope that helps!

Take long, deep breaths evenly spaced out. You'll be okay.

And yes, this thread should be dead.

 

[lilshymynx]

Yes.

I know what he told me and I saw how eager you were to embarrass him. Doesn't take a mind reader to know you were holding a grudge. When I sent him an email about the thread you started, (that's how he found out about it) he told me how he knew you and why you had a falling out.

So why did we have this alleged falling out then? Please enlighten me and everyone else with your knowledge. Show your receipts and dish out all this alleged dirt and bad blood you say exists.

In short, put up or shut up.

I enjoyed beta reading for 8Letters and discussing his WIP stories. He was the one that recommened me as a beta reader to Bramblethorn, which allowed me to be a part of the process that brought a beautiful story to life. We never had a falling out as far as I am concerned, and as I said before, prior to reading the author's note post I had no animosity towards him.

The ONLY motivation I had when this started was to protect those 2 authors, whoever they were. I watched FemmyFemmeFemme pull her stories from the site because someone stole one of them and it broke my heart. So if I could step up and stop that from possibly happening to some else in a category that is dear to me, you can sure as hell bet that I was going to do it.

 

[djrip]

I pity the Fools.



(Dang, there I go again.)

Here we have a good example of a line famous enough to arguably not need attribution, as it is implicit. Also, it's 4 words, not a paragraph of Mr. T's wisdom.

 

[MrHereWriting]

So why did we have this alleged falling out then? Please enlighten me and everyone else with your knowledge. Show your receipts and dish out all this alleged dirt and bad blood you say exists.

In short, put up or shut up.

Ask 8letters what he told me. A falling out, a disagreement, a difference of opinion, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't have to be sinister to cause the rift he mentioned.

I owe you nothing.

I enjoyed beta reading for 8Letters and discussing his WIP stories. He was the one that recommened me as a beta reader to Bramblethorn, which allowed me to be a part of the process that brought a beautiful story to life. We never had a falling out as far as I am concerned, and as I said before, prior to reading the author's note post I had no animosity towards him.

The ONLY motivation I had when this started was to protect those 2 authors, whoever they were. I watched FemmyFemmeFemme pull her stories from the site because someone stole one of them and it broke my heart. So if I could step up and stop that from possibly happening to some else in a category that is dear to me, you can sure as hell bet that I was going to do it.

I have no sympathy for people who steal other people's work and repost them, for profit or fun. 8 didn't do that. What he did was naïve. What you did after you didn't receive the answers you demanded was spiteful. You may be a gem 99.9% of the time, but I haven't seen that sparkle.

The title of your thread (and our interaction in the "recommend" thread) made you look a bully.

 

[8letters]

One of the complaints made earlier was that I didn't post enough to this thread. I hate this kind of drama. I'm doubtful anyone is changing their mind. It's probably all people talking past each other. I'm not up yet to reading the replies since my last post.

 

[ChloeTzang]

One of the complaints made earlier was that I didn't post enough to this thread. I hate this kind of drama. I'm doubtful anyone is changing their mind. It's probably all people talking past each other. I'm not up yet to reading the replies since my last post.

Storm in a teacup and yeah, different viewpoints. I'd say it's been thrashed half to death now, and we've all learnt a bit from it.

I certainly have, so I'd just like to say thx everyone, including 8letters, for the discussion and all the different viewpoints. It's helped me with what I've been working on for sure, and I feel rather more confident now about how I'm approaching it. I'm including the following right at the start, just to make it clear what I'm doing.

"And an acknowledgement here: I did use a few lines from Mickey Spillane - those who’ve read “I, The Jury” will easily spot them towards the end. Given this whole event is an Ode to Mickey Spillane, it seemed fitting to include a few of Spillane’s lines as a little “homage to the master”. There are a few other lines, maybe half a dozen or so, scattered throughout, here and there in the same context. See if you can find them. For myself, I really wanted that Noir / Spillane / Mike Hammer ambience, altho I’ve done rather more sex than Spillane EVER did and using a few of Spillane’s words seemed a fitting tribute and good way to help wrap the story."

Sound okay?