That's so annoying; sorry you had to deal with that :-(

I can't understand what is wrong with him/her. Anonymous? It's not fair.
Why didn't you leave them for me to analyze?

Well, first two are apparently spam, and really funny. I assume that those people are searching around to put their ad.

For third and fourth comment, the author should know that this blog is not the space to argue over this subject except the owner offers for it. It's sorry that the problem is her(I believe) own. First the author herself must resolve it legally. It's waste of time to leave here comments. If it's true, I hope the author will win the case and inform you it immediately. Isn't it reasonable?

You are right that have deleted them, and sorry for bothering. But I really laughed viagra ads.

I have no idea which specific book the plagiarism comments refer to, but I have to say that there is a streak of plagiarism in the fanfic community. Every now and then someone will pop up who thinks they can grab a popular story from someone's LiveJournal, or from a fanfic archive, put their own name on it and post it to some other archive and no one will notice. Many people read on multiple sites, though, and someone usually does notice.

Sometimes they do a search/replace to change the names to some other characters, to convert the story to some other fandom, in hopes that they're even less likely to be caught at it in the second fandom. Unfortunately for them, many fanfic readers are multi-fandom and do read a wide variety of stories, and someone will often recognize a story they read before in a different fandom under a different writer's name.

I don't find it at all unbelievable that, with the trend for people to file the serial numbers off their better fanfic and publish it as original fiction (which I have no problem with, obviously), one of the plagiarists I mentioned above might have moved away from stealing just for praise and applause and toward stealing for money, by grabbing someone else's fanfic, converting it into original fiction, and submitting it to a publisher. That is absolutely a believable possibility.

The viagra thing is clearly just comment spam -- I get that crap fairly regularly on my main LJ, and deleting it is all the attention it deserves. The plagiarism comments, though, might well be legitimate.

It sounds like the first comment is by a reader who read the original version of the story, and recognized the published, commercial version as a rip-off of that original version. The third and fourth comments claim to be by the author of the original version which was stolen. If that person is the true author of a book you reviewed, it's understandable that she/he is very angry at the plagiarist-thief getting attention for the story, including positive reviews. (To say nothing of whatever money they've gotten from the publication.) About the fourth comment, my guess is that, because you deleted the earlier comments, they're assuming you're in some sort of collusion with the thieving writer. If they found the review via a Google search and aren't familiar with your journal, they probably don't know you're using English as a foreign language and might not pick up on subtleties, so they're making false assumptions about your response (the deletions).

As the reviewer, you don't really deserve to be the target of her/his anger, since you obviously didn't know the story was stolen. But as a writer I can understand the anger, and the desire to get the word out that "Hey, this is my story!"

If this is a true accusation, though (and I don't see any reason within the comments to assume it's not), then this is an important issue. If the fanfic plagiarists are taking their theft up to the next level, and actually selling what they steal rather than just displaying it as their own, then that's something that needs attention. (And whether it's true or false, those three comments were definitely not spam.)

Angie

I absolutely agree that the author crossed the line with their threat of lawsuit. :/ That was uncalled for, as well as (so far as I know) completely bogus. I understand their anger, but I wish they'd have posted with more thought, explaining the situation calmly rather than splashing their anger and accusations around at random.

Angie

It's possible she/he just doesn't have a LiveJournal. They should at least be signing their name to their posts, though, if they want to carry on a conversation. [nod]

Angie

Let me begin this with a sincere apology for what I have to admit was my earlier bitchiness. I should never have assumed you were party to this deception I have been subject to, but your deletion of my post made me jump to a conclusion that was clearly erroneous. My only excuse is that I am in an absolute state of shock and am blindly striking out in horror over the situation. It isn't enough of an excuse for being rude, so again I am sincerely sorry.

In case you are interested, I discovered today that not only had someone stolen a story I wrote and published for free on the internet, but that they have commercially published the work. Heck, it's available on Amazon! When challenged by someone (not me) the publisher said that *I* was the person who had stolen the story off JJ Massa.

Obviously, I have informed the publisher of my intention to sue. I have all necessary evidence that this story was my creation.

I am so upset that I am, hopefully understandably, trying to track down all sellers and promoters of this stolen work to stop it in its tracks.

I have, however, been totally unfair in my posts to yourself and again apologise for my hasty and ill judged posts. I'm not usually so rude.

Apologies accept Amanda. What can I do is to "momentarily" hidden the review. I will take it in local and when/if you will arrive to a conclusion of all this, please let me know.

Elisa

For what I can remember that book was a re-released by the publisher. I have an high opinion of that publisher, she has some very talented author with her (Lee Rowan and G.A. Hauser, for example). And I know she choice with a lot of attention what publish and what not. I can only hope that this is all a huge misunderstanding and that all of you will arrive to a good conclusion. Elisa

Thank you for that, I hadn't thought of the wayback machine and every additional piece of evidence will help. Though, to tell the truth, the story considerably pre-dated even its introduction onto my website. It has been archived at www.tomparisdorm.com since 29th August 2003. According to the wayback machine (see how quickly I learn? LOL) Venus press launched 'The Edge' as a brand new novel in May of 2005.
I feel sorry for all the people who have been paying good money for 2 1/2 years for a story that has been available on-line for free since 2003.

What a horrible thing to happen. So sorry to hear this. Sending hugs

A
xxx

Just hugs for you.

i've been blogging the alleged plagiarism situation... wwww.myspace.com/asharceneaux in the blog section.