propinquitine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
propinquitine) wrote2008-07-26 04:25 pm
propinquitine) wrote2008-07-26 04:25 pm
Entry tags:
How many cycles through babelfish before it's not plagiarism?
So I was doing a little vanity-googling of my lj name (yes, I'm lame, I embrace it), and ran across this page:
Small Grocery: NUTRITION DRINKS: POWERBAR shakes. (Link coded with "nofollow", that handy bit of HTML I've been learning about from recent fannish goings-on, so it should be okay to click.) It's a copy of my 4x20 missing scene Foreseeable, but it appears to have been translated from English to Russian and back again, and is now being used to advertise for NUTRITION DRINKS (specifically, POWERBAR shakes). Um, what?
The page copies the first 500 words of my post for that fic (subject and all). It credits me as the "father" of the fic, linking back to my journal and the original post, and makes sure to let readers know that this is "McKay/Sheppard (pre-rip)". The episode is re-named "The Terminating Man", which I have to admit does sound kind of cool. Here's the first garbled paragraph:
After John had walked to the core the barrier (from the gateroom, to the gateroom, and wasn't that ethical bizarre) and disposed Carter a prompt rundown of the over twelve hours, two weeks, 48,000 and/or 700 years, resign or gain possession of, he'd been bustled off to the hospital for tests down the watchful look at of dissimilar soberly-armed Marines. "It's not that we're not cock-a-hoop to make you second-- gravely, Colonel, thrilled-- it's at most, we partake of to transform undeviating it's in fact you," Rodney says, looking for all the beget like he wants to reach out and seize John's side, solely quiver him, as supposing that'd be diagnostic adequate.
And here's the original paragraph, for comparison:
After John had walked through the gate (from the gateroom, to the gateroom, and wasn't that just weird) and given Carter a quick rundown of the past twelve hours, two weeks, 48,000 and/or 700 years, give or take, he'd been bustled off to the infirmary for tests under the watchful gaze of several well-armed Marines. "It's not that we're not happy to have you back-- seriously, Colonel, thrilled-- it's just, we have to make sure it's really you," Rodney says, looking for all the world like he wants to reach out and grab John's shoulder, just shake him, as though that'd be diagnostic enough.
I might have to start using "ethical bizarre" to describe novel things, I do crack up imagining Rodney saying, "It's not that we're not cock-a-hoop to make you second," and you just know he "wants to reach out and seize John's side, solely quiver him." As an example of internet lulz, cracky translations are gold, and obviously this is just a tiny instance of the content appropriation that goes on in the interwebs every day.
But: this is so weird! If I wanted to complain, I'm not sure who I'd contact. There's a link at the bottom of the page that leads to liveinternet.ru (hence my assumption that it was a English-Russian-English translation, but who knows? That state it's in, it could've been translated into wingdings first.), and alexa.com has contact info for the person who runs that, but am I really going to email a random Russian guy to ask him to take down my fanfic from a website he might not even run? (Answer: No, probably not.)
I also wonder how they found the story, and how this is actually supposed to sell NUTRITION DRINKS: POWERBARS shakes. I mean, I do harp on about powerbars and apple juice more times than are probably necessary in 2600 words, and I guess if they're looking to appeal to the post-time-travel, falling-in-love-with-their-best-friend set, it's a pretty targeted piece. The site is probably just a link-farming site intended to drive up PageRanks for the products and make someone some advertising money.
And that's the kicker, that someone's using my writing (scrubbed of coherence, sure) to supplement their bottom line. The site's filled with this -- it looks like they just use some kind of bot/crawler to scoop up entire posts from lj, wordpress, and lots of other sites, ran them through the woodchipper equivalent of a translation tool, and posted them (with links back to the original posts, so they're not even trying to hide what they've done! SO ethical bizarre!).
So, what do you all think? Should I contact whoever I can to try to get this taken down, or just keep my head down and hope this monetization-of-fic thing doesn't come back to bite me some day? Did I somehow contribute to this problem by not knowing about XYZ provision in LJ's terms of use that allows other Russian companies free dibs on unlocked journal content. (Oooh, hey, is liveinternet.ru violating LJ's TOU somehow, that LJ might care about? Or are they in cahoots? < / Cold War conspiracy theories>) I'm definitely still in the "???" stage right now.
I guess the moral of the story is this: Vanity-googling your lj username might not be a bad idea. Forewarned is forearmed! And you can file me under NUTRITION DRINKS.
Small Grocery: NUTRITION DRINKS: POWERBAR shakes. (Link coded with "nofollow", that handy bit of HTML I've been learning about from recent fannish goings-on, so it should be okay to click.) It's a copy of my 4x20 missing scene Foreseeable, but it appears to have been translated from English to Russian and back again, and is now being used to advertise for NUTRITION DRINKS (specifically, POWERBAR shakes). Um, what?
The page copies the first 500 words of my post for that fic (subject and all). It credits me as the "father" of the fic, linking back to my journal and the original post, and makes sure to let readers know that this is "McKay/Sheppard (pre-rip)". The episode is re-named "The Terminating Man", which I have to admit does sound kind of cool. Here's the first garbled paragraph:
After John had walked to the core the barrier (from the gateroom, to the gateroom, and wasn't that ethical bizarre) and disposed Carter a prompt rundown of the over twelve hours, two weeks, 48,000 and/or 700 years, resign or gain possession of, he'd been bustled off to the hospital for tests down the watchful look at of dissimilar soberly-armed Marines. "It's not that we're not cock-a-hoop to make you second-- gravely, Colonel, thrilled-- it's at most, we partake of to transform undeviating it's in fact you," Rodney says, looking for all the beget like he wants to reach out and seize John's side, solely quiver him, as supposing that'd be diagnostic adequate.
And here's the original paragraph, for comparison:
After John had walked through the gate (from the gateroom, to the gateroom, and wasn't that just weird) and given Carter a quick rundown of the past twelve hours, two weeks, 48,000 and/or 700 years, give or take, he'd been bustled off to the infirmary for tests under the watchful gaze of several well-armed Marines. "It's not that we're not happy to have you back-- seriously, Colonel, thrilled-- it's just, we have to make sure it's really you," Rodney says, looking for all the world like he wants to reach out and grab John's shoulder, just shake him, as though that'd be diagnostic enough.
I might have to start using "ethical bizarre" to describe novel things, I do crack up imagining Rodney saying, "It's not that we're not cock-a-hoop to make you second," and you just know he "wants to reach out and seize John's side, solely quiver him." As an example of internet lulz, cracky translations are gold, and obviously this is just a tiny instance of the content appropriation that goes on in the interwebs every day.
But: this is so weird! If I wanted to complain, I'm not sure who I'd contact. There's a link at the bottom of the page that leads to liveinternet.ru (hence my assumption that it was a English-Russian-English translation, but who knows? That state it's in, it could've been translated into wingdings first.), and alexa.com has contact info for the person who runs that, but am I really going to email a random Russian guy to ask him to take down my fanfic from a website he might not even run? (Answer: No, probably not.)
I also wonder how they found the story, and how this is actually supposed to sell NUTRITION DRINKS: POWERBARS shakes. I mean, I do harp on about powerbars and apple juice more times than are probably necessary in 2600 words, and I guess if they're looking to appeal to the post-time-travel, falling-in-love-with-their-best-friend set, it's a pretty targeted piece. The site is probably just a link-farming site intended to drive up PageRanks for the products and make someone some advertising money.
And that's the kicker, that someone's using my writing (scrubbed of coherence, sure) to supplement their bottom line. The site's filled with this -- it looks like they just use some kind of bot/crawler to scoop up entire posts from lj, wordpress, and lots of other sites, ran them through the woodchipper equivalent of a translation tool, and posted them (with links back to the original posts, so they're not even trying to hide what they've done! SO ethical bizarre!).
So, what do you all think? Should I contact whoever I can to try to get this taken down, or just keep my head down and hope this monetization-of-fic thing doesn't come back to bite me some day? Did I somehow contribute to this problem by not knowing about XYZ provision in LJ's terms of use that allows other Russian companies free dibs on unlocked journal content. (Oooh, hey, is liveinternet.ru violating LJ's TOU somehow, that LJ might care about? Or are they in cahoots? < / Cold War conspiracy theories>) I'm definitely still in the "???" stage right now.
I guess the moral of the story is this: Vanity-googling your lj username might not be a bad idea. Forewarned is forearmed! And you can file me under NUTRITION DRINKS.