First off let's start with the plagiarism part. Earlier this week two published authors posted on their blogs that they were being plagiarized. Shiloh Walker's Grimm series and Moria Rogers's Last Call series. You can find those posts here and here. (Their books have now been removed from the plagiarist's pages.) Not only is Angela Priest, the plagiarist, stealing THEIR work but she's also set her sites on Nora Roberts Circle Trilogy. Unlike the other two's books, her plagiarism of Nora's books isn't quite as blatant but it's still there. The plot is the very same.
It amazes me that someone can literally copy word for word someone's hard work and search/replace only the names of the characters. I mean really? As Shiloh said in her blog post, even my children know this is wrong. They know you aren't supposed to copy someone's work and pass it off as your own. They have grasped the concept of plagiarism and my children are a respective 8 and 12. So how is it that a supposed grown woman of 36 does not grasp this concept? The only explanation I can come up with is sheer and utter stupidity. I had the chance to see the books in question before they were removed and I was shocked. I've read both of the series she stole and all I could do was sit here with my mouth hanging open gasping like a fish out of water. I was just, well, shocked. On top of the author's work she was also stealing art from the artists at deviant art. And YES, plagiarism IS stealing...I don't care what anyone says. And YES, in most cases, if you steal you WILL get caught. All I can say to wrap this part up is I'm glad she did get caught.
Now on to piracy. People let me explain something to you...A copyright is a copyright and piracy in any form is illegal. These authors OWN their work. You do not have the rights to it therefor posting it on torrent sites or ebay after you've copied it is PIRACY. And I say again, PIRACY IS ILLEGAL. Another blog post by Shiloh Walker, which can be found here, says it best. If any of my readers find something along these lines, please, report it. Report it to the author, report it to the site you find it on, hell, report it to me. Just report it to someone. These modern day pirates are stealing from these authors to make a buck. You wouldn't want someone doing that to you now would you?
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