The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle

The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle is a 2006 exposé by fan critic Avocado detailing the events surrounding Cassandra Claire's ban from FanFiction.Net in June 2001 and the plagiarism present in her lengthy fanwork The Draco Trilogy. 
The exposé was published over a span of three days at the Bad Penny community on Journalfen in August 2006. See intellectual property lawyer and Harry Potter for Grownups moderator Heidi8's 2013 post about it: on her Tumblr blog.
For an ironic 2001 prequel to Cassandra Claire's plagiarism, see the discussion at ParadigmOfUncertainty regarding a fan who'd lifted lines from Claire's Harry Potter fic, Draco Sinister, six weeks before Claire was banned from Fanfiction.net.
Another irony: the last chapter of The Draco Trilogy was posted August 4, 2006, the same day as Avocado's exposé was posted on Bad Penny. On August 4, 2006, Lori Summers announced the end of the series in a post on her discussion group ParadigmOfUncertainty, the Yahoo! forum where The Draco Trilogy had been serialized for years.
Coincidence or "volunteer techie mistake"? Cassandra Claire's fic page link to the last chapter of Draco VeritasThe URL http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/cassandra_claire/DV17.html has been excluded from the Wayback Machine. at FictionAlley was posted in August 4, 2006 and now leads to a page which says: 
Cassandra Claire's fic page on FictionAlley has been excluded by the Wayback Machine.
== Background ==
The Draco Trilogy was posted in installments over a period of six years (2000-2006). In each installment, Cassie deliberately inserted unattributed quotes from various science fiction television shows and may have expected her readers to identify them. But many readers were not aware that the quotes were not her writing. Some authors such as Emma Donoghue, Jo Walton and Pamela Dean insert brief unattributed quotes or paraphrases to indicate that a character knows a certain book or film, but not everyone thought that this practice was ethical. Matters came to a head in 2001 when Avocado identified extensive sequences of action, description and dialogue from Draco Sinister's Chapter 9 as having been lifted from The Hidden Land, a then out-of-print fantasy novel by Pamela Dean. Cassie was subsequently banned from Fanfiction.net for plagiarism. There was much emotionally fraught discussion. However, not all the plagiarized passages were discovered at that time. Not everyone thought that the plagiarism mattered. Wank, debate, and plagiarism accusations would resurface from time to time between 2001 and 2006.
Avocado's exposé was posted less than two months after a widely read magnum opus detailing the misbehavior of another Harry Potter fan writer, MsScribe, and in fact was inspired by this earlier account. See The MsScribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography. Both exposés were posted on LiveJournal several years after the fact, thus exposing a newer generation of fans to old Harry Potter wank that had happened to some extent on other platforms.
As noted in the comments, The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle was posted on the same day as the last chapter of the last book of The Draco Trilogy.See thread starting at 2006-08-04 09:10 pm UTC on the bad_penny post "The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle -- Intro through Part IV".
== Contents ==
* Introduction: My motivation (WayBack Machine link)
* Part I: Cast of characters (WayBack Machine link)
* Part II: How it began (WayBack Machine link)
* Part III: My impressions of the Draco Trilogy (WayBack Machine link)
* Part IV: Waiting Part IV: Waiting (WayBack Machine link)
* Part V: The brawl (the subheadings are also listed in this link via Wayback, scroll down) (WayBack Machine link)
** The FanFiction.Net forums
** FanFiction.Net moderators' journals
** ParadigmOfUncertainty
** The SugarQuill forums
** cassie_and_rhysenn and HP_Fanfiction (Wayback Machine link)
** Email: Michela Ecks and Pamela Dean (Wayback Machine link)
** Ranting_page (Wayback Machine link)
** Email: Cassandra Claire (Wayback Machine link)
* Part VI: What changed? (WayBack Machine link)
* Part VII: Aftermath -- the other reason I shut up in 2001 (WayBack Machine link)
* Part VIII: The excuses, a summary (WayBack Machine link)
* Part IX: Contact prior to account deletion (WayBack Machine link)
* Part X: The foundation of Fiction Alley (WayBack Machine link)
* Part XI: R.J. Anderson, Pamela Dean, and permission (WayBack Machine link)
* Part XII: Plagiarism? What plagiarism? (WayBack Machine link)
* Part XIII: Is Cassandra Claire claiming credit for it? (WayBack Machine link)
* Part XIV: Is Cassandra Claire profiting from plagiarism? (WayBack Machine link)
* Part XV: Heidi (WayBack machine link)
* Epilogue: Why bother, five years later? (WayBack Machine link)
Additional archive links.WebCites: Part V through "Email: Michela Ecks and Pamela Dean" | Part V "Ranting_page" through Part VIII | WebCite Part XIII through Epilogue
== Evidence Overview ==
=== Pamela Dean ===
The largest portion of borrowed text appeared in Draco Sinister Chapter 9 and was taken from Pamela Dean's The Hidden Land, the second book of her Secret Country Trilogy. The chapter's original disclaimer read only: "Credit for the inspiration for this conception of the wizarding afterlife goes to a book called The Secret Country, alas, I no longer recall who wrote it."
Below is a portion of Avocado's side-by-side comparison of the Draco Sinister scene (left) and the plagiarized scene from Dean's The Hidden Land (right):
Draco opened his eyes, or thought he did. He could not see anything with them, not blackness, not anything. Harry, he tried to say, but he had nothing to say it with – no throat, no voice. It was like dreaming, and knowing he was dreaming, but not being able to wake himself up.
"Harry!" he called out, and this time he heard his own voice, and jumped.
Ted opened his eyes, or thought he did. He could not see anything with them, not blackness, not anything. He did not seem to have eyes, or anything else. Randolph, he tried to say, but he had nothing to say it with. It was like dreaming, and knowing you were dreaming, and trying to wake up by remembering the bed, and the pillow, and the color of your pajama sleeve: it was like the time just before the trick worked and you woke up.
"Randolph!" said Ted, and jumped. He had a voice, and ears to hear it, and a nervous system to make him jump when he was startled.
See the entire comparison in Part 3 of the exposé.
Chapter 11 of Draco Sinister also contained several lines lifted from The Secret Country and The Hidden Land, as well as the concepts of Nightmare Grass and Dean's version of shape-shifters from the trilogy. The original version of the chapter was uncited; a later footnote credited Dean for the Nightmare Grass and shapechangers.
=== Pop Culture Dialogue ===
=== Other Borrowings ===
Cassandra Claire often reproduced concepts, rough scenes, descriptive phrases and dialogue from several fantasy novels. These borrowings were often uncited (or cited in such a way as to make the amount of borrowed text appear far less extensive than it actually was.)
A direct attribution from the endnotes of Draco Dormiens: 
Unattributed, from Tanith Lee's "Magritte's Secret Agent," a character description reads: "The skin of his face had the sort of marvellous pale texture most men shave off when they rip the first razor blade through their stubble and the second upper dermis goes with it forever." Cassandra Claire rephrased this line in Draco Dormiens, chapter 6: "I'll be sorry when you start shaving," she said dreamily (she was quite lightheaded now), 'I love that translucent quality your skin has, I always have. And when you rip that first razor through your stubble, that'll go with it forever.'" Avocado at bad_penny: </blockquote>
Unlike the TV quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other shows, which were usually altered very little from their original form, Cassandra Claire's repeated borrowing from classic fantasy authors like Roger Zelazny, Tanith Lee, Gene Wolfe and Pamela Dean was both more extensive, and harder to pick up on, as descriptive passages and particular turns of phrase were inserted subtly into paragraphs of Cassandra Claire's own work.
Again, citations were either nonexistent or failed to fully account for the amount of material that was borrowed.
==At Least One Fan Retracted Her Comments==
In 2013, Heidi8 commented on the comments Laura Hale made during and after the expose.
==A Canceled Panel ==
One result: Heidi8 and Ebony Thomas both stepped down from a Harry Potter convention panel a year later. See a canceled panel at Phoenix Rising in 2007.
==Further Reading and Comments==
===Before Avocado's Expose===
====2001====
* Fan Fiction: Harry Potter Fic, part 2, mailing list discussion at bbs forum, includes comments by rhysenn and Michela Ecks (June 20, 2001)
* For the record..., commentary from fic list member BlackRose
* long fan mailing list discussion at VoyForums: Writer's University: Fan Fiction Ethical & Legal Discussion Board (October 2001)
* long fan mailing list discussion at VoyForums: Writer's University: Fan Fiction Ethical & Legal Discussion Board , many fans (subjects include admitted stalking, contacting a fan's employer, plagiarism, and much, much more) (December 2001)
* What Everyone Should Know About Fanfiction.net by Fanfiction.net Liberation Front (FLF) staff
====2002====
* long fan mailing list discussion at VoyForums: Writer's University: Fan Fiction Ethical & Legal Discussion Board , many fans, September 2002
* Subject: Re: New fan fiction archive, and misc. at VoyForums: Writer's University: Fan Fiction Ethical & Legal Discussion Board, conversation between Laura Hale and Sinead on September 10, 2002.
* long fan mailing list discussion between Sinead, Laura Hale at VoyForums: Writer's University: Fan Fiction Ethical & Legal Discussion Board , October-December 2002
====2003====
* Originality Considered Harmful?, by nostrademons, March 23, 2003
====2005====
* Talk:Cassandra Claire/Archive 1, Wikipedia (includes a statement by Heidi Tandy) (2005)
====2004====
* The Cassie Claire Primer, October 15, 2004
=== Avocado's Expose: 2006===
====Multiple Dates====
* Plagiarism And All That at the Fandom Wank wiki (archived version)
====Unknown Date==== 
* bookshop, journal since deleted, quoted at Heidi8's Tumblr in 2013: 
====June 22, 2006====
*Mary Ellen Curtin at Fanthropology: "One of the innumerable spin-offs of the MsScribe Epic is this account by Aja of her friendship with Cassie Claire, with major roles by Stacey, Ivy, Libertine, Heidi, and a cast of 10,000 maniacs. Howling off-key. What boggles me about the fannish dynamics Aja describes is that it doesn't really match what I've seen in quite a number of closely-observed fandoms. Yes, there were BNFs, but I've never known a large, growing fandom to have a One BNF To Rule Them All the way Cassandra Claire seems to have been in 2001-2002 for HP fandom. The extent to which the BNFs were a tight circle and seemed to feel the need to "protect" CC, and that she agreed, is not something I've seen in, lessee, Star Trek, The Sentinel, Highlander, Smallville, or SGA. Heaven knows those fandoms were not placid pools of harmony, but there seems to have been a different quality in early HP. I honestly don't recall seeing such blatantly preteen behavior in my other fandoms."
====August 6====
* princessdot: "~toodles off to assign charlottelennox the new title of Better Than Bob Woodward~"
====August 7====
* angua9: "I am certainly not saying that I regret my contribution to the unmasking of Msscribe, or that I disapprove of what white_serpent has done. On the contrary -- it is pretty much my life motto that the truth will set you free, and I strongly believe that both of those accounts are as close to the truth as a conscientious but biased and fallible reporter can achieve. In many ways, my entire time in the Harry Potter fandom has felt tainted by what I saw as the suppression of those two truths by a certain group of people, and it is a huge relief to me to see them exposed. But the whole Cassandra Claire story makes me feel sad and uncomfortable. I don't think Cassandra Claire is a villain, the way I think Msscribe plainly is."angua9: 
* tacky tramp: Does plagiarism matter in fanfiction?: "Many of you have probably already seen bad_penny's latest piece of fandom history: one longtime fan's account of "the Cassandra Claire plagiarism debacle." It's not quite as delightful as the MsScribe chronicle -- there's much less jaw-dropping bat-shittery here, but perhaps more seriously thought-provoking fodder for fanthropological discussion." (August 7, 2006)
* caras galhadon: "How so many people can love and adore a known plagiarist is beyond me. I've been following this brouhaha from almost the very the beginning, and I didn't have the faintest idea of the scope of "borrowing" that went on, not by a longshot. Plagiarists, in my book, are the lowest of the low, and should not be tolerated, not on any level. It's theft, clear and simple, of the highest order. Anyone using "fanfic is plagiarism" as a defence is either really, really naive or hopelessly stupid."
====August 8====
* mmichelle: "I've finally figured out why the bad_penny community on JournalFen bothers me. I mean, I respect the right of the people over there to write what they want, and I do read a lot of it, regardless of whether or not I agree with the argument being made, but it's always made me a bit uneasy. And today, I realized that this uneasiness comes from purely selfish reasons: it just reminds me of what a brat I've been in fandom from time to time."
* trinityofone: Degrees of plagiarism: where do we draw the line?: "I’ll admit, I’ve been reading the latest incarnation of the Cassandra Claire plagiarism debacle over at bad_penny. Like the whole Ms. Scribe saga, I find it fascinating the way I find most human drama fascinating. However, there are some issues related to the various plagiarism charges that make me uneasy, and that’s what I want to talk about. From the account, I think it’s clear that Cassandra Claire plagiarized Pamela Dean, and I think that’s pretty inexcusable, and made worse by how badly she handled it. My opinion on this is meaningless; I’m not even in Harry Potter fandom. But it’s the issue of the other quotes she used that has me worried." (August 8, 2006)
* rahirah: Weekend stuff and pondering on plagiarism: "Reading the Cassie Clare thing has made me re-ponder the question. At what point does allusion become plagiarism? A lengthy exchange of dialogue substantially reproducing a conversation from another source would seem to be a no-brainer: that's plagiarism. But where do we draw the line? One sentence? Two sentences? Three? What if the sentences are re-worked a bit for humorous or ironic impact?" (August 8, 2006)
====August 11====
* caras galadhon: "I'm completely and utterly disgusted. Heidi and AngieJ/Ebony are going to be on a panel at Phoenix Rises with Henry Jenkins. HENRY JENKINS. They have the gall to put one of the pioneers of Fan Studies on a panel with two plagiarists. Two people who feed off fans and fandom. Excuse me while I go dry heave in the corner. What is WRONG with these people? Heidi and AngieJ should be pulled from that goddamn con this minute. Raaargh! *stabs random things* ...Ow. ETA: AngieJ is an English teacher?! Oh lord, I'm gonna throw up again."
====August 15====
* Heidi8: "I had YMs and emails calling me a plagiarist because I didn't do MLA citations for a fic that I wrote over five years ago, or because I stupidly forgot to cite a Prefab Sprout song, or a Shel Silverstein poem, or three lines from Cicero. Yes, I was stupid to forget to cite them, and I am sorry that I did, and that in the ensuing years, I didn't go back and reread the fic and realise it at some point along the way...[snipped] There's a discussion I tried to have five years ago about plagiarism - what is it, where are the lines drawn, how do we cite, how should we cite - but it often disolved and devolves into extremism. I hope it stops because there are some terrific people - and some people who are complaining about me in this past week - who have used lines from other sources in the fics they've written and haven't done MLA style citations, so maybe we do need to again revisit the issue of disclaimers and what should and should not go into them. The discussion didn't go anywhere five years ago, and when I've brought it up since then, it's never gotten much attention. Maybe now, it will."Heidi8: 
* caras galadhon: "A rather large part of my brain wants to point at the bad_penny exposes and the related fussing about people holding those exposed to account and shout, "What exactly did you expect to happen?" In my world, I'm responsible for more than myself. I am obliged to right what wrongs I can, and not to simply think of myself. I have an ethical obligation to try and leave the world better than I encountered it, and to try and do the right thing. Just because something does not affect me directly does not mean that I can turn my back and ignore it. And that is the problem with the whole setup of bad_penny. There is an inherent flaw in the idea that it's ok to air dirty laundry, but it's not ok to want that laundry washed clean. This brings us to the specific instances under examination in these cases. Is contacting Cassie Claire's publisher to let them know they're harbouring an unremitting plagiarist trolling?"
====August 16====
* Ebony (AngieJ) : "Posting Trouble in Paradise in the early days of fandom was, for lack of a better comparison, like sitting down and telling bedtime stories to my sisters, cousins, niece and nephew. To be honest, I was a really lazy writer back then, more concerned with getting out the story than with the necessary mechanics of attribution and formatting. I took care with my original fiction and of course my academic work was cited in MLA or APA format, but at the time, I thought that all fanfiction was plagiarism, anyway... and my biggest concern at the time was that someone would send this R-rated Harry Potter fanfiction to the school district where I taught fifth grade. Fate, it seems, has a sense of irony."Ebony Elizabeth: Ebony commented on September 5, 2000 at Harry Potter for Grownups, a little less than a year before Cassandra Claire was banned from FanFiction.Net for plagiarism: "For those of us who are men and women of letters, plagiarism is what horse theft was to the settlers of the Old West. It's a sin I despise in my students, in my colleagues, and in fellow writers."
* telesilla: It's time for HP fandom to put up or shut up: "Harry Potter fandom has no one--not bad_penny, not white_serpent or charlottelennox or anyone else--but themselves to blame for what's going on at the moment. This is the fandom's fault.... HP fandom could have stood up back in June of 2001--yes, for those not involved in this, the fandom has known about Cassie Claire's plagiarism for over five years now--and said "Hey! That's wrong! Apologize, and then either cite or pull your work and if you don't we'll abandon you." But they didn't. The story of Cassie Claire and her plagiarism could have been one of those stories old HP hands told to n00bs to make sure they understood the rules and the penalty for breaking them. But it isn't."
* shezan: Of lynch mobs: "I take no pleasure in having been the first to call the wankers a lynch mob. Nobody sane would want to operate in a social environment that can produce one. Yet what else will you call something that has now come up with death theats against one of the people they've been so happy to abuse? Some of these cretins are now creeping up in the targets' LJs, bleating apologies. They did not mean it! Sure, they criticised, and joined the wank, and named the guilty, and sputtered insults, and called them criminals, but they never intended things to go that far! And they were right in the first place, surely?"
====August 17====
* savageseraph: "[Plagiarism in fandom] also violates the trust of their community. Unfair or not, BNF's have the responsibility to lead by example in their fandoms. They become role models of a sort for many other writers in their fandoms by virtue of their status. This is true in any position of authority in any organization. It is not a opportunity to get a bigger hat for your bigger head. It's an unavoidable responsibility."
====August 18====
* zoepaleologa: Fandom and the Cult of Personality: "There may have been one or two wake up calls over the past few weeks, though, as some of the fans finally dared suggest their empresses were naked."
====August 18th and 19th====
* [statement by FictionAlley mods]: "It has come to the attention of the officers and directors of FictionAlley that allegations as to improper citation of sources have been made against fics posted by Heidi, Cassandra Claire and Ebony. Such allegations have to be taken seriously, and, accordingly, the authors and the mods have been given time to consider the allegations, and for the authors to edit the fics concerned. As Cassandra Claire had already decided to delete her fics for unrelated reasons they will not be restored; the other authors are or are in the process of editing, and revised versions either have been or will be posted in due course."
===2012===
* Bookshop: "[Cassandra Claire] freaked out—freaked the fuck out on me and sent me this long e-mail, saying, basically saying, "Stacey was right about you. You're a Machiavellian social climber and I never want to speak to you again. Stay the fuck away from me," and that was the last time I ever heard from her. (laughs)" And much, much more at a 2012 interview with Bookshop.Fan Fiction Oral History Project by bookshop.
===2013===
* Heidi8: "Hi, I’m the “lawyer pal” that Alli is referring to. I never threatened anyone who accused Cassie (or me) of plagiarism. Cassie never called the police on people who disagreed with her. The girl who claims that Cassie tried to get her kicked out of her Uni is named Sinead; Cassie was not involved in anything regarding the aftermath of Sinead’s hacking (alongside her then-boyfriend and possibly others) into a mutual friend’s Yahoo account (yes, they admitted to it) or the subsequent deletion of the main Harry Potter for Grownups list." 
===2015===
* flourish: "Oh, I wouldn’t go so far to call Cassie a villain! She wasn’t always a paragon of shining virtue, but she was a friend at the time, and she got the short end of the stick at least as much as she gave it. The whole thing has gotten so freakin’ weird in the way the internet remembers it."
===2016===
* Berlynn Wohl: "I feel like, between Cassandra Claire, Ms. Scribe, Andy Blake (whom you may remember as Victoria Bitter), Interrogating the Text From The Wrong Perspective, My hed is pastede on yay, and the friggin’ Domlijah color wheel, wank just instantly turned everyone who was in fandom in the early 2000′s into Benjamin the Donkey from Animal Farm. Every week since 2005, someone brings us the receipts about a new problematic fave, and we just shrug, like, “Windmill or no windmill, things will go on as they always have.” 
* biochemhippy: "yknow, i was really into hp fandom when this all happened and never even noticed. I’d read vsd of course, but the rest of it went *woosh* thank god" 
* princesschickadilly: "Oh fandom memories! All the CC plagiarism and free iPods for your wank memory needs!" 
* horrorhouses: "She popularized Draco in leather pants and for that she is my arch nemisis." 
* fragileliquid: "The wiki entry for the Very Secret Diaries made me laugh and brought back some oooooold memories. I hold no malice toward Cassie–maybe, because I never really followed her after getting a good chuckle from the VSD, so this whole kerfuffle was off my radar. Plus, her story is, by far, one of the less messed up things that came out of the LotR fandom."
* "According to The Daily Dot, Claire became a major influence in the world of HP fanfic...until a backlash began." Everything You Need To Know About Cassandra Clare’s Controversies by Sabrina Rojas Weiss for "Refinery29" (January 13, 2016)
===2017===
*there wolf: "Clare got in trouble for lifting huge chunks from Pamela Dean's The Hidden Land. Someone recognized the text and called her on it, and she grudgingly put in a small, vague disclaimer. But it prompted people to start going through her work looking for other things she'd taken from books, film, and t.v. with little or no credit; that list turned out to be pretty extensive. The whole thing blew up, Clare did a "you don't fire me, I quit" with fanfiction.net and tried to start her own fansite which didn't work. She wrapped up her Draco Vertias opus, and moved onto publishing where the plagiarism accusations came up again but got largely dismissed by anyone outside the fanfic world. The thing is borrowing lines and setups from other popular works was pretty common in that era of fanfiction, as was failing to be thorough with your disclaimers. A lot of people just didn't see it as all that important because no one was making any money and it just didn't seem necessary when it's a big property that everyone knows and loves. Clare was operating in a gray area and ended up getting busted because, not only was she a big name with a very popular work, but she got called out for stealing from a relatively obscure book that was out of print and people couldn't just excuse that the way they could with more popular stuff like Buffy.I think Clare was a bit of a scapegoat on the issue of crediting stuff in fanfiction, but she also managed to land herself an actual writing career based on the popularity of a half-stolen work. I know they cleaned it up for publishing, but I don't care. Clare did something lovely that everyone was doing and still reaped a huge reward for it so gently caress her."
===2019===
* The Cassandra Cla(i)re Saga by iwasonceafangirl: "What do you get when you cross the pure insanity of the Harry Potter fandom at its peak with the nightmarish hellscape of YA lit? The Cassandra Cla(i)re drama, that's what."
==Notes & References==
===Notes===
===References===
Category:Non-fiction Writing
Category:Harry Potter Fandom Occurrences
Category:Scandals
Category:Social Media Feature-Wank Wednesday
Category:2006 Fanworks 
Category:2006 Events