It's not really important how I came to discover that Kiko E. Coyona plagiarized one of my blog posts.
It's not really important that what he/she used my funny blog post for is to give his/her fanfiction about Sonic the Hedgehog (or some such thing) a literary boost that it wouldn't have if he/she had actually written it him/herself.
It's not even important that, just now, when I tried to copy and paste the offending passages in order to show how blatantly my 12 Things Successful Assassins Do Differently blog post was ripped off, I was thwarted by Fanfiction.net, which, apparently, does not allow copy and paste. I guess they're worried about plagiarists. (I put a screen capture of it down below, in the TL/DR part of this post.)
What's important is that the specific arrangement of these specific words belongs to me. It's mine. Sticking in a few clumsy dialogue tags doesn't change that. Maybe you never noticed the Copyright Notice that appears at the bottom of every page on this blog, Kiko, but let me repost it here:
What's important, Kiko, is that you apparently fancy yourself something of a writer. Plagiarizing someone else's work makes you a writer in the same way that being a crack whore makes you a movie star.
I am angry with you, Kiko, but mostly I pity you. You've surrendered the chance to become an actual writer, preferring instead to sleep in the gutter of a bleak, dead-end street. There was a small sapling taking root in you, but you ripped it out and replaced it with a branch you broke off of my tree, the splintered end jammed artlessly into the thin soil of your fanfic.
Do you really think that makes you a writer, Kiko? Do you? For your sake, I hope not. It's no shortcut to leech off someone else's work that way. Learn from this experience, Kiko, and do your own work, or a long life of inchoate, unfulfilled bitterness awaits you.
Take down your post, apologize to me and your readers, go forth and sin no more.
Maybe you can be a writer, maybe you can't. But at least you will be able to hold your head high and know that, whether they earn you bruises or baubles, the words will be YOURS.
Here's the TL/DR (click the images to enlarge to readable size):
UPDATE: Under pressure from me and my knife-edge crew (including @introvertedwife, @girl_onthego, @panderson1979, among others), the offending passages (i.e. my entire blog post) have been stripped out. This line was added to the bottom of the blog post:
So there you go. I would have preferred, "I'm sorry for stealing your work, Tony Noland" to an all-caps "FUCK YOU TONY NOLAND AND BLABLOVERS", but I'll take what I can get.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
It's not really important that what he/she used my funny blog post for is to give his/her fanfiction about Sonic the Hedgehog (or some such thing) a literary boost that it wouldn't have if he/she had actually written it him/herself.
It's not even important that, just now, when I tried to copy and paste the offending passages in order to show how blatantly my 12 Things Successful Assassins Do Differently blog post was ripped off, I was thwarted by Fanfiction.net, which, apparently, does not allow copy and paste. I guess they're worried about plagiarists. (I put a screen capture of it down below, in the TL/DR part of this post.)
What's important is that the specific arrangement of these specific words belongs to me. It's mine. Sticking in a few clumsy dialogue tags doesn't change that. Maybe you never noticed the Copyright Notice that appears at the bottom of every page on this blog, Kiko, but let me repost it here:
Copyright NoticeI retain ownership and copyright on this blog and everything it contains, perpetually, on any and all media, and throughout this and every other universe. Feel free to link to this blog, but please get my permission to reproduce or make extensive quotations of the material you see here.
See that? I said "please". That's me being polite. I didn't have to do that. I could have said, "... or else I will use whatever eldritch magiks I can lay hands on so as to bind your plagiarist sins to your soul with bands of thorn and fire for the rest of all eternity."
I was polite. Please be so kind as to return the favor.
- Tony Noland
What's important, Kiko, is that you apparently fancy yourself something of a writer. Plagiarizing someone else's work makes you a writer in the same way that being a crack whore makes you a movie star.
I am angry with you, Kiko, but mostly I pity you. You've surrendered the chance to become an actual writer, preferring instead to sleep in the gutter of a bleak, dead-end street. There was a small sapling taking root in you, but you ripped it out and replaced it with a branch you broke off of my tree, the splintered end jammed artlessly into the thin soil of your fanfic.
Do you really think that makes you a writer, Kiko? Do you? For your sake, I hope not. It's no shortcut to leech off someone else's work that way. Learn from this experience, Kiko, and do your own work, or a long life of inchoate, unfulfilled bitterness awaits you.
Take down your post, apologize to me and your readers, go forth and sin no more.
Maybe you can be a writer, maybe you can't. But at least you will be able to hold your head high and know that, whether they earn you bruises or baubles, the words will be YOURS.
Here's the TL/DR (click the images to enlarge to readable size):
 |
| What I wrote on January 24, 2012... |
 |
| ... and what Kiko E. Coyona "wrote" on May 17, 2013. |
So there you go. I would have preferred, "I'm sorry for stealing your work, Tony Noland" to an all-caps "FUCK YOU TONY NOLAND AND BLABLOVERS", but I'll take what I can get.
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
Assuming she is 15 per her profile... that's definitely old enough to know what plagiarism is, and why it's a bad thing. I can't say I'm surprised by her response, having taught English Lit to that age level, but I am disappointed.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty mild way to learn a very important lesson. There are plenty of people out there who would have been a lot harsher than me.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThat's a shame. I would like to know how you found out, if you don't mind telling us. Not that I think I'm plagiarizable, but I'd like to know in case I am some day. :)
ReplyDeletePretty simple Googling, really. Not that complicated. Will do a blog post to explain.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteTrying to block my post again, I'll say it again,
Deletesomebody told him about it so Tony joined fanfiction just to tell her to put it down when he could've just ask her nicely as a guest. But know this tony if you do write fanfics on Fanfiction I'm gonna flame you like a mad man.
I deleted your comment because you're wrong. I didn't join Fanfiction to point out that you ripped off my work; I posted as myself, using one of the options Fanfiction gives for leaving comments. I suggest you review the comment options.
DeleteAh...the "I'm sorry I got caught" form of the apology—aggressive version. Nice work on catching the plagiarism, Tony.
ReplyDeleteA lesson taught. Perhaps not learned. But taught, nonetheless.
Dear me that's is a shame, why do people do stuff like this, they know it's wrong - good catch Tony. I'd be interested in your blog post of how to go about doing this too.
ReplyDeleteHugely disappointing attitude from the girl (assuming the profile is correct). Same age as the students I taught English Lang to over the past few years, and they were well drilled to understand why plagiarism was wrong.
ReplyDeleteHopefully in a few years some maturity might have kicked in and she might feel embarrassed for her actions, and reactions.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is Kiko's cousin and i would like to deliver this urgent news. Kiko, as you her pen name has commited suicde not that long ago. I think it was 3 hours ago. Anywa, she slit her wrist but she is still alive, she is just unconcious and in the hospital right now. Kiko is a sensitive person and I know it was wrong for 'plagering you' but geez, you could've just asked her nicely or something.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the assassin blog is the only thing she ever read from you. She doesn't care for any of the others, and neither do I. Also, EVERYTHING ELSE SHE EVER WROTE WAS WROTE EXACTLY BY HERSELF. AND SHE ACTUALLY RATHER NOT TAKE OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS BECAUSE IT TAKES A LONG TIME FOR HER TO REVIESE.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND I HOPE YOU GET RUN OVER BY A GARBAGE TRUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If this is so ... that's a shame. It doesn't make what she did any less wrong. I pray she'll be ok. Although I would point out that I hope that once she recovers, she won't want to take anyone else's ideas because it's wrong, not due to the effort it takes to revise something that has been stolen. Shalom.
DeleteIf it takes you such a long time to REVIESE my work into looking like you wrote it yourself, I wonder why you took the trouble.
DeleteOh, right. Because that's still faster than thinking up your own stuff.
Lying about a fake suicide? Dear god, just own up to you fucked up and move on. Learn. Stop blaming everyone else but yourself.
DeleteOnce a plagiarizer, always a plagiarizer.
Please don't lie about suicide. As an ASIST trained person I find it highly distasteful to denigrate the seriousness of suicide by pretending as a ploy for attention.
DeleteI'm not lying about the suicdie. Thats stupid, that's my cousin!
DeleteAnd yes, she once told me that thinkin up stuff is much eaiser. She said that she thinks up what's going to happen when she goes to bed.
DeleteI'll argue as long as i want to. So don't try me or I'll just put up more angry talk. The only reason why this isn't in caps lock again is because i just took my pills and calmed down!!!
Ooh, I'm shaking in my boots. We got a real keyboard warrior here. Here's a wacky idea plagiarizer, why don't you get off the internet and try thinking up your own shit for once?
DeleteBTW, your "cousin" was on Quotev after you posted ... pleased to see you .. I mean "she" recovered so quickly.
DeleteHow on earth could you commit suicide and yet be alive in hospital but unconscious?
DeleteAND GOD DAMN REALLY DO YOU REALLY THINK SHE WOULD REALLY READ THIS BLOG! THE ONLY REASON WHY I READ IT SO I COULD WRITE A ANGRY LETTER AT YOU! AND DO YOU PUT EVERYTHING ON YOU MIND ON YOUR BLOG LIKE A BITCH MIGHT DO!
ReplyDeleteCaps Lock button is over on the left. Give it a try.
DeleteYes, we really do think she would, because in order to plagiarise it she had to.
DeleteI meant it to be on caps lock you idiot.
DeleteAin't nothin stoppin me noooow! I'm on the move!
ReplyDeleteKiko. Come on. "Ain't nothing stopping me now" is a lyrics from Capital M-E by Taking Back Sunday.
DeleteDropping the "g" and adding some "o"'s doesn't make it okay to not cite your source.
Actually, it's a rework of a song from Whitehead and MacFadden "Ain't no stopping us now! We're on the move!" from the 70s ...
DeleteI'll stop flaming if you delete this blog!
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha, oh god, you think this is flaming? Oh dear child, you missed the true flame days of the internet. The fires that burned from 4chan /b/ could be seen from space.
DeleteTony's a professional writer who has actually published whole books of his work that were written by him. Why on earth would he listen to someone who steals his work? This blog aint goin' nowhere, mon amie. *smh*
DeletePretty weak "flame" you got going there, Kiko/cousin. I was amused by the sofurry link, in which Kiko had been banned for repeated plagiarism problems; it puts the lie to your "she only did it once" assertion. That, and the pathetic suicide attempt that never was (also dashed to pieces by Kiko posting hours later) is making your position ever weaker.
DeleteA good flame starts with a solid foundation, and you don't have one. Try a different tack. Or better yet, admit it was wrong, stop scarfing text that other people wrote, and develop your writing skills. Flaming is a waste of time, when you get right down to it, especially when you're not very good at it. Heck, if you get good enough at writing fanfic, you might be able to make some money on Kindle Worlds with it. But not if you get a rep for plagiarizing.
I've seen better flaming from a broken Zippo...
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is a Zippo?
DeleteOh now you pretend you have no idea what google is.
DeleteIt's a type of lighter. Jesus, how are you able to use the internet to steal work, post mediocre fanfic and humiliate yourself in the comments section, but you can't look up one measly little bit of information? Google is your friend.
DeleteHere, I've done the work for you: http://bit.ly/1irs5rL
Actually yahoo is my friend.
DeleteJust FYI, Kiko has previous form for passing off the work of others as her own:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sofurry.com/forum/view/thread?id=32399#1472609
Some lessons take a while to sink in, but you can't be a member of a creative community and expect them to not get upset about stealing.
Please learn the lesson this time Kiko, and maybe with some humility and grace.
This is just depressing. I more or less assumed Kiko was too vigorous in protestations of MAYBE I STOLE YOUR WORDS TONY YOU JERK BUT I TOTES WROTE EVERYTHING ELSE MYSELF TOTES TOTES TOTES-MAGOTES!!!!!
DeletePeople who plagiarize at all will plagiarize over and over, assuming they'll never be caught. I join you, Paul, in hoping that this teachable moment won't pass by unrecognized.
Wow. Just...wow. What a moron.
ReplyDeleteYOU DAMN CRACKER HONKY TONY NOLAND!
ReplyDeleteYOU DAMN CRACKER HONKY TONY NOLAND!! IT WASNT NECESSARY THOUGH TO WROTE A BLOG AND GIVE HER A HORRIBLE NAME! YOU EVEN PUT A LINK TO HER PROFILE! THIS EVERY CRACKER WHO REPLIES TO THIS, SHUT THE FUCK UP! NOW WHAN SHE TRIES TO WRITE A STORY THAT IS THOUGH UP BY HERSELF SHES GOING TO BLAME FOR PLAGERISM!! YOU RUINED HER!
ReplyDeleteAND I BLAME YOU AND THE WHITES! YOU KNOW WHAT, I SHOULD JOIN THIS BLOG AND TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE AND HOW CRACKERS LIKE YOU RUINED THEIR LIVES!!!
1) She/you ruined her/yourself. But she/you is/are young enough to recover. Take a break, write some good stuff, then come back and post.
Delete2) Race has nothing to do with this. Nor does gender, for that matter. And your blame is misplaced in this case. No plagiarism (repeated, we've established that), no problem.
3) Try editing yourself before hitting Publish. You'll still come across as a doofus, but right now you come across as an illiterate doofus.
Judging by the history of plagiarism, I'd say the chances of you (or are we still pretending you're her cousin? Great cover story by the way, totally believable) coming up with something original are as likely as dinosaurs falling from the sky and bringing back disco.
DeletePeople only resort to name-calling and hysterial hissy fits when they realise they've lost the argument.
DeleteI'm not sure how you can accuse someone else for ruining your life when you were in the wrong in the first place - did you behave like this when other people pointed out your plagiarism offences?
Instead of wasting your time screeching on this blog, why don't you spend the time coming up with some original ideas? Or are you just enjoying the attention?
FYI ICY, I HATE GETTING ATTENTION! Another thing, I can't write fanfiction, I don't have the imagination like Kiko.
DeleteIf Kiko had an imagination then she wouldn't need to resort to stealing other people's work, would she?
DeleteAnd fanfiction.net wasn't the only place it was posted... Sorry Tony, you're work is still out there attributed to someone else.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.quotev.com/story/3469447/Assassin-for-a-week/4/
Thanks, Paul. I filed a copyright violation notice.
DeleteOh, you just happen to have all your cousin's usernames and passwords?
DeleteMy, isn't that convenient...
Kiko/Staticy/E'najah - whatever you chose to call yourself (and since Google is my friend it's reeeeeeally easy to see how you're the same person). Grow up.
You are 15 years old. You are not a little child any more. Stop behaving like a petulant toddler, and start behaving like a grown up.
You did something wrong. Accept it. Learn from it. Grow up. Stop blaming everyone else for your screw ups. Part of being an adult is accepting your faults, owning them, and moving on. But the longer you spew insults at people, the less inclined they will be to forgive you.
I thought I said earlier that I use her account so I could comment on other people's quizzes. I'm too lazy to make my own account.
DeleteAnd to tell you the truth I don't want want forgiveness or say sorry for the comments I been making on this blog. I'm just saying what I'm thinking. But I guess I do want to apologize for the racial terms. I just watched hidden colors one and two and really dislike whites for damaging the black race. Then again I'm not sorry for it.
DeleteUnless it was on one of your comments that got deleted, there's no evidence you said that.
DeleteIf in the extremely unlikely event that you are in fact not Kiko (and nobody here is convinced), can I draw your attention to the following in the Terms and Conditions of the Quotev site:
"You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and are solely responsible for all activities resulting from the use of your password and conducted through your account"
This means if someone else has Kiko's account details, if they post anything that infringes on the Terms and Conditions, it is Kiko who is to blame.
"You may not harass or advocate harassment of another person, or promote racism, hatred or physical harm."
By stating that you "hate Tony Noland" at the start of the chapter of your story, you are advocating hatred of another person. And since Kiko agreed to be responsible for all content posted through her account, if you are her cousin, you have just caused a violation of the terms and conditions she agreed to, which can cause her account to be terminated.
So, either you are the original Kiko, or you've just shot your cousin in the foot.
Psh…
DeleteTony, if you use the Reader function for your browser, then you can copy and paste on FF.net.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Tony, thanks to you and you followers gave me a great Idea for a fanfic. Finally I can write one. And I want you to be the first one to read it!
ReplyDelete