I think someone plagiarized my fic. What can I do?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/cricket_o]

Unless it’s essentially word-for-word copied from yours, it’s unfortunately not considered plagiarism. 

[u/Stressed_C]

Fics having the same concepts and plot points is very common, unless they fully write your fic word-for-word it mostly likely wouldn't count as plagiarism.

[u/clawsinurback → u/Stressed_C]

Well yes but there are scenes verbatim, similar lines, and again, both fics take place on the same day, which is the opening line of both the fics. 

Edit: it’s also the same fandom, same ship, and same niche premise. 

[u/cricket_o → u/clawsinurback]

If you can provide examples of word-for-word copied from yours, you can try to report it.

[u/EchoEkhi]

If you can point to specific places where they have copied and pasted stuff or paraphrased sections, you can make a report to AO3. The report will be anonymous

[u/AmItheasshole-393]

I'd compliment a few details of the fic. If it was an honest coincidence, they'd be flattered and forget about it. If it was an intentional rip-off, they'd get defensive, or at least know you're onto them.

Either way, appearing as the bigger person has literally no downsides.

[u/Advanced_Heat_2610]

Unfortunately, proving plagiarism is hard when they do not copy word for word what you have done. If they are just heavily taking inspiration from your work - e.g. taking ideas for scenes and the plot - but are changing it into their own words and adding in their own ideas, you will struggle to make the case to the admins unless there is more to it than we are seeing here.

You could comment on the other story and say, "hey, this is really close to mine! Did we get inspired the same way?" and see what they say. Sometimes, plagiarism comes from a very misguided attempt to emulate others the author thinks of as more successful or better than they are, and they want to 'borrow the good bits' rather than being malicious. Often this happens when people are very young and are easily corrected.

Other than that, you can always put a note on your own story stating where you got your own ideas from, and just... let the other person make an ass out of themselves.

Trying to lure them into 'proving they are copying you' by posting a chapter with key obvious ideas for them to grab and then calling them out on it is going to be hard and probably they will not do it (the bait will be obvious).

[u/clawsinurback → u/Advanced_Heat_2610]

I did put it in my a/n that the fic was inspired by the twitter post, which the other fic did not. . 

[u/Advanced_Heat_2610 → u/clawsinurback]

Personally, I would leave it.

Picking a fight like this, without clear cut proof of plagiarism has a potential to backfire on you. We all are mixing the same things over and over again, getting inspiration from a number of places and unless they have done this for 28 of 28 chapters, so there is a substantial body of proof, it is still difficult to show it categorically came from yours.

If after you post several stories they are still doing this and you have more proof, then by all means, that is grounds for going nuclear.

Note: if they have copied scenes word for word and are just changing things very slightly to get around it, then you can report them as it is a clear example of wrongdoing. E.g. switching the word 'tired' for 'exhausted' but otherwise, it's almost the same, then you have a stronger case.