50 Shades of Grey trilogy goes from fan fiction to Random House

James D. Macdonald said:

Speaking of which, I've recently heard there was a Twilight AU fanfic based on FSoG. Which caused someone else to comment, "Isn't that like dividing by zero?"

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Yea it's called 50 Shades of Malfoy and it's with Hermione and Draco from Harry Potter. Hasn't been updated since April .

The funny thing is that E.L. James commented on that fanfic and said:

This is my story that you are plagiarising. Please remove it

She uses the screen name she dropped, so it's definitely her.

fireluxlou said:

Yea it's called 50 Shades of Malfoy and it's with Hermione and Draco from Harry Potter. Hasn't been updated since April .

The funny thing is that E.L. James commented on that fanfic and said:

This is my story that you are plagiarising. Please remove it

She uses the screen name she dropped, so it's definitely her.

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WTF! If that's true, and I believe you that it is, that woman is a freaking idiot! I try to be generally nice, but that is just a new level of idiocy. Someone plagiarized her plagiarism? Give me a freaking break!

Mustafa said:

WTF! If that's true, and I believe you that it is, that woman is a freaking idiot! I try to be generally nice, but that is just a new level of idiocy. Someone plagiarized her plagiarism? Give me a freaking break!

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Her fanfiction.net account is Snowqueens Icedragon so it is true.

fireluxlou said:

Yea it's called 50 Shades of Malfoy and it's with Hermione and Draco from Harry Potter. Hasn't been updated since April .

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No, not a Harry Potter fanfic, a Twilight fanfic. With Edward and Bella and those guys.

fireluxlou said:

Yea it's called 50 Shades of Malfoy and it's with Hermione and Draco from Harry Potter. Hasn't been updated since April .

The funny thing is that E.L. James commented on that fanfic and said:

This is my story that you are plagiarising. Please remove it

She uses the screen name she dropped, so it's definitely her.

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Weeeeeell, I gotta say, if all they did was a name replace but left the rest of James' prose intact? It is plagiarism.

The thing is, EL James wrote a fanfic of Twilight. It was an AU but it was a fanfic. Regardless of whether she catapulted to higher fame off the backs of the Twilight fandom aside, the prose she wrote, with SM's characters, was *wince* original. She didn't CnP swaths of passages from Twilight.

She had a hit on her hands, took her own work, swapped out names and published it as original.

It really was original. It started as fanfic yeah but that fanfic was not a name swap. It was fandom based but it was written in her own words.

That link, if the comparison is to be made and the fanfic author did only swap out names from FSoG? Yeah, that's plagiarism. No the fanfic author isn't making money off of it but none of the prose (according to the comments) was her own. It's the FSoG with a name replace.

Funny, sure. But I'd think the claims of plagiarism even within the bounds of fandom would still stand.

Now, I could be completely wrong because I haven't done a side by side comparison of FSoG and FSoM.

I didn't really look past that to see if it was exactly like 5sog though just thought it was funny lol.

Regardless of the situation, as Bearilou points out, EL James wrote the prose and took a couple of years doing it.

This isn't a case of someone taking the idea of the story and writing a fic of their own prose from the idea. It's a name swap of 50 shades. Even if it had been a cut and paste of the original ff, it still would be stealing prose of another writer, something unacceptable in the twi fandom.

However, the ff writer in this instance specifically states it is 50sog, which means it's a cut and paste of a copyrighted work posted online.

I don't know any writer who would be okay with tens of thousands of words of their prose claimed by another writer and posted as their fanfic.

A/N: This story is the work of E.L James and her trilogy 50 Shades of Grey. I recently read the books and thought that the original characters would do so well as Dramione. So this is not my work I'm just admiring someone else's great idea and using Draco and Hermione instead. Characters are OCC and follow EWE and A/U.
Disclaimer: This is the work of E.L James and I'm just borrowing her plot and J.K Rowling's characters. I make no money off this nor do I intend to it just for entertainment purposes.

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Yeah, that's way beyond ... beyond.

It *is* somewhat telling that one could take a story based on a different story, replace the characters with pre-defined characters from another story, and still have the original (can that word even be in the same room as a FSoG thread?) story work just as well (or... not).

It really is like this wormhole of fiction.

First two paragraphs of Fifty Shades of Grey:

I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair--it just won't behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and I give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair in a ponytail and hope that I look semi-presentable.

Ginny is my roommate, and she has chosen today of all days to succumb to the flu. Therefore, she cannot attend the interview she arranged to do, with some mega-industrialist tycoon I've never heard of, for the student newspaper. So I have been volunteered. I have final exams to cram for, one essay to finish, and I'm supposed to be working this afternoon but no--today I have to drive 165 miles to downtown Seattle in order to meet the CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. As an exceptional entrepreneur and major benefactor of our university, his time is extraordinarily precious--much more precious than mine--but he has granted Kate an interview. A real coup she tells me. Damn her extracurricular activities.

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First two paragraphs of Fifty Shades of Malfoy:

I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair, it just won't behave, and damn Ginny Weasley for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale brown haired girl with brown eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and I give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair in ponytail and hope that I look semi presentable.


Ginny is my roommate, and she has chosen today of all days to succumb to the flu. Therefore, she cannot attend the interview she arranged to do, with some mega industrialist tycoon I've never heard of, for the student newspaper. So I have been volunteered. I have final exams to cram for, one essay to finish, and I'm supposed to be working this afternoon but no today I have to drive a hundred and sixty miles to downtown Seattle in order to meet the CEO of Malfoy Enterprises Holdings Inc. As an exceptional entrepreneur and major benefactor of our university, his time is extraordinarily precious much more precious than mine but he has granted Ginny an interview. A real coup she tells me. Damn her extracurricular activities.

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That's pretty damning.

fireluxlou said:

Yea it's called 50 Shades of Malfoy and it's with Hermione and Draco from Harry Potter. Hasn't been updated since April .

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Well, great. Now I'm going to see Fifty Shades of Grey characters as Harry Potter characters. Great.

You want damning evidence? Have a look at side by side comparisons of the MoTU text and FSoG. It looks like she didn't really make any attempt at all the change or better the story if it was going to print.

http://dearauthor.com/features/indu...-versus-fifty-shades-by-e-l-james-comparison/

Channy said:

You want damning evidence? Have a look at side by side comparisons of the MoTU text and FSoG. It looks like she didn't really make any attempt at all the change or better the story if it was going to print.

http://dearauthor.com/features/indu...-versus-fifty-shades-by-e-l-james-comparison/

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Damning evidence of what exactly? Everyone who's read about the fic origin at this point knows it wasn't edited by either publisher other than a name swap. A comparison of the prose between Twilight and FSoG would be more damning if that showed the same high percent of similarity, which I don't believe it does based on reading both.

A comparison between the prose of the fanfic and the published story is a pointless comparison in may respects if the fanfic isn't all that similar to the unique qualities of the source, in this case Twilight.

A comparison on the percentage of similar prose in Twilight and 50 shades wouldn't make for long reading though.

I don't think anyone's arguing that FSoG knocks off Twilight's prose; no one has a monopoly on cruddy writing.

I don't think Fifty Shades of Malfoy is plagiarism. The author clearly cites the original source at the top of the page. I think the author is actually making fun of James. They've taken her work, changed the names, and is calling it something different. It's basically what James did. Although James did not copy Twilight word for word.

This is poking fun at her nothing more. And if you clearly cite something how is it plagiarism? You are stating you did not write it.

At the same time though...stupid, stupid thing to do. They should just take it down.

HoneyBadger said:

I don't think anyone's arguing that FSoG knocks off Twilight's prose; no one has a monopoly on cruddy writing.

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Well then, what is the problem? Quite frankly at this point I don't get the problem and I'm beginning to see the point her fans make about jealously. What did she knock off that is deserving of the vitriol and mocking on the net? Especially from people who haven't read it are base their assessment on hearsay or manipulated facts.

She didn't copy unique Twilight prose.

She didn't copy a unique storyline, or unique plot points, or the universe of Twilight.

The characters are comparable in some respects, countered by the vast differences. Same could be said of a huge number of books.

She didn't take advantage of the fanfic community. They got what they were promised-- a complete story for free. In fact, it's still widely available in it's fanfic version. No one was forced to purchase it.

Let's rip apart the fandom article used to support the case EL James used the fandom. The source is iffy at best. Firstly, the other party was no snow white and once planned on doing the very same thing in publishing her fanfic. The other party also left the fandom without honoring a charity commitment. Money was paid(several hundred) for a story which was left incomplete. People paid for her fanfiction and it wasn't delivered. Jealously, yep. I believe so.

In this conversation EL James said she didn't feel part of the fandom. The fandom is made up of cliques and this is a complaint I hear over and over. She wanted to prove she could write a story and then when she did she wanted to get some financial compensation for her work. Clearly that makes her a horrible, greedy person. Especially since the story was provided free to hundreds of thousands of people first and still is. And she did the work. She wrote the words. I don't think anyone can argue she didn't know how huge this would become, that it is the dream she dreamed come true.

She obviously skirted on the success of Twilight in the beginning, likewise so has everyone else whose publicist claims they are the next SM or their book is the next Twilight. Or Harry Potter for that matter or Hunger Games. No one is going to hold Twilight and 50 shades in their hands and purchase 50 shades instead. They are seeking a different audience at this point.

What we are left with is 50 shades was once a Twilight fanfic called Masters of the Universe, and wasn't written or edited very well.

My opinion on this is if the characters have a different history, situation, obstacles, emotional issues, and are a different species, they can not be the same characters regardless of what an author claims. If someone took my characters, made them human, gave them new backgrounds and wrote them into a new erotic fiction. I couldn't, in good faith, claim they were my characters or story because that is not how I wrote it.

What is created is no longer part of the universe built around the source but becomes a separate creation only inspired by the source. It would belong to the new author, not me.

I've been saying from the start that FSoG is soooooo AU from Twilight that the similarities are superficial. If James used the Twilight fandom as an enormous beta pool for her fic, well, that was cheesy but not actionable.

Ah, if only there were alternate universes! We could then put James in an AU where she never associated her novels with Twilight but submitted Ana and Christian directly to the erotica and/or mainstream markets. In a second AU, she could self-publish the not-Twilight-associated novels.

Then we could compare results in all three universes. Potentially fascinating.

Atlantis said:

I don't think Fifty Shades of Malfoy is plagiarism. The author clearly cites the original source at the top of the page. I think the author is actually making fun of James. They've taken her work, changed the names, and is calling it something different. It's basically what James did. Although James did not copy Twilight word for word.

This is poking fun at her nothing more. And if you clearly cite something how is it plagiarism? You are stating you did not write it.

At the same time though...stupid, stupid thing to do. They should just take it down.

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Stupid - and illegal.

And it's definitely plagarism. If I took Twilight and changed the names to Bill and Sue I wouldn't last a day putting it up on ff.net.

It's one thing if you want to play games with fanfic. Another with a novel that's been published by a major house and under copyright.

In theory legal action could be taken against the author for violation of James' copyright.

Not funny at all.

This is the sort of thing that lawyers *live* for.

Sheryl Nantus said:

Stupid - and illegal.

And it's definitely plagarism. If I took Twilight and changed the names to Bill and Sue I wouldn't last a day putting it up on ff.net.

It's one thing if you want to play games with fanfic. Another with a novel that's been published by a major house and under copyright.

In theory legal action could be taken against the author for violation of James' copyright.

Not funny at all.

This is the sort of thing that lawyers *live* for.

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Actually, since MoTU is 80% the same as 50 Shades, with the only changes being simple search/replace, the author simply has to say they're using MoTU as the source material. The publisher can't sue to protect fanfic of another publisher / author's property.

THAT's the stupid part in all of this. MoTU is still out there for free, non-actionable since you can't register a copyright for a derivative work of something already protected by copyright. YES, MoTU is James' intellectual property, but as fanfiction, she can't claim that an altered copy is costing her anything because you can't legally profit from fanfiction, so there's no income to protect.

INAL, but I can't see any lawyer touching this, much less living for a case like it.

If she'd actually done the work required to change it from fanfiction into something else, by altering the plot and adding / removing scenes, or even some basic editing, then the differences would be great enough to set the two pieces apart. As it is, all she can do is stew - assuming she even cares, which I doubt. The fanfic / spork isn't hurting her. I'm not even sure that 3 chapters is more than "fair use," as it's usually covered by the "look inside" feature on Amazon.

This is the writer's "disclaimer".

A/N: This story is the work of E.L James and her trilogy 50 Shades of Grey. I recently read the books and thought that the original characters would do so well as Dramione. So this is not my work I'm just admiring someone else's great idea and using Draco and Hermione instead. Characters are OCC and follow EWE and A/U.


Disclaimer: This is the work of E.L James and I'm just borrowing her plot and J.K Rowling's characters. I make no money off this nor do I intend to it just for entertainment purposes.

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It's not plagiarism, as they're not claiming ownership. It's a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the fanfic-turned-novel, acknowledging they're "out of character" and "alternate universe". (EWE = epilogue, what epilogue? for those of you not familiar with it; it's a Potter-specific designation.)

I still wouldn't wander into that minefield.

Neither would I.

At this point, though, I think it might be pretty risky for James to have any sort of fit over fanfic of her work.... I think that could easily be viewed as a special sort of hipocrisy.

If I were James, I would stay very far away from it... and if that writer tries to publish any form of it, let Rowling's lawyers deal with it.

Be right back... Gonna upload 50 Shades of Grey on fanfiction.net, but change the characters to Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Just for a little more originality, I might throw in a paragraph somewhere that says the corrupt government is watching them and several other couples have sex through hidden cameras, and whoever puts on the best performance, survives.

Don't think I'll actually show the evil, perverted government being evil. Just tell. Anyway, how does Grey Hungry 50 Gamers sound?


Or... I could just use Edward and Bella from Twilight. I mean, no one would expect the characters from 50 Shades of Grey to transform into Twilight characters. No one could see that com--

No... wait. That sounds like...

Oh, shi--!!

^ I lol'd. xD Maybe 50 Grey Hungry Gamers?

Anyway I find the hypocrisy of this whole ordeal laughable like someone stated. It's one thing to spoof and make fun of something that has success from being a fluke. But it's another to take that seriously, and threaten legal action against them (should she). I think she has no right to get upset over it.

Although this makes me wonder if that's all it takes anymore to be success in the world. To leech off of someone's success, garner a following, and then alter it to make it 'original'.

The sad part is, even without the fanfic background, it's a poorly written book. It reads more like a parody of a BDSM relationship, tbh. While even I can sort of understand the appeal of twilight, I don't get the appeal of this. Is it the "sexy" tampon scene or the "I was molested and turned into a dom" backstory?

Also, call the hunger games fanfic ripoff this -- Fifty Pangs of Hunger. Peeta is the sub, Katniss is the dom. And Peeta makes subs with bread, so you can have a lot of bad puns with that.