- Joined
- Jan 17, 2013
- Messages
- 8,555
- Reaction score
- 8,433
- Location
- The Seattle suburbs
- Website
- www.reneedominick.com
It's the newest Romancelandia explosion, it involves rampant plagiarism, and it's freakin' BANANAS.
"Author" Cristiane Serruya has been caught out lifting full passages from other authors and smushing them together to make her own books. "She" (I'm not convinced this isn't a ring of people, not a solo scammer) has had the incredible BAD SENSE to filch from Romance's stars. Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare, and a queen of the genre, Loretta Chase, among many, many others. Last count was up around 24. (She has also lifted recipes from two sources, which amuses me no end. She didn't even change the note at the beginnings of the recipes, lol.)
Beyond the plagiarism is the brass balls of this person. She entered her book in the RITA contest, where the people who she stole from are potential judges. She did the same last year.
And apparently, someone on Twitter discovered she sent DCMA notices to the actual authors whose work she stole. O_O
Anyway, it's been going on less than 24 hours and hoo-boy is it one wild roller-coaster ride. Say bye-bye Cristiane Serruya. (I'm sure she'll be a different name doing the same next week.)
One of these days we should talk about Amazon enabling this crap (and taking their cut of sales of plagiarized material) for all these years.
Links:
Milan's original blog post
Milan's follow-up post about what to do if you're an affected author
Kayleigh Donaldson's overview on Pajiba
Comment on Milan's blog from a ghostwriter who worked with her previously
"Author" Cristiane Serruya has been caught out lifting full passages from other authors and smushing them together to make her own books. "She" (I'm not convinced this isn't a ring of people, not a solo scammer) has had the incredible BAD SENSE to filch from Romance's stars. Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare, and a queen of the genre, Loretta Chase, among many, many others. Last count was up around 24. (She has also lifted recipes from two sources, which amuses me no end. She didn't even change the note at the beginnings of the recipes, lol.)
Beyond the plagiarism is the brass balls of this person. She entered her book in the RITA contest, where the people who she stole from are potential judges. She did the same last year.
And apparently, someone on Twitter discovered she sent DCMA notices to the actual authors whose work she stole. O_O
Anyway, it's been going on less than 24 hours and hoo-boy is it one wild roller-coaster ride. Say bye-bye Cristiane Serruya. (I'm sure she'll be a different name doing the same next week.)
One of these days we should talk about Amazon enabling this crap (and taking their cut of sales of plagiarized material) for all these years.
Links:
Milan's original blog post
Milan's follow-up post about what to do if you're an affected author
Kayleigh Donaldson's overview on Pajiba
Comment on Milan's blog from a ghostwriter who worked with her previously
Last edited: