Come at me!

Comments

I think I might like to read that story.

--AMA

posted by AMA on December 3, 2005 at 07:17 PM

WHERE TO BEGIN!? Ok, first of all, I love the casual mention of her controlling interest in her grandmother's company, but she's not CEO. And then there was a house in Hawaii. And then there was the whole fucking thing.

And AMA, if she lets you read those stories, you're in like Flynn.

posted by elb on December 3, 2005 at 08:13 PM

How does she manage with your picture entries? PLEASE tell me she re-enacts your life and takes photos. Now THAT would be stalking above and beyond.

posted by jac on December 3, 2005 at 08:24 PM

Um, that's fucked up.

posted by Em on December 3, 2005 at 08:46 PM

Maybe you should think of it more as a remix. And her as an up-and-coming DJ. And....never mind

posted by feaverish on December 3, 2005 at 09:30 PM

Jasmine Electra DuPont, I've spent all of these long lonely years longing for you, lonelyishly longing for the little bit of heaven we had in our short time together. All of those other ship's captain's daughters meant nothing to me... it was you, always you. I'm especially grateful for your kindness and understanding and tolerance when I agreed to act out your 'pirate and slave girl' fantasy only if I was allowed to be the slave girl. DAMN you were a hot pirate.

Anyway, off to work on my pecs,

CB
xoxoxo

posted by Christian Bale on December 3, 2005 at 09:56 PM

http://schmutzie.blogspot.com/2005/12/391-fiery-one-has-been-plagiarized.html

She's been stealing from all over the internets, it appears.

posted by .a. on December 3, 2005 at 10:42 PM

it would be weird enough if she was ripping off a witty phrase here and there, but to take your posts word for fucking word? talk about psychotic.

posted by lauren on December 3, 2005 at 10:44 PM

"graded on the internet." See, this is why people steal! Stop being so damn clever.


Anyway, she totally wrangled an A in Internet. But I bet she landed somewhere around D- in "Real Life, Baby."

posted by ben on December 4, 2005 at 12:14 AM

Actually, I'm pretty sure someone else said the "graded on the internet" thing to me once, but I can't remember who it was. Whoever it was, I promise to give you one of my wealthy grandmother's summer homes.

posted by Sarah on December 4, 2005 at 12:18 AM

Good God, that's really kind of pathetic. I don't get this at all.

And I don't think you were lame at age 12. Fan fiction can be fun and interesting. Stealing, however, is not.

Bad Lizzie! Bad!

posted by DM on December 4, 2005 at 12:57 AM

is there anything one can do about it, other than be horrified and repulsed? (and maybe update the copyright date on the site, although i don't know if that really makes a difference).

have you heard about "the bear bryant funeral train"? presumably, this "lizie" also is a little confused about "fair use" and what an "homage" looks like; also, she may not understand that she will not be able to get really great prices for her plagiarism down the road, as web sites cannot be pulped.

although it would be neat if they could be.

posted by anne on December 4, 2005 at 01:04 AM

Past Imperfect, eh?

The ironing is delicious.

posted by brian on December 4, 2005 at 02:10 AM

Ten bucks says she's a guy.

posted by Barrett on December 4, 2005 at 03:24 AM

I was going to mention Palinode's simiIar story with this same person, but see it's aIready been covered above in the Iink to Schmutzie's site. Can we aII comment-bomb her/him?

posted by Belinda on December 4, 2005 at 04:44 AM

i especially loved the comment on "lizzie's" blog where someone said they'd have to start stealing her work, "properly attributed of course."

posted by matt on December 4, 2005 at 01:05 PM

If it's any consolation, I think she wrote her own comments...y'know, the ones that praise her & her (totally fake) boyfriend so highly. So at least she writes totally killer fake letters to herself.

posted by Chad's Favorite Bridesmaid on December 4, 2005 at 02:01 PM

i don't know why, maybe it was the length of this entry, but something tells me you actually like that this has happened.

posted by hubs on December 4, 2005 at 03:11 PM

No, I do not. I tried to be funny here, but it made me really angry and uncomfortable.

posted by Sarah on December 4, 2005 at 03:21 PM

she took the caulk post from here: http://www.sparkler.diary-x.com/journal.cgi?entry=20051031

that is just too bizarre.

posted by denise on December 4, 2005 at 04:22 PM

Ooh, September 9th! Two of the five things that don't impress her: lying and cheating.

posted by lauren on December 4, 2005 at 07:30 PM

I also think it's a dirty old man who just wants to get more people to visit his site and open the ads to make $.

posted by liz on December 4, 2005 at 07:41 PM

What liz and Barrett said: the first thing I thought was "And that girl in the 'this is me' photo should get royalties for all the creeps who are going to jack off to her after following the links from whatever creepy pr0n site hired this guy to hijack all this content."

[Jasmine Electra DuPont! That's so next year's Halloween costume.]

posted by Jessica on December 4, 2005 at 09:28 PM

Just recently I remember how mad I got when I read a postcard on Post a Secret that read, "I steal from other people's blogs and post them as my own" and how much *a simple card* admitting this kind of thing could make me so angry. And nobody's plagarizing me. And to me, it sounded as if they were proud of this and that's what also really got me.

I remember when heather of dooce got plagarized, and they told her to take it down/else legal action and she did but not before snotting back in an e-mail something like, "fine, what-ever. you must have a lot of time on your hands if you found this." people are f*cking clueless. Hope she is made to take it down.

Feel for ya. To my mind, probably the worst thing someone can do to a writer.

posted by JenfromBoston on December 4, 2005 at 09:29 PM

I've had my professional information site ripped off twice, and it really bothered me. I worked hard to write all that stuff and someone STOLE it.

Must be even more invasive when it's your personal life.

I hope shaming by the community makes her take it down.

posted by Avi on December 4, 2005 at 09:58 PM

Oh, blech. What is wrong with people? Why won't internet plagiarism not die? I understand the brief thrill of having people send you praise and adoration, but I can't imagine it wouldn't be completely hollow due to the fact that you know it's not actually directed at *you*.

Also, the fact that the diary site she's hosted at claims to be the "oldest and original," when I've never even heard of it, is kind of amusing.

posted by sophia on December 4, 2005 at 10:03 PM

It really is so creepy.

Even more creepy is how I'm going to twist this around to be about me.

I spent one entire summer rewriting the Outsiders to include me as a character. I was Ponyboy's fraternal twin!

But at least I didn't try to publish the story on the internet and claim it was my original idea....well at least not yet.

posted by MelissaS on December 4, 2005 at 11:34 PM

Seriously, can we DO something about creepy stalker-fakelife-probablyanoldguy-girl?

posted by Farrell on December 5, 2005 at 10:30 AM

I think she does it for all the positive comments she gets. In an world with annonimity like the internet, she can pretend she's someone else for a while. The positive commentary gives her ego a much needed stroke.

I'm not saying it's right, by any stretch... I'm just saying I think I understand her.

On the bright side, all those ego stroking comments are actualy for you.

posted by buick on December 5, 2005 at 11:39 AM

Ew, I feel dirty just looking at her site. I'm so voting her off the Internet.

posted by leigh on December 5, 2005 at 11:44 AM

This is SO DISTURBING. Should we send her the number of a good therapist? (Or even a mediocre therapist?)

What's more disturbing is that for HALF A SECOND, I thought "oh my god, what if the plagiarizer is me?" I actually became worried that I may have plagiarized you INADVERTENTLY. Like, in my sleep or something.

posted by Nothing But Bonfires on December 5, 2005 at 01:13 PM

First of all, how do ppl figure out that they're being ripped off? I've read a couple of other sites where this has happened and it totally freaks me out.

Second of all, in that post you linked to Sarah, she evidently has trouble with more than just names and fonts. Observe the following statement:
"wearing two jelly bracelets twisted a la Ricky Schroeder circa 1985"

If you're under 20, unless you have an older sibling, there is a strong likelihood you have no idea who Ricky Schroeder is. Even less likely, that you'd quote a "circa" date that is one year prior to your own birth. This girl is 19. Or so she claims.

I should be a lawyer.

Altho the public commentary on her site is no doubt the best way to give her the scarlett A of shame, I think you have to be an Open Diary member to do that...Doesn't say anything about her email address that's published tho: LizzieIsResplendent@yahoo.com.

Spam that bitch on Sarah B's behalf!!!

posted by Forest on December 5, 2005 at 02:28 PM

Time to get a Creative Commons License, eh, SB?

Unfortunate as this is, I think you should remember that imitation is the highest form of flattery! :-)

Although...imitation and stealing are quite different.

posted by Sara on December 5, 2005 at 02:46 PM

1 - i love your blog
2 - blog thieves suck
3 - i love your blog

there was a blog featured on msn spaces about a young man who became a paraplegic through a skiing accident and it became really popular. randomly, i came across a different blog with half of the first guy's blog posted as his own, but in spanish. when i emailed him about it, he first denied it, then came clean but with the snide comment of 'how do you know if he's REALLY paralyzed?!?' it was so random and evil. i hope this lizzie chick gets what's coming to her.

again, love the blog.

posted by esther on December 5, 2005 at 05:00 PM

She has stolen from me, too, Sarah. What can we do? I want revenge!

Well, not really. But s/he must be stopped!

posted by Bre on December 5, 2005 at 05:30 PM

Woah, let's back up to MelissaS. Now, if you're Ponyboy's fraternal twin, how can you make out with him and stroke his tuff-tuff hair?

posted by Erin Lady Byrne on December 5, 2005 at 05:39 PM

If you guys are really serious about "stopping" her, go to her site and in the top right hand corner, the Open Diary menu, there is a link that says "Rules." Read the rules first, especially the one about how they monitor sites and will remove any material that is copyrighted. Then go back to the same menu and report that bitch for a rules violation. Get her ass kicked off the Internet.

I've already reported her.

posted by Brittanie on December 5, 2005 at 07:30 PM

elb,
I thought that too, about Melissa and Ponyboy as fraternal twins, but then I figured she was more of a Ralph Macchio kind of gal. I can't remember, what was his name in the movie?

posted by nancy on December 5, 2005 at 09:47 PM

People are liars... just dirty dirty liars. And the internet seems to breed them like hamsters.

posted by Ryan on December 5, 2005 at 10:10 PM

I've seen the diary you're talking about. I went back and googled a few lines from some random posts. Wow. If this girl didn't have your blog to mine for posts, she wouldn't have anything to write about. Talk about a loser. I've found at least five or six different blogs she's plagarized from. That's probably just the tip of the iceberg. How sad and pathetic.

posted by Ananke on December 5, 2005 at 10:15 PM

She/he/it stole a piece of mine about buying sexy underwear. I feel a wee bit dirty, somehow.

posted by Eurotrash on December 5, 2005 at 10:20 PM

I feel like this is all just some vain effort to land some guy she met on Myspace or something. Maybe pointed him to her "blog" and thought your life was way more interesting than hers (and it is, apparently) so she cut and pasted. Super fucking lame!

Also, I love that her interests include "cuddling" and "Beetlejuice".

posted by Millie on December 5, 2005 at 11:50 PM

Sweet Italian Jesus! Did you see the post where she refers to The Taint Upstairs? That was some good shit, and she straight up passed that off as one of her lame friends' own inventions. That officially hits my own Disgusted button.

posted by Zeke on December 6, 2005 at 01:17 AM


Guh. That was my actual verbal (sort of) reaction to this mess. What a twit.

Mayeb you should write something about how much you love to steal from other peoples' writings. Then when she copies it..word for freakin word..voila!

Good luck with this poser.

posted by Contary on December 6, 2005 at 09:13 AM

Guh. That was my actual verbal (sort of) reaction to this mess. What a twit.

Mayeb you should write something about how much you love to steal from other peoples' writings. Then when she copies it..word for freakin word..voila!

Good luck with this poser.

posted by cambot on December 7, 2005 at 01:14 AM

before i secretly switched domains a few years ago (for the following reason), my little sister used to steal posts from my blog and use them in her crappy livejournal. however, even though she was only 10, she still had the decency to use her own words.

and i thought *that* was completely obnoxious.

posted by sarah on December 7, 2005 at 02:53 AM

I reported her for plagiarism. Let's hope they get off their asses and delete her diary soon.

posted by Nomie on December 7, 2005 at 08:50 AM

Nancy: Ralph Macchio's name was Johnny.

It was great because he was the only one with aa ordinary name: Sodapop, Ponyboy, Darry, Dally, Two-Bit, and....Johnny.

posted by Brenda on December 7, 2005 at 09:29 AM

Woah, first of all "The Taint Upstairs" is MINE! Has she stolen from me too and I just don't know it? Ugh, I have some research to do.

And yes, merhaps MelissaS is staying gold for Johnny. DO IT FOR JOHNNY!!!

posted by Erin Lady Byrne on December 7, 2005 at 12:52 PM

Well, SB mentioned "the taint upstairs" here once (though I believe you were credited), so she probably DID steal from you via Sarah. It's all so complicated!

posted by Em on December 7, 2005 at 01:22 PM

Also, the part where she steals your text messages and then MAKES UP REASONS about who sent "her" what they did was REALLY over the top.

posted by Em on December 7, 2005 at 01:26 PM

ELB, I was under the assumption that "the taint upstairs" was your husband's, and accredited it to him in a post, which she stole.

posted by Sarah on December 7, 2005 at 02:33 PM

Email just sent to 'lizzie':
"Plagiarism is the lowest form of thievery. Taking someone else's word s and making them your own is pathetic. You are a sad sad person who deserves nothing less than ridicule and finger pointing.

There is a group of us making a website through secure measures that will demolish any small amount of integrity that you have left.

Look forward to public humiliation..."

posted by long time fan on December 7, 2005 at 03:24 PM

wow. i just spent a few minutes looking through past entries and it looks like EVERY WORD was ripped off from someone. wow. however, the most mind-blowing part of it all is the FAKING A DOG thing. jeez criminy.

posted by april on December 7, 2005 at 06:11 PM

As sick and sadly motivated as this is, she (the mega plagarizer) may have accidently invented a new art form: life story mash-up or blog mash-up? I'll let someone else coin the slick descriptive term, but I think you catch my drift. It would only be cool if it all began with a disclaimer: I have stolen from the following brilliant people to mix there stuff together and se what kind of wacky new thing would result. With out that she's routed herself straight to the "lower than satan's toe jam" list.

posted by Jeanne on December 7, 2005 at 11:34 PM

Thanks for letting me know about this - the offending diary has been removed from Open Diary. We absolutely detest plagiarism of this sort, and are more than happy to delete the accounts of people who engage in it. Sorry that it took a couple of days, but we have to check these things out thoroughly before we delete something like this. If it happens again, please let us know.

posted by The DiaryMaster on December 8, 2005 at 02:38 AM

SISTER. Stop ripping off my girl Lizzie's blog yo. Your cool and witty and all, but plagiarizing the work of a brilliantly disturbed mind such as my homegirl Liz just for an ego boost is criminal, ya dig. I've spoken with Pam and Dale about this and we've decided we don't like you anymore. And that you smell. Please don't come home for Christmas. Also, please refer to me only as DiaryMaster in all situations from now on. Thank you.

posted by Steve Brown on December 8, 2005 at 03:41 AM

Hey Sarah B -- I was googling this Lizzie creature since OpenDiary has taken her site down, and in doing so I think I might have inadvertently stumbled across *another* plagerizerererer of your wit. Check it out:

Your entry: http://queserasera.blogspot.com/2003_01_01_queserasera_archive.html (most of the way down the page, entitled "Rainy Day Women")

Her "entry": http://www.spunkygirlstudios.com/musings/012603.html

My favorite part is the self-righteous "Please don't steal. (C) Misty Bell 2002."

You're not keeping two identical journals, one under the name of Misty Bell, are you? Perchance?

posted by Corina on December 8, 2005 at 08:19 AM

And, as is always the case, you're not the only source:

Original: http://www.harpold.com/500/paddock/00000014.html
Copy: http://www.spunkygirlstudios.com/musings/080503.html

Convenient how "Misty" doesn't have an e-mail address linked to her site, hm?

posted by Corina on December 8, 2005 at 08:35 AM

Growing up in San Diego, everyone had to have Guess jeans, so I begged and pleaded with my mom and after months of saying no, she finally bought me some. In Tijuana.

posted by EV on December 8, 2005 at 11:25 AM

Ev,

I too grew up in San Diego. But I was NEVER allowed the coveted guess jeans. You know with the acid wash? So I saw a pair in a thrift store about 4 years ago and I bought them. For a dollar. The label is now in my jewelry box to remind me to give my kids whatever they think will make them popular.

M.

posted by Chelle in San Diego on December 8, 2005 at 12:24 PM

Just promise us you'll still write clever stuff worthy of stealing, okay? If you stop doing that, then the terrorists really have won.

posted by Stephen on December 8, 2005 at 06:50 PM

Avatar ( http://offkilter.blogspot.com/ ) suffered plagarism of her entire site -- layout, background, links, content -- the whole damn thing. I got to see the copycat site before Avatar changed the link for the background... and after... quite amusing. How sad it must be to have so much time to devote to such a worthless project, and so little life to fill the time...

posted by sleepwalker on December 9, 2005 at 05:23 AM

I think we're getting off topic here, which is: Are we (the readers) ever going to see the Christian Bale "Treasure Island" story, are you going to read it at Cringe sometime, or have you submitted it to his (CB's) agent to see if he'd be interested in shooting it (provided you are cast as the leading lady, of course)?

posted by Michael on December 9, 2005 at 12:14 PM

Congratulations on getting OpenDiary to cooperate. I've been struggling with them for months as you can see here: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/?p=72

I'd love to hear your solution to the matters as I've had absolutely no luck with them. This is definitely something that I'd need to include on my site...

Thank you for your help and congrats on the victory. If you don't want to post about it in your blog, you can always email me. I'd greatly appreciate knowing how it was done.

posted by Jonathan on December 10, 2005 at 07:04 PM

Pictures of your DOG?!!!

posted by paul on December 11, 2005 at 04:42 AM

This may be the wrong entry to announce this on, but.... what the hey.

I found you through a simply delightfully evil entry of yours from 2002 on the topic of blow dryer warning labels. I posted an odd little quiz about that very subject today, and while there were no Google images of the dreaded warning returned, your entry was. It was sufficiently ill for me to quote and to add you to my sidebar (aka the "OMGWTFLMNOP all the good writers aren't on Livejournal!" section). All undoable should you object; feel free to sidebar back or whatever this thing would call it.

posted by Ray on December 11, 2005 at 04:21 PM

It appears that they've finally taken her page down. Just to let you know.

posted by rebecca on December 11, 2005 at 05:30 PM

i've not had content stolen, but my layout and certain regular features have been copied. i don't really have a kickass complex design or anything, and the code is a horrible mesh of css with tables... but it is specific to me and i've had it that way for a long time because it feels right. i dislike to see it duplicated, and hope that my lack of posting as of late will inspire the copycat to find something better elswhere...

posted by c on December 12, 2005 at 05:59 AM

This same thing happened to me over the summer. Someone emailed me to let me know that I (along with she and several other people) had been plagiarized by some pathetic chick who basically tried to cobble together a life out of other people's blog posts. She stole one chick's entire blog template, all of her images, and even included all of the links in her blogroll. The stuff she ripped off from me was just effin' pathetic, taken out of context as they were...one was about nervously clicking around on a bunch of different political blogs back on Black Tuesday 2004 and the other was about me coming back to NYC after having been in SF and I couldn't get my city sidewalk rhythm right and was running into people.

The whole thing was disturbing and made me murderously angry.

At least you got your pathetic thief yanked off the Internets. Blogger shrugged its shoulders and said, too bad for you.

posted by dot on December 12, 2005 at 01:43 PM

As a journalism major, plagiarism is the most vile act of theft I can imagine. Plagiarizing non-fiction, even worse.

Here's to "what comes around goes around." And hopefully being documented just onece...by the original author. Hmmmm...Memoirs of a non-plagiarizer anyone?

Great site...I'll be back.

Ciao,

Teri

www.herestohappywomen.blogspot.com

posted by Teri on December 13, 2005 at 12:07 PM

omg, you are so frickin funny. You should read some of your pirate story at cringe! hahah

please write a book - i would so totally buy it!

posted by elise on December 14, 2005 at 05:27 AM

heh. you know that i feel your pain.

the part that confuses is me is why would someone WANT to lead my life. i'm mostly just a miserable arrogant bastard with really bad grammar.

stealing from you, on the other hand, i can almost understand.

posted by the mighty jimbo on December 14, 2005 at 09:10 AM

people are strange...stragers are stranger!

posted by steve on December 15, 2005 at 04:30 PM

Just a thought - could it be that she's not merely "fucked up" but indeed legitimately mentally ill? The stealing pictures of someone else's pet sounds particularly like Borderline Personality Disorder, which is characterized by instability in identity and self-image.

posted by Laura on December 17, 2005 at 12:07 PM

Valid.
It does sound rather ill in general.

In a world where no-one actually knows who you are (a.k.a the internet) who would steal other people lives to make themselves look cooler??

It makes no diference to your life, none at all.

Ah, well

Also, sara - you rule, and without your blog I'd have left my job ages ago, because it would be so boring

posted by Pixie on March 13, 2006 at 11:21 AM

This mind-boggling blog-blagging is beyond me

posted by some random on March 13, 2006 at 11:22 AM