Tryst with a plagiarist

I felt obliged to create this article detailing a recent confrontation with plagiarism and actions I felt compelled to take to protect my writing and myself.

During the 2006-2010 period I was fairly active on a couple of poetry sites - the starlightcafe and poemhunter. Since then, I've posted very little poetry and my interests have pushed me in other directions. 

Just over a week ago, I received an email from poemhunter stating a user had sent me a message. I tend to ignore these, as they are usually spam, but something piqued my interest so I logged in to read it.

The message was from a user who kindly informed me that someone had started to post my poetry to hellopoetry and writerscafe, claiming the work as their own. I immediately followed the links and was met with a mixture of shock, anxiety and anger . Someone called Chris G. Vaillancourt had indeed stolen two pieces of my work. Someone had commented on one of the poems that it was stolen with a link to my original. I have no idea how they discovered this, but I presume they had suspicions about him, and so were checking any new work he posted. I am eternally grateful for the people who took their time to do this and track me down.

What made this betrayal worse, was that he had received extremely positive, glowing, excellent feedback on my poems. It's hard to describe how such theft hits you, I was surprised by the depth of my feelings. Here was a published poet with seemingly established circles of friends and reviewers, and I was someone who hadn't posted much since 2010 and my work was fairly obscure. 

I could barely focus at work that day, and spent a large part of my time trying to find ways of informing the admins of the sites in question about the plagiarised poems. I freelance, so my actions only effected my own pocket. 

I first created accounts on hellopoetry and writerscafe and immediately left comments on the poems in question, asking Chris to take down my poems and informing him that I'd reported him.

An admin at hellopoetry replied almost instantly and took the poems in question down. I'm unsure if Chris himself deleted the poems, or it they were removed by an admin at writerscafe, but I never received a response. Chris pretty much instantly deleted my comments and blocked me from viewing his writing. I was then messaged by a user (I think they might have been a moderator) who accused me of causing trouble.

Proof of the two poems he stole from me can be seen here:

Chris posted this in August

and here is my original from 2009:

http://www.thestarlitecafe.com/poems/105/poem_91104317.html

The second poem of mine he plagiarized was called 'Death is cold', which he renamed to 'Death Is Just Cold' and posted in July:

My original, which I posted in 2009 can be seen here:

http://www.thestarlitecafe.com/poems/105/poem_91119292.html

What made this one worse is that I wrote this poem after the death of a beloved family pet, and here I find someone stealing it and claiming ownership of it.

I was stumped as what to do now, from viewing Chris's profile whilst logged out, he seemed popular and had an extensive network of friends. Also, being contacted by one user already accusing me of trouble making, I was worried about getting banned from writerscafe before spreading knowledge of his deeds.

I'm fairly web savvy, so I decided to start a blog listing examples of Chris's plagiarism with irrefutable proof, in the hope that if people wouldn't believe my word, they could at least look at the evidence for themselves.

I started to look through Chris's earlier work, utilising a number of search engines to see if it had ever appeared elsewhere. What I discovered was pretty shocking. In the first 5 pages of his poetry collection, I found over 10 other plagiarised poems. I got a friend to post evidence of plagiarisation on two of these poems, but he instantly deleted the comments, then shortly deleted the poems, before blocking my friends account.

He seemed to discover my blog and started to delete all the poems I flagged up, I guess the weight of deleted poems became too much, as today he has closed his account. I presume this is an attempt to stop my looking into other poems in his collection, of which I'd barely scratched the surface.

The poems he plagiarized seemed to exist on obscure sites, and their authors had been inactive for many years - so I presume which is why he felt confident in getting away with his actions.

I'll next list other poems which I found had been copied:

Cold wall of real

Chris posted this poem in 2014, claiming he’d first published it in 2005:

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1386388/

But the exact same poem can be found here, published a year earlier:

http://sinatrainred.blogspot.de/2004/08/cold-wall-of-real.html

Parasite

Chris posted this poem in 2014, claiming he published it in a book in 2010:

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1389888/

cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZGytV2-Da3EJ:www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1389888/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Here is the original poem, posted by JadedxEvil in 2008

http://allpoetry.com/poem/4214425-Parasite-by-JadedxEvil

If this plagiarised work was indeed printed, this makes his actions even worse.

Coffee shop

Chris posted this poem in 2014:

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1396343/

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zl1ye77qN0gJ:www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1396343/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

but it was originally posted by Frederic Kolman in 2009 Titled “Marvelous at the Coffee Shop” here:

http://www.writingroom.com/viewwriting/frederic/Marvelous-at-the-Coffee-Shop

Thinking In Nostalgic Fashion

Chris posted this poem in 2014:

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1373144/

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uoizTQmM6hgJ:www.writerscafe.org/writing/sanctus/1373144/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

A lot of the prose was taken from this poem posted in 2007:

http://forums.plentyoffish.com/3898337datingPostpage25.aspx by LyricalMuse (near the bottom of the page)

Many more examples can be found here:

http://timdanes.tumblr.com/

I'm hoping the weight of evidence presented will allow other people to see exactly what Chris did, and will hopefully save other poets from the same fate.

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

I can tell you this is a sad tale. However it is also a cautionary one as we all know what it is to work so hard and get so little other than our fellows praise. But to take that from someone and claim it as your own is not in line with decent conduct. It is rude at best and theft at worst'.I cannot approve of this behavior but I can chose my friends and for who and what I will bleed.I am sorry this happened to you. We are all failed characters as are all men and women but we are supposed to be friends here.

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you for the kind words Tate. I have discovered a great community here, but I guess every site has a few bad apples. Hopefully people will wake up to their actions.

[Tate Morgan]

You are welcome you will find many here to be sympathetic to you. I am a firm believer that the world is full of good souls you just dont hear from them often as they go about their lives. But there are more good ones than the bad You just hear from the bad ones more often

[Arrinae]

Mr. Morgan, thank you for the R&R

[LL]

I agree with you Tate.

[Tate Morgan]

thank you levi

[Relic]

I blocked him a couple of years ago when he sent me a boatload of read requests. I noticed a lot of negative reviews from him in the past. It's amazing that all that time he never even had the credentials of a professional poet to say such things to people.

He mentioned that he had written for over 100 journals on his bio section. I would imagine that was fictitious. If not, I can imagine how much he must have stolen. Bernie Madoff comes to mind when I think about him now. I'm glad you wrote this and shared it with everyone. Anyone who does what he has done is a sick person.

This also goes to show how easy it is to rip off other peoples poems on the internet. It's a shame there isn't some kind of safeguard on this and other sites to prevent this kind of thing. Unfortunately, we all take a risk whenever we post anything.

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you for taking the time to comment Relic. I agree that a lot of poetry sites seem to be lacking in safeguards again plagiarism, but giving it some thought, it would be difficult to protect against. I'm guessing an automated feature which periodically checked a users works and flagged up potential matches could be a solution.

[Cory Barrett]

Thank you, for the effort that you have put into this. I would like to say i am shocked, or surprised, but i am not. Anything that we put out on the internet in written form, has the possibility to be stolen.

As for the perpetrator... may his pen run dry.

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you Cory, and I agree with your final sentiment :).

[Sami Khalil]

A great applause from me for posting this. I had a run in with him a year ago and I blocked him since. Glad I did. Now the truth is coming out like the sun. Bravo for the effort...:).....................

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you Sami :)

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome...:)........

[Einstein Noodle]

i heard about Chris G. Vaillancourt's propensity to be dishonest and blocked him about 2 or 3 weeks ago on the opinion of a very good friend .. i am so glad i did! your post here provides all the proof anyone might need to stop him from stealing parts of lives and hearts at will .. shame on him! thank you for posting this
E.

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you Einstein, your support means a lot :).

[Einstein Noodle]

i am so tempted to check to see if he stole any of my stuff .. but i have not the energy nor time to spend .. i am really glad that you have! it provides a firm reason to call him out .. i am sure he will leave the Cafe if he hasn't already ... i do intend to contact the admin. here as well .. i am really sorry he has put you and everyone through this ..
E.

[Zahra]

Good of you for being proactive in this matter. Anyone involved in such crime must be pointed out and condemned. Thank you for posting this. There still remains the question that how can we be sure that our work isn't being stolen while publishing on web.

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you Zahra. I've been thinking about the plagiarisation question, and whilst there are a couple of sites which claim to detect plagiarism, on testing, they don't seem great. I've been thinking of putting something together to flag up proven plagiarism in a central place.

[DJ]

Thanks for the heads up,my spider sense told me there was something snaky about this guy,but to have it confirmed is a bit shocking.
Silver lining is,your work was good enough to steal.
Too bad it had to happen that way.

[Christopher Withers]

I had that thought myself regarding being copied(!) Although I still see myself as having a long way to go and have many things to learn.

[Coyote Poetry]

I have asked permission to use other people poetry from the many sites I'm on. Some sites allow re-blog with full credit to writer. I have been re-blogged often. Brought new readers to me. I believe it is okay with permission and the web site of writer. All of us are here for networking, seeking improvement and having friends with the same goals. I have been copies. I don't get offended. Some words make us want to write and expand. I hope you asked why? I know my poetry are my babies too. Thank you for sharing the information.
Coyote

[Christopher Withers]

Hi Coyote, I'd be quite happy if an established poet wanted to use my work and gave full credit. I'd actually be quite chuffed! It was just the sneaky way it happened in this instance, and any attempt at communication was met with being blocked and my comments deleted.

[Coyote Poetry]

I agree. I had my war type poetry re-posted by request. People who do not use the Poets name and give proper credit is wrong. Here on the Cafe. We lost a few amazing poetry. I requested from parent to keep her words alive. I believe with credit given to writer. Good to keep the old Poets new and ancient alive. This is a good post.

[Avinash]

It is shocking to learn what you had to go through. I consider myself an amateur writer but still when I joined, I was contacted by someone called SquinkaPsyOps and it seemed she was pretty much interested in my work. However it soon appeared it was a fake profile after I found contradictory statements. Tough to remember lies I guess. That created a template for me and I often get into discussion and see whether a writer has distinct signature style to make sure that the person is genuine. Other cases I simply ignore or block. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[Christopher Withers]

Hi Avinash, thank you for taking the time to comment. It's a bit sad that we have to be so distrusting of other poets on sites like this. It should be about sharing, and commenting and improving our own work and style.

[Ashira Macy]

What a complete jackass! I had a weird feeling about him, he always left really generic reviews on everyone's work, and on a few poems he was really nasty. He insulted India as a country on a poem about India, by someone from India and made no apology. Still, I had no idea he was a plagiarist. That is such an awful thing to be. A thief of someone else's blood, sweat, and tears! I am glad he took his profile down, but we must all work to make sure that he doesn't do this again. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and giving credit to those deserving of it, I will continue the circulation.

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you for being so supportive Ashira. It's not particularly comfortable bringing up a subject like this to public scrutiny, I tend to hang around on the periphery. So comments such as yours mean a lot.

[Ashira Macy]

No one should have this happen to them, and it was brave of you to stand up to this b*****d.

[Arrinae]

Ashira thank you for the R&R

[Ashira Macy]

Absolutely. Everyone should kniw about this.

[AprilRN1210]

I am so glad you decided to post this. I think we all need to stick together and keep each other informed when crooked people like this lurk and prey on the ignorant.. It takes courage to stand up and speak out and I commend you for this.. As I told you before, I can only imagine what this feels like and am sorry that it happened to you.. This is something that shouldn't be tolerated under any circumstances and it is our job to look out for ourselves, but to have each other's back in times like these.. You have my respect and my support...

[Christopher Withers]

Thank you :). I tend not to be so driven, but the feelings this situation stirred pretty much compelled me to amass this evidence. I agree that we should look out for each other and each others writing and works.

[AprilRN1210]

you're welcome... I agree.. and I am glad that this has at least had that positive outcome.. it is nice to meet you again..