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Pocketbook duplication

Soronel 🚫

Has anyone else noticed that certain pocketbook chapters are near duplicates?

For example, the sex in chapter 32 of DOM's Prurient Parishioners and Chapter 3 of Judd Michael's Virgin Captives have significant textual overlap. To the point that in Parishioners the author didn't even always bother fixing the surface the scene plays out on (it's specified to be in a living room but sometimes the surface is carpet while other times it's linoleum), Virgin Captives is in a kitchen so linoleum would make sense there.

Not claiming the author did anything hinky copyright-wise (I suspect it was different pen names), just find it somewhat curious.

This is not the only example I could point to with significant word-for-word duplication.

Replies: Mushroom Soronel Radagast Radagast

Mushroom 🚫

@Soronel

For example, the sex in chapter 32 of DOM's Prurient Parishioners and Chapter 3 of Judd Michael's Virgin Captives have significant textual overlap. To the point that in Parishioners the author didn't even always bother fixing the surface the scene plays out on (it's specified to be in a living room but sometimes the surface is carpet while other times it's linoleum), Virgin Captives is in a kitchen so linoleum would make sense there.

Not claiming the author did anything hinky copyright-wise (I suspect it was different pen names), just find it somewhat curious.

In reality, there are only around a dozen or so authors for most of those. They were mostly written from the 1960's and 1970's, and were just given new titles and reprinted over and over again until the 1990s.

They were really poorly written, but if one enjoyed the written word back then, your choice was really that, the short letters in some magazines, or westerns like Lone Star and Longarm. And it was always interesting reading one with a copyright date of 1982, and it is talking about hippies and "flower children".

And in looking, DOM wrote in here from 2001-2009, so it is very possible he did a lot of cut and pasting. That kind of thing was much more common a decade ago than it is today.

Soronel 🚫

@Soronel

DOM's stories at least have to be set later than the early 90s, some of the kids in that story have networked computers. A kid is looking at porn (photos, not video).

I could easily believe that a different pair of stories I'm thinking of are from the 60s, there are significant racial issues in both. And it's not a matter of simply changing names and slapping on a new cover. The basic plots are very similar, and like I say there is significant word-for-word repetition, but there are also major differences as well (for example, one has a political office kingmaker subplot that is completely missing from the other).

Replies: Mushroom

Mushroom 🚫

@Soronel

DOM's stories at least have to be set later than the early 90s, some of the kids in that story have networked computers. A kid is looking at porn (photos, not video).

DOM wrote much later.

However, in the 1990s and early 2000s, as I said it was very common for authors to plagiarize the hell out of each other. One would find a story, then simply make some changes then post it under their own name. This happened a lot on the old ASSTR UseNet group. As well as many of the early "story sites".

But the fact it has networks and porn photos could make it the early to mid 1980's also. In one of my stories I write quite a bit about the computer technology available in the 1980's, and many do not realize how old some of it was. The first big Peer to Peer networking solution was likely Netware 86, which came out in 1983. And AppleTalk was built into the Mac from day 1. And the Atari ST line could run a LAN through their MIDI ports.

But even before Netware 86, there was Xenix. Pretty much the "First Linux", it brought Unix capabilities and networking to the PC in 1980. It was so robust, Microsoft was still using it to host all of their Internet servers until the early 2000's when they finally transitioned to the NT platform.

If I was to guess, DOM likely just downloaded that story, then edited the hell out of it and slapped his name on it. As I said, not all that unusual back then. There are more than a few stories like that in here. More than once I would laugh when I read one, only to realize it was just a slight variant on a story I had read a decade or more before.

Replies: Dicrostonyx Soronel

Dicrostonyx 🚫

@Mushroom

I said it was very common for authors to plagiarize the hell out of each other

Not only common, but explicitly allowed. Many of the older websites (and BBSes before them) had rules with some variation of "by posting here you give permission for other authors to rework your content".

I know that the Mr. Double site had a rule like this and it was common for "authors" to take a story they liked and make minor tweaks like changing the character names or bust sizes.

Soronel 🚫

@Mushroom

Note that the DOM stories I'm particularly talking about (the follow-ons to Prurient Parishioners) specifically say "internet", but also I thought the "bknk" code generally indicated that the poster is not claiming to be the actual author, in which case it doesn't matter when DOM posted the stories to SOL.

Radagast 🚫

@Soronel

Chris Offut wrote over 400 porn novels, which suggests much of the output of smut during the 70s and 80s was the work of one man. He probably repeated himself a few times.

Replies: Franco

Franco 🚫
Updated:

@Radagast

I believe that was the father, Andrew J. Offutt, who also wrote a lot of fantasy and some sf. The son, Chris Offutt, is also an author and wrote "My Father the Pornographer." There are other children, but I think Chris is the only author. Andrew said his Spaceways series (pornographic sf) put his kids through college. Here is the wiki page for Andrew J. Offutt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._Offutt

Radagast 🚫

@Soronel

Thanks.

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Pocketbook duplication

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