Grand Theft Boogeyman

I grew up in the poor part of town. Throughout my childhood, I had things stolen from me on a regular basis. Making things worse, I didn't have shit to begin with! The thieves were just as often family members and so-called friends as they were strangers. Unlike so many others who faced similar trials as a kid, I chose not follow them but to follow a lonely path of integrity. Because of this, I have a healthy dislike of thieves. I generally don't pity them; I despise them. You simply do not take what isn't yours to take. And especially when it's mine.

But what if what is stolen isn't anything physical? In this day and age, where the kids of the younger generations—and many of the old guard as well—too often feel like they're entitled to anything and everything, the tangibility of something seems to be the deciding factor between right and wrong. I think most people would agree that walking into the local record shop and pilfering a few CDs is flat out wrong, something they would never do. But how many of those same cats would download those very same albums illegally? Far too many to count. You can be sure of that.

So what about words and thoughts? Plagiarism is nothing new; it has no doubt been a reality since the day after the first bit of written language appeared on stone or in sand. It's wrong. We all know it. We wouldn't steal a book from a bookstore and insist we're entitled to it. But what about words in general? What about pixels and data, just more ones and zeros, like MP3s? With the advent of digital readers and e-zines, I'm afraid we'll be seeing a lot more plagiarism and word theft (hello, Google!), whether for pleasure or profit, in the coming months and years.

Case in point. The other day, we received a submission at Shock Totem HQ by one Richard Ridyard. Besides being a "writer," he's apparently a law student. (The comedy of which, if true, is delicious.) The story he submitted was entitled "Baboulas," the Greek word for the Bogeyman. John, one of my staff at Shock Totem, read the story first—and promptly blew a gasket. You see, John is a horror fan, as we all are at Shock Totem. You'd think a so-called writer of horror would understand that; would understand that we're fans of many horror authors, namely the biggest: Stephen King.

Here is the first paragraph from Mr. Ridyard's "Baboulas."

"I am here to tell you exactly what happened," the man in interview room B was saying. The man was Mark Baker from West Park Street. According to the history Inspector Wilson had gathered, he was twenty-nine years old, employed by a large recruitment firm, married, and the father of a four year old girl named Vicky, now deceased.

Now here's the first paragraph from Stephen King's "The Boogeyman."

"I came to you because I want to tell my story," the man on Dr. Harper's couch was saying. The man was Lester Billings from Waterbury, Connecticut. According to the history taken from Nurse Vickers, he was twenty-eight, employed by an industrial firm in New York, divorced, and the father of three children. All deceased.

I assume you can see the similarities. Now here's the last two lines from Ridyard's "story."

"So nice to see you again so soon, so nice," Baboulas whispered.

It held its [edited for spoilers] in one withered, shovel-claw hand.

And King's.

"So nice," the boogeyman said as it shambled out.

It still held its [edited for spoilers] in one rotted, spade-claw hand.

There's no need to post more. That's the two slices of bread from the sandwich that Mr. Ridyard stole from Stephen King, and it reeks of rotten meat. His "story" is basically a mish-mash of King's exact words in "The Boogeyman," and when it's not, the "author" simply says the exact same thing in different words.

We rejected Richard Ridyard, for a period of forever. I also notified Mr. King's assistant. Sadly, this isn't the first time Ridyard has stolen. An author by the name of Angel Zapata was recently surprised to find Ridyard had taken a line from one of his stories. A line isn't enough to call someone a plagiarizer, though. A string of words, especially a short string, is like a guitar riff, and countless guitarists worldwide could very well be jamming on that very same riff, thinking they're oh-so-clever and original. It happens. It's the nature of creating. But Zapata did his homework.

I'VE BEEN PLAGIARIZED...AND I'M NOT ALONE

I encourage everyone, readers and writers, to read that. Mr. Ridyard seems to have a little history in the business of plagiarism. And he's not just preying on the little fish; he stole from the biggest, most famous horror writer of all time, not to mention one of the greatest writers to ever live. But really this isn't about Stephen King. He's a big boy, no doubt one with the ability to command a team of assassins that can handle thieves like Ridyard with ease. But what about us, the up-and-comers, the little guys?

With this unavoidable rising of e-publishing—now a small wave, in time a tsunami—can we expect more of this sort of theft? Absolutely. And who's to stop it? Once those ones and zeros are out there in the cold wastelands of Cyberia, it's impossible to stop their spread. Authors, including the likes of King, who (hopefully) continue writing into the next decade and beyond will have to face digital theft of their work in one form or another, whether it be at the hands of a clown like Ridyard trying to pull one over on unsuspecting—and all too often, to be more accurate, uncaring—publications or the simple illegal downloading of their work for use in e-readers. And it's unstoppable.

I worked in and around the music industry for nearly half my life, and the publishing industry is nearly identical, only it's about ten years behind in evolution. The digital "revolution" that essentially ruined the music industry (to the delight of many) has jumped species and is now infecting the publishing industry. No, the physical book will not disappear in our lifetime (smack any moron that suggests it will, please), but the impending proliferation of illegal downloading of digital books/stories will severely impact the way things are handled in the years to come.

And sadly, people like Richard Ridyard will continue to suck the blood from honest, hard-working people, and they'll have an excited crowd behind him, shouting, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" It is the way of things to come. A grim outlook for sure, but it's better to be forewarned.

I don't have the answers, of course. I have ideas, but that's a blog for another day. In the meantime, stay honest. The Ridyards of the world be damned, especially Richard. If that's even his name.

UPDATE: Remember what I said about about those ones and zeros, and how quickly they spread and how unstoppable they are? Well, this whole little debacle is everywhere now. Seems that Ridyard has been a busy guy, and it's rightfully angered a lot of people. He even simultaneously submitted "Baboulas" to Theaker's Quarterly Fiction. Ballsy.

Good thing is, most of the e-zines that he's been accepted to seem to have taken down his work. Kudos to them for doing the right thing.