Yesterday one of my readers was kind enough to alert me to the fact that some little darling had been pinching translations from my site and posting them on AnimeLyrics as her own. AnimeLyrics were amazing about it and dealt with the problem right away, but I also found out that she had been submitting translations to my friend's website. I don't know if she has been submitting stuff to other websites, but just in case, I have decided to post the details, so that people know to be wary. Plus, I always enjoyed Cori's Shit List. :P

Disclaimer: "Plagiarism" refers to the act of taking somebody's work and passing it off as your own. Therefore, taking romaji or translations from my site or someone else's and not crediting me/them is plagiarism. There seems to be a number of people who argue that the lyrics belong to the artist and therefore people have the right to use romanisations and translations in any way they wish. To that I say a big fat bite me. The artist/songwriters do indeed write the lyrics, but they do not do the romanisation or translation work. Hence why sites like mine exist, and why I was getting requests on a daily basis before I retired. Romanising and translating songs to make them accessible to non-Japanese speakers takes a lot of time and work (case in point: my retirement from translating requests due to not having the time or the motivation anymore) and no two people romanise or translate in exactly the same way. I will not change my mind about this, so don't bother sending me pro-plagiarist rants as I will not reply, and will probably laugh at it with my friends.

With that out the way, I hereby present the first of what will hopefully not be many sticky-fingered friends. Everybody give a big hand for our first star...saka_xd!!!

Yesterday (16/4/08) I got an email from one of my readers saying she'd noticed that somebody on AnimeLyrics had ripped off my translation of Nagareboshi by Home Made Kazoku. I had a look and it was the same, word for word, apart from one word that Megchan had corrected a few months ago. I then had a look through "her" other translations, and discovered that she'd done the same thing to Yura Yura by Hearts Grow (she changed the title and switched the lines in the chorus, but other than that it was my translation word for word) and Hanabi by Ikimonogakari. I contacted AnimeLyrics and they were extremely helpful, and dealt with it right away (if you look, those lyrics are now credited to me.) But then Megchan noticed that this person had also submitted a translation to Oasis Heart's Do As Infinity fansite. The fact that she submitted translations to two sites that I know of, and the diversity between those two sites (major lyrics database and specialised fansite) makes me wonder if this person has been submitting lyrics to other sites too, so I have decided to post about her to warn other webmasters. Be wary of accepting translations from her, as they may not be hers.

Oh, and if any of you happen to be looking at another lyrics site and get a spooky sense of deja vu, let me know.