Beth Crowley

Brand new lyric video for my song “Reasons” based on @13reasonswhy! It is from Clay’s point of view of what he wishes he could say to Hannah. 

I tend to believe the best in people. Historically, I have always been a giver of the benefit of the doubt. This situation is no different.

I want to start by saying I have pretty thoroughly done my research on @cassandraclare’s literary past, all the way back to the plagiarism controversy in her Harry Potter fanfiction writing days. I have looked at the “evidence” of accusations of her cyberbullying others. I read through the complaint and exhibits that have been released regarding the latest lawsuit that has been brought against Cassie by author Sherrilyn Kenyon. I say all of this not to give myself a huge pat on the back or anything, but because I feel it is important to have all of the available facts before formulating opinions.

There is a lot of pretty visceral hate toward Cassie stemming from her alleged plagiarism of her Harry Potter fanfiction back in the early 2000′s and her subsequent handling of the situation. Facfiction is a confusing and murky realm of literature that I have never personally delved into. The whole premise is predicated on piggybacking off of other writers’ characters and stories, so by nature it falls into some pretty gray areas when it comes to plagiarism. Where Cassie got into a sticky situation is that she used direct lines, excerpts, passages, etc. from other books/movie/tv shows in her work and may not have been as clear as she should have been in her citations. She was essentially “punished” for this by the primary fanfiction site removing her writing and account. She probably didn’t handle the entire situation perfectly, as none of us tend to do when we come under fire like that. Mistakes were made, there were consequences. It was what it was. Moving on.

For some people, this alone has been the reason they have clung to for hating Cassie for more than 10 years. For others, they claim that she has a past of “bullying” people who say things against her online. There are all kinds of stories ranging from her tracking down people’s phone numbers to call them and tell them to stop to trying to have someone kicked out of college. From what I have seen, the only substantiated rumor- that is, one that has documented proof- is that she has “bullied” people on Twitter. The evidence presented for that is screenshots of the conversations, which consisted of several people bombarding her with complaints and her responding in defense of her books and the way she chose to end them. She didn’t do it in a belittling or mean way. She did what all of us do when someone criticizes something that we hold important- got defensive. Should she have just ignored them and not engaged in the conversation in the first place? Maybe. There have been dozens of times where I have gotten hateful comments on one of my videos and type out a reply before I think better of it and ignore it. But a person can only take so much, especially when attacks get personal.

So as far as I can tell, these are the main reasons behind the group of people who dislike Cassie. Obviously there are people who just flat-out dislike her books, but the normal response to this is to just, like, not read them and move on with your life. What I find to be unbelievably sad is how many posts and comments I have seen from people that openly talk about how much they hate her and want her to fail. What a terrible way to be towards another person. I have plenty of people that I know personally or that are some type of celebrity that I don’t care for, but that doesn’t mean I wish them ill-will, and that CERTAINLY doesn’t mean that I feel the need to post in a public forum that I want horrible things to happen to them.

Which brings us to the present-day controversy, that author Sherrilyn Kenyon is currently suing Cassie for trademark infringement of her series, Dark-Hunters. One exhibit in particular shows a side-by-side comparison of characters and scenes in Dark-Hunters and The Mortal Instruments. Accusations range from both series having a psychic that lives next door and holds vital information for the main characters to both series having a character that is “tall and handsome.” But in a lot of instances, the descriptions of Cassie’s characters are just inaccurate, which doesn’t help the credibility of Kenyon’s case. 

There does seem to be some credence in the comparisons as a whole, but you have to take a broader look at the common tropes of literature in general. Even JK Rowling has had her Harry Potter series compared with Lord of the Rings (Gandolph = Dumbledore?). The fact of the matter is that no one is reinventing the wheel at this point. The story line of a young person finding out about a secret world and their special powers has been done time and time again. Additionally, many fantasy/sci-fi novels draw from the same folklore and mythology, thus adding to similarities you see between different series. Even further, many popular books (in addition to movies and tv shows) are re-tellings of fairytales and myths. This is the reason that general ideas can’t be copyrighted- if they could, millions of books would have never seen the light of day. It’s all about the the author’s interpretation of the story idea that inevitably has probably been done already. 

Take a look at other art forms. What if a painter said one day, “I have painted a purple daisy, and therefore no one else may paint a purple daisy lest they infringe on my idea?” If you put 1,000 people in a room together and told them to paint a purple daisy, no two paintings would look alike. What about music? If the first person to ever write a song about having their heart broken trademarked it so that no one else could use the same idea, music would have died years ago. But we don’t mind listening to song after song about heartbreak because each one has a unique way of conveying that concept.

People are inevitably going to be influenced by others when they create art, whether it’s visual art, music, or writing. You can’t just file away everything you read, see, or listen to into a compartment where it won’t have any bearing on your own creative work. I have gotten halfway through writing a song only to realize that the melody was the same as a song I had heard recently on the radio. It was totally unintentional- it was just rolling around in my subconscious and I didn’t immediately recognize it. There is a Latin quote, “nihil sub sole novum,” that translates to “there is nothing new under the sun.” You will always be able to find parallels in different works of art if you really set out to.

All of this is my long-winded way of saying I choose to support Cassie until something proves me wrong. She is the only one that knows the truth of what was in her head and heart when she created her books. And if there is e-mail proof that Cassie entered into an agreement that the term “Shadowhunter” would not be printed or used in associated with the TMI series marketing as Kenyon claims, it will come to light. But even in that circumstance, the fault wouldn’t lie with Cassie alone- the publishing company and whoever else handles that part of the business would also be culpable.

My experience with Cassie over the last three years is that she has been kind and supportive of me both as a fan and as a musician. She had no obligation to share “Warrior” with her fans, or to continue to retweet and reblog my subsequent songs based on her books. On the flip side, I suppose she could have had the opposite reaction because “Warrior,” like so many of my other songs, is openly based on a book. She could have told me that I was infringing on her trademark by saying in the YouTube video title that it was based on The Mortal Instruments. But she didn’t, because I truly think she values fan art and her fans.