Author and ‘Ninja-friend Susannah Breslin writes about her experience of being plagiarized, most recently finding her short story for sale on iTunes by someone else. And at 99c.

This wasn’t the first time my fiction has been plagiarized or stolen. Two years ago, a young woman lifted another short story of mine, “She Is a Girl,” which appeared in Maisonneuve magazine and which I subsequently published on my blog. The woman, whose name is Courtney Greene, had published my story on her blog as if it were her own. Some 47 readers had given “her” story rave reviews in the comments. “You are a beautiful woman and this post is amazing,” one fawned. As it turned out, Ms. Greene had a history of online plagiarism. She had stolen accounts written by others of their experiences competing in Ironman triathalons and republished them on her blog as her own. After a reader alerted me to my work on her site, I contacted Greene. Not long after, I received an email from someone who claimed to be her assistant, stating that Greene was currently in a coma and someone must have hacked her blog. The post was deleted. Her blog went invitation-only. That was the end of that.

Until, of course, I discovered someone named Thu Ngan Bui had nicked “The Hardyman.” This time, not only had they stolen the story, but they were selling it. On iTunes. And not only were they selling my stolen story on iTunes, they were selling it for ninety-nine cents. Was that the going rate for 6,545 words of fiction in 2010? Not even a dollar?