New problem on Netflix: plagiarism?

A Netflix review of mine was blatantly plagiarized. It even appears directly below my own. Given the site's occasional hiccups, I first gave the benefit of the doubt that it was doubled on the page due to a back-end glitch. Then I noticed the user copied my review word-for-word except the last sentence -- they apparently did not understand my grammar and attempted to correct it.

Here's a screenshot with notes.

Based on the user's profile and ratings, they seem to like pop mainstream movies (Spice World, The Swan Princess). My review is for Black Night, an extremely avant garde and difficult to follow film. It doesn't seem like something they would want to watch or be associated with, so why did they steal my review?

Could plagiarism of user reviews turn into a growing problem?

Tags: plagiarism, problems, reviews

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Permalink Reply by The Real Uncle Bob on February 3, 2008 at 8:29am: Netflix should send Luna her $7 back and kick her outta the club! Read her review of the L Word, she's either very young, or not playing with a full deck. I added Black Night to my queue from your review, nice work.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by pterosaur on February 3, 2008 at 9:15am: Holy plagiarism! Word for freaking word. You'd think that if someone was going to steal a review, they'd at least have the common sense to not put it directly below the source. That would piss me off beyond belief.

Welcome, Yipyop. I've long been a fan of yours.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Carrie on June 27, 2008 at 11:30am: Me Too... A fan that is...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by droidmaker on February 3, 2008 at 9:28am: holy cow. i'll forward that to customer service. glad you had a screen shot (and remarkable that the two reviews landed side by side!) very strange.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mr. Tangent on February 3, 2008 at 2:25pm: Hopefully Michael takes care of this. I added it to my queue as well, based on your impeccable tastes.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on February 3, 2008 at 5:42pm: I sure hope not! You'd think Netflix could screen against duplicates and flag or censure offenders.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by MCWHAMMER on February 3, 2008 at 5:55pm: At least it wasn't the similarly titled Black Knight movie :)

That is disturbing to see. I would like to know exactly how this situation is handled. Obviously they will remove her review, but how many other people do you think she's plagiarized? That'd be an issue worth following. If it turns out to be dozens, she needs to be kicked off of the Netflix service with a refund.

Sorry that happened to you YipYop. :(; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Yipyop on February 3, 2008 at 6:28pm: I checked out her other reviews with that thought in mind. She has a very singular writing style (to put it nicely) so it's doubly weird that she would swipe a review so completely different from her own voice and tastes. I also hope to hear how it's resolved, especially if she has an explanation.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Just don't bring the torches if you don't like Black Night! :); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jampony on February 4, 2008 at 3:18am: The girl is 14 years old (according to one of her reviews). Who knows what's going on in the mind of a teenage girl. :)

But, as you said, she has a very distinct writing style and, in my opinion, she doesn't seem to care too much about grammar or writing the perfect review so hopefully it was just an honest mistake on her part.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rev. Mark on August 23, 2008 at 8:05pm: Are there perfect reviews??????; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phatz on February 7, 2008 at 10:15pm: Yipyop, you consistently write great reviews. I regularly stop to read what you had to say. I too am sorry to hear that too. It boggles my mind that someone would be so foolish to copy a Netflix review on Netflix! It is obviously going to get noticed. A couple weeks a go there was a user who had copied a large number of reviews from IMDB and it appears that the entire user profile is gone now. This is unconfirmed but at least all the reviews are gone and the seems to be no trace of the fella. I believe that Netflix very quick response proved (or at least gave evidence) that they do take the matter seriously.

Cheers!
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Permalink Reply by Yipyop on February 3, 2008 at 10:58pm: Here's another set of reviews I wonder about. The film Stalker has reviews by members Sue Blue and Larry MD. While Sue's is original, Larry simply quotes Sue's entire write-up, adding "Sue H. said it best." Though he attributes the content to her I feel it's a questionable use of the review system.

Screenshot; ▶ Reply to This