Sigh. Here we go again. This is a page for Google about Kevin Leam, a prick, who for the past four years or so has been systematically plagiarising me and other net writers on his blog on myspace and before that on easyjournal.
At the time of writing (April 2007) he is 26 or 27 years old (birthdate 30/04/1980), appears to live in or near Nottingham at present, seems to have been born in South Shields and raised in Grimsby, his full name may be Kevin Willam James Leam. He pretends to be a writer by stealing other people's work and putting it on his blog, claiming it as his own.
(Update - he also pretends to be in a band, or a more
successful band than he is in fact in, see entry for Feb 6th 2005 below.
Update to the update - He also pretends to be a songwriter by the same method as
he pretends to be a writer)
Virtually nothing at all on his blog, barring a couple of shorter entries and filled-in questionnaires, was written by him. He has not responded to a request to stop lying and own up to his thefts, and legal attempts to deal with him are in hand. He has plagiarised half a dozen of my pieces on his myspace blog (and countless more on an easyspace account he also has) and many more by other writers, most notably an American bloke called Steve Hofstetter. A partial list of the thefts follows. If anyone reading this has a myspace account, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a message on his blog or homepage telling him what a prick he is, and alert the people he's deceiving that he's a fraud.
The URLs are:
http://blog.myspace.com/silentdogma
http://www.myspace.com/silentdogma
and he uses the name 'Lunacy Phrynge' and has used the title 'A House of Smoke and Mirrors' and on the easyjournal the name 'Idiot Savant'.
(To find all the thefts on his blog, work back via the 'Older' button under 'Blog Archive'. It's hard to give specific URLs as they're very long and change when new additions are made. A lengthy but incomplete list of plagiarisms can be found further down on this page.)
Screenshot of his theft of my piece 'The Lost Art of Seduction'. Portion highlighted by me shows him claiming to have written it: 'Warning - This has been a work in progress for ages, so thats why it's a tad longer than my usual blogs.' So let him not come out with any horseshit about not intending to give the impression it was his own work.
Incidentally the person in that screencap is not him, it's someone out of a band he likes.
This is what Kevin Leam, thief and sociopathic liar, looks like:
Kevin Leam of Nottingham: lying thieving plagiarist prick
Dishonest unprincipled shithead and wanker, to be mocked and avoided
(The above were taken from his myspace gallery. Two others were taken down by request. I make
no claim to ownership and place them here without having obtained permission under the public interest
exemption.)
His theft of my 'Albert Goldman is dead' bit
Reaping praise for it, from what looks to be some hot goth chick who probably likes to have kinky sex on crematorium conveyor-belts and stuff. She should be saying that to ME.
(NB where necessary the fact that the real authors posted these pieces before him can be established by recourse to the Internet Archive, e.g.:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/seduction.htm
For the uninitiated, that site archives most of the internet. Enter any address and it will show you when it first appeared and what it looked like back then.)
Monday, March 26, 2007
Rockafeller Skanked
Stolen from Steve Hofstetter:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=46
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Groundhog Night
Stolen from 'Ginger Says' at Thewildhearts.com:
http://www.thewildhearts.com/cgi-bin/gingersays_full.cgi?issueno=015
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Manufactured Music - In a House Of Smoke and Mirrors Stylee
Stolen from a site called www.wastednetwork.com:
http://www.wastednetwork.com/showdoc.asp?artid=164
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
With Or Without You
Stolen from Steve Hofstetter:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/unpublished.cfm?ID=22
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Keep Y'Troosers On Y'Little Bastards
Stolen from me:
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/underage.htm
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Just A Note
Stolen from Steve Hofstetter:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=14
Sunday, September 03, 2006
The Lost Art Of Seduction
Stolen from me:
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/seduction.htm
Friday, September 01, 2006
The Legend Of Fat Dead Kev
Stolen from: Steve Hofstetter, The Legend of Fat Dead Steve:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=71
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
HEY!, Kid Ego
Stolen from Steve Hofstetter:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=1
Sunday, August 27, 2006 I Am Your Father
Stolen from Steve Hofstetter:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=170
(Haha, funny, the lazy thief almost gave himself away with this one, he couldn't even be fucked changing Hofstetter's Americanisms after he copied and pasted, and one of the myspace commenters says: 'Social Security? Child Services? Double Jeopardy? You are English, and as a Brit in America I wish to come home to Brits being British, America can stay where it is thank you very much.')
Friday, August 18, 2006
Subscribe To The Cult Of A Brand New Product
Stolen from me:
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/ads.htm
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
M.O.S.H (My Own Self Hatred)
Stolen from David Jakielo:
http://www.readdave.com/20021205.shtml
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Its The End Of The World And I Feel Fine
Hofstetter again:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=48
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Literature in a House Of Smoke And Mirrors Stylee
Stolen from Me: http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/pass.htm
(And he got four 'Kudos'es, the thieving prick, including more praise
that should have been mine from another sexy goth chick who'd probably be too
depressed to fight off my sexual advances)
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Just Like The Movies
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/film.htm
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Rant In A Minor Pt. Whatever
Appears to have been stolen from the book/website 'Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit?' e.g. see here for the Kate Moss one
Saturday, July 29, 2006
I'm Listening
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=181
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Paris Hilton Is Not Mother Theresa
Stolen from Steve Hofstetter writing at www.collegehumor.com:
http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1692086
June 2006 'Taking the Piss'
Stolen from Hofstetter again:
http://www.stevehofstetter.com/column.cfm?ID=1862
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
100 things to know about me and its ALL about me
As far as I can tell he did in fact write this himself. Here are some of the 100 things about him (the bold bits are me):
1, My name is Kevin William James Leam, I do however answer to the following, Kev, Sarc, Switch and Junior
3, I live in Nottingham having moved to escape the evil that is Grimsby, London is next on the map
5, I am 6ft 1
6, I have naturally blonde hair but decided to darken it when I finally had enough of people coming up to me in the street telling me how lovely it was.
13, I went to Lindsey Comprehensive
16, Im now in my second year of working for clothes store H&M
24, Im addicted to my space and get mad when I have no messages
(Please, someone, give him some messages)
44, I like annoying bar staff by demanding coke when all they sell is Pepsi, even though I prefer Pepsi
(Wiiiild and crazy guy)
48, I have an IQ of 139
Hahahahaha
54, I think I may have discovered a connection between drinking while pregnant and the increase in chavs.
Where do you get off looking down on other people, you thieving liar, you lying thief?
57, I cant stand cheating..I did it once when I was 14 and felt so guilty fessed up pretty much right away and have never done it and never will again
hahaha
96, I love writing
hahaha
Saturday, February 18, 2006
ALBERT GOLDMAN IS DEAD, ALAS
Stolen from me:
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/goldman.htm
(Copied and pasted so lazily he didn't even fix the little dots that used to show up when I didn't know how to space in HTML)
The next couple show up on the net in a few places but I don't know who originated them.
Then there's:
August 2005:
PRAISE BE TO THY GOD OR WHOEVER WINS IN THE LONG RUN
Stolen from www.massacreindisguise.net:
http://www.massacreindisguise.net/manifesto/festo.asp?date=9912
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Kev's Completely Factual and Not At All Juvenile Guide for Americans Visiting Britain
Stolen from:
http://www.jomiller.com/guide/
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Step Right Up. There's Something Happening Here
Stolen from Matthew Good:
http://www.matthewgood.org/1998/05/some-men-get-the-world-others-get-ex-hookers-and-a-trip-to-arizona/
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Kev Must Be Destroyed
Stolen from 'Ginger Says' at www.thewildhearts.com:
http://www.thewildhearts.com/cgi-bin/gingersays_full.cgi?issueno=035
(This is really bloody bizarre. The Wildhearts are a real rock band, and that entry is one of their members describing a gig and the songs on their new album, and Leam has basically just copied it almost word for word and put his own name in. As he did with all my stuff and the other thefts, but as this is decribing someone else's life the effect is very weird indeed. There's a similar one somewhat later I couldn't be bothered tracking down. Is he pretending to be in a band in order to pull and impress people, as well as pretending to be a writer? [Update - Yes, he is. And in some of the easyjournal pieces he also pretends to have done stand-up and auditioned for a film.] Dealing with these people really, really creeps me out at times.)
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Who Said What Now?
Appears to be slagging off his ex-girlfriend (unless, of course, it was some other writer or a rock star's ex-girlfriend) and concludes:
'As a closing comment i just hope you realise one day that running away from your problems won't solve them, they'll just evolve into bigger problems which may result in you ending up a complete headcase, deal with them for gods sake then you might actually be a normal human being like me.'
Oh, the irony. And, the prickery.
There are several others that I'm damn well sure are stolen, due to their being amusing,
containing stray Americanisms, or being properly punctuated, but I couldn't find them
elsewhere and I'm buggered if I'm going to play Nancy Drew any more tonight. You get the
idea. It's basically the whole damn thing that's been copied from somewhere else.
(Update - a bloke named Aaron Karo has been identified as the source for several of the other pieces on this and the easyjournal, with his references to the New York dating scene hilariously changed to say 'Nottingham' or 'Grimsby' while the Americanisms are left intact. But they're no longer online as they've been published in a book.)
I can't be bothered doing the same for his easyjournal (http://silentdogma.easyjournal.com/), which dates from 2002-2004, but I imagine it's the same story. Googling phrases from anything that seems literate will tell. A quick check reveals some of the same thefts as above, and several more stolen from my site, e.g. see the archives for June 2003:
Or May:
All of the highlighted are mine, see various places in http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk (Again, prior existence can be established by putting the relevant URLs into the Internet Archive.)
Oh, or see August 2003, or...bugger it.
(PS. a couple of days later: someone started checking the rest of his easyspace entries for me and did 2004 before getting bored, and, yeah, it's the same story, all stolen. I've put the details here for anyone who gives a damn, but I think you get the idea by now and I'm started to feel unreasonably cruel for continuing to beat on this poor cornered rat. Thanks to K. for her efforts on my behalf though, and to everyone else who's helped or sent messages of support).
Why is he doing this? To make himself look good and to seduce girls by pretending to be someone he's not, I would imagine. As well as the myspace page, silentdogma has a profile on a dating site where he links to the easyspace journal (or had, I can only find it on google cache tonight):
('The result of my lack of sleep can be found here'
Lying prick. If only your parents had been able to sleep)
...as well as something similar on a somewhat dodgier-looking 'swingers' site.
And there we have it. I don't think at this stage we need go into the aria about how
this kind of thing, unchecked, would kill creativity on the internet - I for one am getting
increasingly fed up with posting stuff here only for people to steal it or rip it off - to say
nothing of the time I have to waste taking legal measures to deal with this crap. You're
intelligent people and we can skip that bit.
I think all we need say in this case is that Kevin Leam is a sad act. He needs help, or he needs beating with iron rods, depending on your politics. He needs to come clean, take his lumps, and bloody grow up and be a man. In the meantime, this page is for the benefit of the people who need warning about him.
Mon 16th Apr 07
(For Google: Kevin Leam, Kevin Leam, silentdogma, silentdogma, Lunacy Phringe, prick, plagiarist,
liar, where can I catch the clap in Nottingham?)
==
Update:
(Wednesday)
The idiot has now set his myspace homepage and blog to Friends Only, so no-one else can read it, and I gather from messages passed onto me is trying to deny everything:
"Did i bollocks, its some who asked me to write for them and i wouldnt"
Yes. With chops like those, who wouldn't want you to write for them?
I hate to be all tough and that but it really isn't going to help to add libel to the other things.
(Actually, let's not get tough, that's just hilarious. I think that's the worst excuse I've ever heard. I wish editors wanted me that much. 'Please write for us.' 'No thanks.' 'Then I will go to the uttermost ends of the Earth to destroy you. I will hack into the Internet Archive and half a dozen websites to make it look as though other people wrote your work. Mneeyahahaha! No-one turns down the Walthamstow Advertiser, etc.')
Also another glimpse into his fantasy world:
'I have spoken to Kevin online and on the phone for a couple of months now, and he has spoken as if the blogs were written by him as we had discussed them in some detail.'
==
Thursday:
I've received a couple of anecdotes about Leam confirming the picture of him as both a compulsive
fantasist and shameless appropriater of other people's work, but I'd rather not use them so as
to avoid dragging other people into this tacky kerfuffle. I should explain that the URL of this
page was sent to most of the people on his Friends List before his site was locked off (which I
gather annoyed some of the recipients who rightly felt it was nothing to do with them, for
which I am sorry). Various messages got back to me, some expressing outrage at his behaviour,
a couple abusing me for daring to impugn his integrity, and several sort of sympathetic sighs
along the lines of 'Not really a surprise, we'd pretty much guessed, lots of luck trying to
introduce him to reality.' Several of his friends tried to reason with him or tell him to knock
it off or just pass on my offer to settle. They were swiftly deleted from his Friends List and
their messages blocked, along with anyone who asked awkward questions or whose loyalty seemed
dubious. Lunacy Phringe's House of Smoke and Mirrors is now a place of serene unity and
unquestioning obedience, a bit like Waco just before it was burned down.
(Afterthought - what's with that 'House of Smoke and Mirrors' title anyway? And subtitles like 'Nothing is as it seems' and 'I'm not who you think I am'. He's been laughing up his sleeve at them all along.)
==
Friday:
Still no word from the brooding edifice of Fortress Leam, now splendidly impregnable to the
ravages of sanity following the purges.
It's not my greatest ambition to waste time waging war on cretins like this, and legal shenanigans are no fun for anyone, but it looks like I have no choice.
==
One week later:
Some progress. No admission or apology* but he has deleted the thefts from his myspace blog, although not the easyjournal yet.
*(Indeed, I gather that he is, or fairly recently was, still trying to claim to anyone he thought stupid enough to listen that I had in fact plagiarised him - presumably with the aid of a time machine, and the collaboration of two American newspaper columnists and a rock star. Prick.)
==
(At the time of writing the legal aspects of this are still ongoing. Not going to keep updating so as not to give anything away, and taking it off my front page as I don't want to be constantly reminded of this maggot. This stays on Google, however.)