Unofficial Sonic Fact Book Appears To Plagiarise Text From Fan Sites, Uses Fan Art

Eagle-eyed Badnik Mechanic Dave Luty on Twitter has spotted something amiss with an Unofficial Sonic the Hedgehog fact book “We Love Sonic”, set for release through Carlton Books this summer.

From the pages shown on the site, the text included in the book appears to directly copy word-for-word descriptions from the Sonic Fandom Wiki, as well as use watermarked images that appear to have been taken from Shutterstock.

Additionally, the front cover render has been taken from FinnAkira’s DeviantArt page.

Well I can confirm that the render on the cover is indeed a fan made render that they've stolen https://t.co/hH0F4o1Oxw
Funnily enough it was in my dA favourites so no wonder it looked so familiar to me.

— SunkythePootis (@SunkythePootis) June 18, 2019

While parts of the book preview appear unfinished with placeholder captions still visible, and the possiblity remains that the text is either being used as placeholder material or writing guides, it seems as though a large portion of this unofficial publication will use reference material without authorisation or credit, and heavily plagerises online work by fans.

Luty, in a series of tweets, also goes into more detail, and gives examples of lifted sections of text.

Some preview images from the publication can be found below:

Luty has requested a response from Carlton Books, but has yet to receive a response.

Stay tuned to more updates on this story as they develop!