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I am writing a new blog on this because I think it is important, but it stems from Barbie-Lee's "Sigh, amateur writers and laws" blog about what is and isn't plagiarism.
My comments there was: "The position regarding copyright for original artistic works is difficult.
Copyright is automatic but it must be original and it must be art.
So a recipe might not be protected unless the dish is art in itself, because a description of how to make it is pure utility.
Is every idea art? Perhaps, if it is not a process of pure logic.
Is it original? Hmmm. In the world of self-publication, increasingly harder.
Recently I contact Erin about a story with creepy similarities to mine.
I think we agreed that it might be synchronicity - that is a thing, right?"
I also commented That: "The shear volume of information in the world is staggering.
But when I pick up ideas from others, I give credit.
Does that mean that it is my own art? Of course.
But the issue arose in music with "Blurred Lines" credited as inspired by Marvin Gaye.
It can be said that music is far more finite than literature as there are a limited number of notes and chords and most do not work together.
If I follow my rules I just expect others not to steal my work.
I have no publisher to police it so all I can do is to ask those in our TG community to look out for one another and bring to our collective attention any potential plagiarism.'
I would be interested in a discussion.
Maryanne
Comments
I freely admit to stealing story ideas
Let's start a list of whom I've stolen the most from. There's The Professor, Bru, Samantha, Jill, Erin..., and at least a couple dozen more. None of which is for capital gains. I honestly don't believe there is a writer on BCTS I haven't stolen ideas for a story. I doubt anyone can say they haven't "borrowed ideas" from other writers.
The problem is where are the lines to be drawn and who draws them? As I said before I'd trust Erin before I would any of the lawyers I've used over the years. The sad part is it gets even murkier. It seems publishers want libraries to stop lending out the latest novels. They are also suing the Internet Library which is a part of the WayBack Machine which archives web sites present and past. My own web site is listed there, BarbieLee.com which I am pleased. How much history is going to be lost if these publishers succeed? I'm all for stopping story stealing unless I'm the one doing it. Yet as every dog and his owner join in as writers and publishers the digital take down has become a nightmare. The spaceX launch was filmed by NASA and posted on the net. Several companies claimed Digital copyright infringement and had it removed. NASA is big enough they ship a whole lot of water when they move. Normally little people would be fighting for months, years to get their data back up online. It took NASA less than a couple days. The companies who filed the take down claimed it was AI bot error. Yeah, right. I can't prove it but I think they wanted the traffic hits while the data was fresh.
Do what you can writers and publishers but keep in mind it's a brutal world out there. Make sure you're right before you start accusing anyone of plagiarism.
Hugs People
always
Barb
Life is a gift. Treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
I Only Steal from Laika
It's cheaper than drugs to run her ideas around inside my head. I can never convert the buzz to stories but who cares?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Jill Honey
I appreciate the compliment and I value our long friendship here but
Could you do me a big, big favor + change that possessive pronoun?
I know it's just a 2-letter difference and probably just a typo
or a neural glitch and not indicative of anything
but it's seriously as depressing as fuck!
~hugs, veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Typing on a Kindle
It types what it wants
Sorry!
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Everything is remix
Some wag once said: "Amateurs borrow, professionals steal." But seriously, it's hard to find an original thought. We have a screwed up legal system (here in the US and probably elsewhere too) that tries to apportion monopoly on inventors, creators, and artists. Ostensibly to allow them to profit from their creation but at some future date the work becomes part of the public domain. Of course it does not take long for a bunch of legislators and lawyers to take a few simple concepts and turn them in to a baroque liturgical creation full of edge cases and derivative addenda and appendixes and so on.
But right down at the core of it, all of art, all of science, and all of technology is built by assembling the bits and pieces of all that came before into a new expression. Everything is remix. Of course this won't help if you get a take down notice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc
Your friend
Crash
plagiarism
What is and what isn't. If I read your story and think that it's good. So I change the name of the characters and the location and maybe the time of the setting and leave the storyline in tact and then publish it, that's plagiarism.
However, if I read your story and think, I could tell it better and then use the same trope and circumstance and then proceed to tell a story that has a different storyline, that's not plagiarism. Even if some of the same things happen to the characters it's still my original work.
I'd be willing to bet that every "Cross-Dress Day" story has at least a dozen similarities. But very few of them would qualify as plagiarism. Heck, if all of us were to write an autobiography and publish it at least 70% of them would look like plagiarism due to the similarities. And that's real life.
As to getting ideas for stories from other authors... many famous authors will admit to that. I've written several stories that blatantly rework someone else's work. In one case, I retold a story, even with the same title and characters and about 2/3 of the way through, my story took a left turn and the ending went a total different direction. If you've been reading TG stories since the early 90s, you may have read "Chrissy" by Julie.
My preface went like this:
This story was originally written by Julie, sometime in the 90s and posted elsewhere. I read it and liked the premise, but the ending didn't suit me. So for my own enjoyment, I rewrote the ending. Julie's end had Chrissy transitioning, mine is more like my life. When I was finished modifying the ending, I liked it so much that I couldn’t resist posting it, so…
I posted it on my now defunct website and Julie subsequently contacted me and graciously allowed me to leave it up with the proviso that I note where in the story it deviates from the original. I'm thinking of posting it here, as I still have the copy on my hard drive.
Another time, I hijacked the characters and the trope and wrote a sequel that is posted here. "It Was His Mistake…" sub titled, "So Why Am I Dressed Like This?" I put the disclaimer at the beginning, "Based on “One Small Mistake" by Rachel Ann Cooper, a story posted on Fictionmania" Rachel Ann Cooper read it when I posted it on Fictionmania. Her review:
Reviewed by Rachel Ann Cooper on 02/26/2002
Very much enjoyed where you went with this and the segways between plots were flawless. They're young. This could get more complicated ;o).
She was gracious, not only allowing but state she enjoyed it.
The first instance was plagiarism, no doubt. The second, not at all. The real difference is that I had permission from the original author to write what I did.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Copyright applies to almost everything
and not just art.
I have thousands of files that all contain a copyright notice. These files are software code. Some of that code could well be running in your Phone (if it is Android based). Even the innocious 'Readme.txt' files that go with some bits of code has a copyright notice on it. Most of the code is freely copyable due to the GPL-2 and GLP-3 licenses that are attached to the copyright section of the code.
I just wanted to say that copyright does not only apply to 'Art'.
Samantha
Copyright applies to "art"
Copyright applies to "art" in the perhaps archaic form of "useful arts" and "creative arts". The language in the foundational laws in the use for patent, copyright and trademark in the US use those terms.
I'll take off my pedantic panties now.
love and hugs
Your friend
Crash
Where to draw the lines ?
IIRC US law says that you have to change the work by 20% for your work to qualify as original.
I guess that means I can blank the middle fifth of a painting (which would make a definite artistic statement) or crop 10% off each edge (which probably doesn't).
A
The Law and the Law-abiding
Copyright is the US is: "a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."
Primarily it is designed to protect artistic works. Without it artists have no protection.
There is an argument that a recording of an event (a rocket launch for example) has no protection as it is a representation of fact with no determinable author. A painting of the launch is protected.
Do I take ideas? If anybody reads the things I throw out on FM they will understand that I do, but I always display my inspiration and where I can I name them. I say "Inspired by" and then I write my little tale without lifting anything and claiming it is mine. What I write is my own, I promise all of you.
Fiction is art, perhaps in a very humble form. I think art is a "creation of mind that affects the minds of others" which is a phrase of my own creation just now, but it might have appeared somewhere else because it is (to me) fact, and fact is not art.
We live in a world full of information. I think they say that the volume of data in the world doubles every 7 years (is that right?). So it must be hard for anything to be truly original.
But we should look after artists - right?
Maryanne