Are You An Unintentional Plagiarist? - Writers Forum

valeca · 07-13-2006, 01:32 PM

Are You an Unintentional Plagiarist?

Plagiarism is something we’ve all worried about at one time or another. We want to protect our creations, and quite naturally so. But, Plagiarism, like so many other things, is a two way street. As reader/writers we often come across an idea or concept in our reading that really touches us, inspires us, and motivates us to want to create as well. It’s at this point that the slope can become treacherously slippery and lead us in a direction we didn’t intend to follow. Plagiarism.

Many of us know the basic concepts of plagiarism. Don’t use someone else’s work without permission or proper credit. Period. Most of us wouldn’t even consider the idea of plagiarizing someone else’s hard work. But what about the Unintentional Plagiarist? The adoring fan who thinks they’re paying homage to the original author? The one who falls madly in love with a concept/idea/character and wants to give them recognition as one of the ‘Greats!’? Even with the best of intentions spurring them on, this is one of many formulas that create the Unintentional Plagiarist.

Writer’s Market defines plagiarism:

Quote:

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Plagiarism

Using or closely imitating another person's material without permission, acknowledgment or compensation, representing it as one's own work. Plagiarism is illegal when it involves infringement of copyright. Under copyright law, an individual found guilty of infringement of copyright is liable for either (1) actual damages suffered by the copyright owner as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement; or (2) instead of actual damages and profits, statutory damages of a sum of not less than $250 nor more than $10,000, as the court considers just. Additional remedies for infringement are detailed in the copyright law.
Plagiarism may also occur legally—that is, without copyright infringement—when material in the public domain, noncopyrighted works, or works in which the copyright has expired are reprinted under claimed authorship of the plagiarist. While this type of plagiarism is not illegal, it is nevertheless unethical. A writer discovered to be a plagiarist of uncopyrighted works, while not liable under the law, will nonetheless establish an exceedingly bad reputation for himself as an author.
To avoid plagiarism, a writer should give full credit to his sources of information and obtain written permission from copyright owners to use their copyrighted material in his own work.

(Bold and underline added for effect)

Please, look carefully at your work. Does it fall into the category of plagiarism? Unintentional plagiarism?

Fortunately, there is a 100% cure rate for the Unintentional Plagiarist, with very few withdrawal symptoms and even fewer public relapses. If you suspect yourself or a friend of being an Unintentional Plagiarist, contact your local writing community for help in identifying the story elements causing this affliction.

While I hoped to keep this light-hearted, plagiarism in any form is a serious offense with very serious repercussions. Please check your work carefully. Examine the plots, characters, concepts and even the inspiration for the story; make sure they’re as original as you’d hoped. Don’t let the Unintentional Plagiarist happen to you.

If you suspect plagiarism on Writingforums.com, please inform a moderator, mentor supervisor, or even admin of the post (provide a link) and they will look into it.

Lovecraft_Fan89 · 12-01-2006, 05:12 PM

Too true. This is a line that confuses so many people at my high school. Thank you for making (or attempting to make) the distinction. People should read this.

ChrisL · 02-07-2007, 03:57 PM

I was on another forum, and they have a long discussion about "stealing other people's work", AND their critique and advice page is password protected so not just anyone can go in and "read" (steal) potential short stories. Are their any such precautions on this board?

Omnisu · 02-16-2007, 10:31 PM

Yes, the Writer's Workshop forum.

PandasAndChippo · 03-14-2007, 12:34 AM

-_-...

What do you mean we can't write stories closely resembling our fanfiction and call them our own?! HERESY, I SAY, HERESY!

-_-...

Well, no shit.

Cran · 03-15-2007, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Plagiarism may also occur legally—that is, without copyright infringement—when material in the public domain, noncopyrighted works, or works in which the copyright has expired are reprinted under claimed authorship of the plagiarist. While this type of plagiarism is not illegal, it is nevertheless unethical. A writer discovered to be a plagiarist of uncopyrighted works, while not liable under the law, will nonetheless establish an exceedingly bad reputation for himself as an author.

This is not so cut and dried, I think ... especially when considering unintentional plagiarism, which presumes the writer has not found a piece of writing and reproduced it verbatim without acknowledgment ...

After all, Tolkein did not invent elves, dwarves, wizards, trolls or dragons ... but his reputation does not seem tarnished by using them in his stories ...

Did HG Wells or CS Lewis first come up with idea of Martians?

Also, in some forms of writing, it seems to be important to write in a particular style or with a particular structure ...

So, without a clear concept of what is considered "community property" (ie, acceptable use of a pre-existing idea or writing style), there must be some grey areas where the question arises ... is it plagiarism?

Logos · 03-22-2007, 05:42 PM

Cran... It is "cut and dried". Project Gutenberg is an online collection of literary works that have expired copyrights and is as clear a concept as you can get on what is an isn't public domain. Your argument has no foundation whatsoever. Trolls and Dragons existed in folklore before Tolkein, and through a device we writers like to call "imagination" he fabricated a wholly unique, and intimate depiction of said mythical creatures. Just because there is a name for it does not make it plagirism, by your logic, anyone writing about a couple of people sitting down to eat dinner is plagiarizing because they did not invent the concept of dinner.

You will know it when you see it.

In terms of community property, I think anyone who posts their work on the internet is accepting the fact that somehow, somewhere, someone may copy-paste what they have written and try to pass it off as a school english project.

Fenryr · 03-25-2007, 10:06 AM

Man, I really didn't want to get involved in a spat in my first post, but I thought I'd add my two cents.

A really obvious case of unintentional (or maybe it was intentional?) plagiarism is Eragon. The biggest reason I can come up with is that Paolini wrote it when he was, ... 15? The second book isn't nearly as difficult to get through, but the first one was rendered nigh-unreadable because of the constant references, homages, and cliches that he used. There was something taken from Tolkien, Lewis, and even George Lucas on almost every page for the first 200 or so pages.

If anything, I'd consider it the posterchild for unintentional plagiarism, but that might just be because I haven't found a better example.

Krim · 03-25-2007, 10:16 AM

Fenryr, he was nineteen, had two adult parents and a sister helping him, and a professional editor when writing Eragon. There were things taken from Anne McCaffrey and David Eddings and the man who wrote Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Acknowledged as his favorite books, but not as his inspirations . Names taken from Tolkien, so many original ones that I doubt Paolini copied them subconsciously. So on and so on.

Why is it that young writers are always stealing from other people and then they get published? Kaavya Viswanathan, for instance.

Good thread, by the way.

Mysour · 03-27-2007, 09:30 AM

Krim,

I don't want to sound rude but he was fifteen when he wrote Eragon. Or to be more acurate "started writing". Though I do agree that he took from all those authors and Bruce Colville, however someone can't just block the use of "talking to dragons with your mind" because they came up with the idea first which probably isn't the case the idea I'm sure has been around for a while. Because if everybody completely avoided plagiarism, we'd start to see a decline in new and exciting literature, true some of the more intune authors would be forced to be more creative and come out with something completely new and interesting. But just because one author used a certain concept like Martians doesn't mean that others can't make a completely differant story on the same subject.
I do agree however that if people wrote to closely to others literature, I do see a problem, and I'm trying to avoid this.

Anyway thats my two cents.

Your new community friend,
Mysour

Krim · 03-27-2007, 04:18 PM

Yes, he started writing at fifteen. It took him a year to write the first draft, another year to edit. Look at the back of the Eragon Acknowledgements --- it's hardly like Paolini shut himself in his room and wrote the story all by himself, word for word like you see it now.

Then he self-published it at seventeen. Another year or two of marketing, more editing with a professional editor, then you have the version most likely infront of you now. Well, after a reprint of Knopf there were changes like the ingenius five-foot-sword thing.

The plagiarism argument isn't 'talking to dragons with your mind', it's the whole concept of Dragonriders, even the character's first name (Erragon --- I would call this a tribute if it wasn't always said 'it's dragon with one letter changed'). No one is saying everything should be original, I'm saying there should be something original, and there was nothing in Eragon to make it anything special. Once more, no one is saying all he took was a single, broad concept.

The good thing about Paolini is I love his interviews. I've listened to him talk so much at once I felt physically sick.

Mysour · 03-27-2007, 04:46 PM

Krim,

I think he realized this and added the whole Roran thing in Eldest which I thought added to the story very nicely, however is seemed that whenever I was reading Roran's story it wasn't as important as what was happening with Eragon and I'd always be rushing through Roran's portion to get back to Eragon's training...I wonder if you felt that way also.

Mysour

P.S. Sorry to the Admin or Moderators if this is completely off topic and in the wrong part of the forum to discuss this. Let me know.

Fenryr · 03-28-2007, 08:52 PM

Continued sorry to Admins for being off-topic, but I have to completely disagree with you Mysour. As the book kept going, I became less and less interested with Eragon's generic training, and more and more interested in Roran's uprising.

hybridmerc · 03-29-2007, 06:39 PM

so, back on to plagarism, is there a place i can post my stuff here and have it checked? i mean i dont wanna end up publishing someething to find out that i have a law suit on my hands

valeca · 03-29-2007, 07:00 PM

Well, the Writer's Workshop is a good place to start. If someone recognizes something in your writing, they'll probably point it out. Please remember stories can share similar concepts...just try to minimize them.