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rodoYou know, I actually wanted to work on the Albus Dumbledore/Gilderoy Lockhart fic that is all It was dead inside's fault today. But then I got sidetracked by the latest plagiarism wank. Funnily enough, I was reminded of the problem a few days ago, so I wrote a meta post about plagiarism.
I'm not a lawyer or a law student (I only had that one course about copyright), and I probably did make mistakes. Please correct me if you find them or if you have something to add to the list.
Plagiarism is, according to Wikipedia (and the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary), the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”1 Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But I’ll break it down further. For an act to be considered plagiarism, there are two conditions:
Notice the bolded “and”? It’s important. Which brings me to what plagiarism isn’t:
Now what does that mean for people in fandom? I will demonstrate this by making up some examples and using some that I actually did see out there.
I. “Someone took my story, posted it word for word and chapter for chapter on a website, and never mentioned that I am the author.”
This is a pretty clear cut case. It’s plagiarism. Words and thoughts were taken and claimed as someone else’s. This happens quite often in fandom.
II. “Someone took my story, changed the chapters/a few sentences/the names, posted it on a website and never mentioned that I am the author.”
It’s still plagiarism. If you look at the definition, it’s still plagiarism if it’s paraphrased. I stumbled upon such a case myself and the story was deleted by the mods soon after I’d reported it.
III. “Someone took my story without my knowledge, posted it on a website (paraphrased or not) and credited me as the author.”
This is not plagiarism. It’s copyright infringement. The re-poster clearly stated that she didn’t own the work, and as such it can’t be plagiarism. But even if you write a fanfic, you have a copyright on that fic3, and as such the re-poster did the wrong thing. Depending on the rules of the website this is posted on4, the moderators will likely delete it.
IV. “Someone wrote a story with the same plot that I used a while back.”
This really depends. In most cases, this is not plagiarism. The plot has to be very much alike and original for it to be plagiarism. It should also be impossible that the other author could have the same idea on her own. I actually wrote a story in response to a prompt once that I considered very original. I had never read such a story before. But two other people had the same idea after reading the prompt. The other author’s story could also be inspired by yours. Remember: Ideas are free. This is why there are Indiana Jones imitations and why so many romantic movies have the same basic plot.
However, if the story merely very abstractly paraphrases your fic, it’s plagiarism. For that, there have to be the same basic scenes, actions and interactions present, even if not the words. And these parts have to be very distinctly yours.
V. “Someone took a character that I invented for my fic and included him in her fic without my permission and without crediting me.”
If the character is exactly how you described him (name, appearance, story), he is definitely your work. And the other author passes him off as her work. Plagiarism.
VI. “Someone took a character that I invented for my fic and included him in her fic without my permission and credited me.”
This is not plagiarism. Just like your own fanfic is not plagiarism. Whether one character constitutes copyright infringement is another matter. Just like the question if this is acceptable behaviour in fandom.5 See III.
VII. “Someone created a character that is very much like one of mine, included him in her fic without my permission and without crediting me.”6
Not every character who is blond, 1,80m tall, muscular and broody was created after your character. Even if the character’s parents died while he was young, his childhood sucked big time and he has the same initials. For it to be plagiarism, he would have to be the same and not just similar. There are only so many character traits that you can use, and some are more popular than others, hence the similarity between some characters.
VIII. “Someone wrote a minor canon character (that I invented a past and a personality for) almost the same way I wrote him in my very popular story.”7
This is not plagiarism. As with VII, the character isn’t exactly the same, and if the author had credited you when she portrayed him exactly the same way (see VI) it would still not be plagiarism. And since it’s a canon character we’re talking about, you would probably have a hard time proving plagiarism even if the case was the same as in V, since only a certain part of him belongs to you. In fact, what you’re describing here is a very common phenomenon in fandom called fanon. It happens all the time.
IX. “Someone quoted a part of my fic in a context that I don’t like and credited me.”
If you were credited as the author, it’s not plagiarism. If the quoted part was relatively small and relevant to the author’s purpose (say, a sporking or MSTing), it isn’t even copyright infringement. Quotes are entirely legal.
So as you can see, it’s only plagiarism if the “author” passes off another’s work as her own. Generally speaking, as an author, you only have control over the elements that are very specific to your own story. J.K. Rowling doesn’t have the rights to every character named Harry Potter who has dark hair and green eyes. J.K. Rowling has the rights to a character called Harry Potter who has dark hair, green eyes and a scar shaped like a lightning bolt, who is a wizard and whose parents were murdered by an evil wizard called Voldemort. People can have similar ideas (very similar ideas, in fact), and plots are rehashed and remixed constantly.
1 Also according to Wikipedia, the word was derived from the Latin word for kidnapping. Who knew?
2 Note the use of the word “thoughts” and the fact that I added two adjectives to make in clearer. Thoughts and ideas are not the same thing, and in order to constitute plagiarism, the thought has to be original. Otherwise we would plagiarise each other all the time. Who has the claim to thoughts like “George W. Bush is an idiot”?
3 Yes, even if fanfiction is considered copyright infringement according to your country’s laws. As far as I know, every work that’s a derivative has its own copyright, regardless of that fact that it might itself be considered copyright infringement.
4 I’m not sure how detailed fic archives address the issue of copyright infringement. Maybe there is one out there where such behaviour is not against the rules because of some loophole.
5 Just for the record: I believe writing fanfiction of fanfiction is entirely okay, even if the author did not give permission. Not polite, probably, but not delete-worthy.
6 Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen this. Those of you who know certain parts of German fandom probably will believe me.
7 And this,lilithilien, is the reason why I didn’t want to read the fic you recced the other day.
I'm not a lawyer or a law student (I only had that one course about copyright), and I probably did make mistakes. Please correct me if you find them or if you have something to add to the list.
Plagiarism is, according to Wikipedia (and the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary), the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”1 Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But I’ll break it down further. For an act to be considered plagiarism, there are two conditions:
- The words or distinct and individual thoughts2 of another author are used or paraphrased, and
- they are passed of as one’s own work.
Notice the bolded “and”? It’s important. Which brings me to what plagiarism isn’t:
- Copyright infringement. While something can be both plagiarism and copyright infringement, the two are not identical. The work of authors like Jane Austen and Aristotle can be plagiarised, but since both authors are long dead, doing so is entirely legal from the copyright point of view. On the other hand, the unauthorised sequel to The Catcher in the Rye was considered copyright infringement, but not, as far as I know, plagiarism, because the author acknowledged that the original book was not written by him.
- Theft of ideas. Ideas are free. They can’t be stolen. Otherwise, we would never read all the stories that are out there because every idea has been written once.
Now what does that mean for people in fandom? I will demonstrate this by making up some examples and using some that I actually did see out there.
I. “Someone took my story, posted it word for word and chapter for chapter on a website, and never mentioned that I am the author.”
This is a pretty clear cut case. It’s plagiarism. Words and thoughts were taken and claimed as someone else’s. This happens quite often in fandom.
II. “Someone took my story, changed the chapters/a few sentences/the names, posted it on a website and never mentioned that I am the author.”
It’s still plagiarism. If you look at the definition, it’s still plagiarism if it’s paraphrased. I stumbled upon such a case myself and the story was deleted by the mods soon after I’d reported it.
III. “Someone took my story without my knowledge, posted it on a website (paraphrased or not) and credited me as the author.”
This is not plagiarism. It’s copyright infringement. The re-poster clearly stated that she didn’t own the work, and as such it can’t be plagiarism. But even if you write a fanfic, you have a copyright on that fic3, and as such the re-poster did the wrong thing. Depending on the rules of the website this is posted on4, the moderators will likely delete it.
IV. “Someone wrote a story with the same plot that I used a while back.”
This really depends. In most cases, this is not plagiarism. The plot has to be very much alike and original for it to be plagiarism. It should also be impossible that the other author could have the same idea on her own. I actually wrote a story in response to a prompt once that I considered very original. I had never read such a story before. But two other people had the same idea after reading the prompt. The other author’s story could also be inspired by yours. Remember: Ideas are free. This is why there are Indiana Jones imitations and why so many romantic movies have the same basic plot.
However, if the story merely very abstractly paraphrases your fic, it’s plagiarism. For that, there have to be the same basic scenes, actions and interactions present, even if not the words. And these parts have to be very distinctly yours.
V. “Someone took a character that I invented for my fic and included him in her fic without my permission and without crediting me.”
If the character is exactly how you described him (name, appearance, story), he is definitely your work. And the other author passes him off as her work. Plagiarism.
VI. “Someone took a character that I invented for my fic and included him in her fic without my permission and credited me.”
This is not plagiarism. Just like your own fanfic is not plagiarism. Whether one character constitutes copyright infringement is another matter. Just like the question if this is acceptable behaviour in fandom.5 See III.
VII. “Someone created a character that is very much like one of mine, included him in her fic without my permission and without crediting me.”6
Not every character who is blond, 1,80m tall, muscular and broody was created after your character. Even if the character’s parents died while he was young, his childhood sucked big time and he has the same initials. For it to be plagiarism, he would have to be the same and not just similar. There are only so many character traits that you can use, and some are more popular than others, hence the similarity between some characters.
VIII. “Someone wrote a minor canon character (that I invented a past and a personality for) almost the same way I wrote him in my very popular story.”7
This is not plagiarism. As with VII, the character isn’t exactly the same, and if the author had credited you when she portrayed him exactly the same way (see VI) it would still not be plagiarism. And since it’s a canon character we’re talking about, you would probably have a hard time proving plagiarism even if the case was the same as in V, since only a certain part of him belongs to you. In fact, what you’re describing here is a very common phenomenon in fandom called fanon. It happens all the time.
IX. “Someone quoted a part of my fic in a context that I don’t like and credited me.”
If you were credited as the author, it’s not plagiarism. If the quoted part was relatively small and relevant to the author’s purpose (say, a sporking or MSTing), it isn’t even copyright infringement. Quotes are entirely legal.
So as you can see, it’s only plagiarism if the “author” passes off another’s work as her own. Generally speaking, as an author, you only have control over the elements that are very specific to your own story. J.K. Rowling doesn’t have the rights to every character named Harry Potter who has dark hair and green eyes. J.K. Rowling has the rights to a character called Harry Potter who has dark hair, green eyes and a scar shaped like a lightning bolt, who is a wizard and whose parents were murdered by an evil wizard called Voldemort. People can have similar ideas (very similar ideas, in fact), and plots are rehashed and remixed constantly.
1 Also according to Wikipedia, the word was derived from the Latin word for kidnapping. Who knew?
2 Note the use of the word “thoughts” and the fact that I added two adjectives to make in clearer. Thoughts and ideas are not the same thing, and in order to constitute plagiarism, the thought has to be original. Otherwise we would plagiarise each other all the time. Who has the claim to thoughts like “George W. Bush is an idiot”?
3 Yes, even if fanfiction is considered copyright infringement according to your country’s laws. As far as I know, every work that’s a derivative has its own copyright, regardless of that fact that it might itself be considered copyright infringement.
4 I’m not sure how detailed fic archives address the issue of copyright infringement. Maybe there is one out there where such behaviour is not against the rules because of some loophole.
5 Just for the record: I believe writing fanfiction of fanfiction is entirely okay, even if the author did not give permission. Not polite, probably, but not delete-worthy.
6 Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen this. Those of you who know certain parts of German fandom probably will believe me.
7 And this,
lilithilien, is the reason why I didn’t want to read the fic you recced the other day.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 02:06 pm (UTC)BTW, I didn't even know there was such wank in the fandom. :) Luckily enough, I haven't encountered such thing as plagiarism in neither of my fandoms. Guess, it could actually be a problem of big fandoms rather than small ones. When everybody knows each other, it's kind of hard to steal something. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 02:20 pm (UTC)I feel so sorry for authors who have been plagiarised. It could be flattering in a way, but also it must hurt like hell.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 02:27 pm (UTC)Yeah, in a way it's a compliment, but the problem is that the authors aren't told. They have to find the "compliment" themselves.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 06:03 am (UTC)