Stuck on a scene? Just plagiarize!

[lilshymynx]

That's what one Literotica writer does!

I had just the final sex scene to write. I had worked out in my head how I wanted the sex scene to go, but I had no idea how to write it from a female POV. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories until I found one that had one woman receiving and then giving oral sex similar to what I wanted. I started with that, ripped out the dialog, and put in my own. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories again to find one that had a sex scene where one of the woman used a vibrator on another. I ripped some things from that. Hopefully, I came out with something that is focused on the two bisexual women while remaining hot for male readers.

Source post.

 

[Euphony]

It's possible it's as bold as stated but my guess is not.
All artist steal to a degree, from forbearers, other artists, pop culture, other forms of media.

I'd like to believe this was referencing the latter with poor word choosing.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I'd hope so, I read to learn how to write, but I don't go word for word and rip out this or that. LOL

 

[lovecraft68]

Looking at the source I wouldn't be surprised if they needed to take someone else's scene and do some word swapping to make it theirs. The fact they said they replaced the dialogue with theirs, but didn't say that about the actual sex....

 

[SimonDoom]

I would be cautious about making any assumptions of wrongdoing, based on how you've described things, and also based on what we know about the author whose post you cited. He has one of the more meticulous approaches to story writing going here, and in his post he said he ran the story by 17 beta readers and got feedback from 9.

There are many descriptions of oral sex that could not in any way be characterized as original or proprietary, and there's nothing wrong with using them in one's own story. It's not infringement or plagiarism. If the author cribbed passages word for word, that's bad. But this statement from the author doesn't indicate that he did that. Unless one has looked closely at the passage he wrote, and compared it with the passage or passages that he took ideas from, one is in no position to judge.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I tried searching on some phrases from that sex scene, and didn't find obvious hits in other Literotica stories. So I'd guess he isn't just copy-and-pasting the text from other stories. Probably best option is to ask him for clarification, which I will now do.

edit: noting that he hasn't posted since November, so may be a while before there's a reply, but I'll post here when I get one.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I would be cautious about making any assumptions of wrongdoing, based on how you've described things, and also based on what we know about the author whose post you cited. He has one of the more meticulous approaches to story writing going here, and in his post he said he ran the story by 17 beta readers and got feedback from 9.

There are many descriptions of oral sex that could not in any way be characterized as original or proprietary, and there's nothing wrong with using them in one's own story. It's not infringement or plagiarism. If the author cribbed passages word for word, that's bad. But this statement from the author doesn't indicate that he did that. Unless one has looked closely at the passage he wrote, and compared it with the passage or passages that he took ideas from, one is in no position to judge.

I dunno.

I started with that, ripped out the dialog, and put in my own. I skimmed Lesbian Sex stories again to find one that had a sex scene where one of the woman used a vibrator on another. I ripped some things from that.

Sounds pretty blatant (or foolish to say it) to me. But maybe he'll give a credit in the notes.

 

[lovecraft68]

I would be cautious about making any assumptions of wrongdoing, based on how you've described things, and also based on what we know about the author whose post you cited. He has one of the more meticulous approaches to story writing going here, and in his post he said he ran the story by 17 beta readers and got feedback from 9.

There are many descriptions of oral sex that could not in any way be characterized as original or proprietary, and there's nothing wrong with using them in one's own story. It's not infringement or plagiarism. If the author cribbed passages word for word, that's bad. But this statement from the author doesn't indicate that he did that. Unless one has looked closely at the passage he wrote, and compared it with the passage or passages that he took ideas from, one is in no position to judge.

Did the 17 beta readers( The hubris....) know of the original story?

My reason for thinking it was close to stealing is two fold. One, I use that same analogy of ripping something out of a story and using it, except I've done it with partially written material I have in a folder. Occasionally I'm stuck on a scene and I'll recall that segment and pull out something from it and tweak it to fit the new work, but that's taking from my own-and unpublished-material

The other reason is they can literally only write one category, and haven't a clue on how to do anything else. My first Lesbian story I totally pantsed it with some images from lesbian porn clips in my head, I didn't need to take chunks out of other people's stories.

I have actual imagination.

Circling back I can't get over the arrogance of posting vanity threads about your own story like anyone is interested in the banality of their process.

 

[lovecraft68]

I tried searching on some phrases from that sex scene, and didn't find obvious hits in other Literotica stories. So I'd guess he isn't just copy-and-pasting the text from other stories. Probably best option is to ask him for clarification, which I will now do.

There's two types of stealing, there is literal copy pasting, then there's taking a paragraph or more of someone else's scene, going through it and word swapping to make it sound more like yours, but every action and description isn't yours, just you rewording it. Just working through your story and putting it in my 'voice' is still cheap.

 

[SimonDoom]

Did the 17 beta readers( The hubris....) know of the original story?

My reason for thinking it was close to stealing is two fold. One, I use that same analogy of ripping something out of a story and using it, except I've done it with partially written material I have in a folder. Occasionally I'm stuck on a scene and I'll recall that segment and pull out something from it and tweak it to fit the new work, but that's taking from my own-and unpublished-material

The other reason is they can literally only write one category, and haven't a clue on how to do anything else. My first Lesbian story I totally pantsed it with some images from lesbian porn clips in my head, I didn't need to take chunks out of other people's stories.

I have actual imagination.

Circling back I can't get over the arrogance of posting vanity threads about your own story like anyone is interested in the banality of their process.

I'm not going to speculate about people's reasons or motives. My point is that NOBODY is in a position to say whether wrongful plagiarism has actually occurred unless they compare the two texts. Nobody has done that here. Judgment is premature.

 

[KeithD]

I'm not going to speculate about people's reasons or motives. My point is that NOBODY is in a position to say whether wrongful plagiarism has actually occurred unless they compare the two texts. Nobody has done that here. Judgment is premature.

Yep, no justification in polishing the pitchforks without having the two versions to compare.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm not going to speculate about people's reasons or motives. My point is that NOBODY is in a position to say whether wrongful plagiarism has actually occurred unless they compare the two texts. Nobody has done that here. Judgment is premature.

Why the defence? He said that he "ripped" content - what else does the word "ripped" mean these days, given its colloquial meaning in the context of stealing digital music?

 

[Bramblethorn]

There's two types of stealing, there is literal copy pasting, then there's taking a paragraph or more of someone else's scene, going through it and word swapping to make it sound more like yours, but every action and description isn't yours, just you rewording it. Just working through your story and putting it in my 'voice' is still cheap.

I'd agree, but beyond that there are other things which are less clearly stealing. If somebody gets stuck on a sex scene, watches a porn film where a guy sucks on a woman's breasts for a while, then goes down on her, uses his fingers, and they end up 69-ing, and if the watcher then goes back to their story writes a sex scene with those same events... that's a pretty generic outline, there are probably a thousand stories and porn videos which fit that pattern. At that point I'd be reluctant to call it theft.

It's not clear to me exactly how much the author has taken here, so I've asked for clarification and I'll wait to see what the response is. If he can link to the inspiration stories so people can see for themselves what's been used, that will save us guessing.

I will say: ignoring the ethical angle for a moment, this is not an approach I'd be keen to use. I write with the mindset that a sex scene should feel like an organic part of the story, something that flows naturally from who the characters are and what's happened between them up to now. Whether one character kisses another tenderly, or grabs her hair and pushes her down, that should come out of what I already know about these people. If I'm splicing in somebody else's outline then it's probably not going to match the chemistry. But that's just a creative preference, not a moral judgement.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I will say: ignoring the ethical angle for a moment, this is not an approach I'd be keen to use. I write with the mindset that a sex scene should feel like an organic part of the story, something that flows naturally from who the characters are and what's happened between them up to now. Whether one character kisses another tenderly, or grabs her hair and pushes her down, that should come out of what I already know about these people. If I'm splicing in somebody else's outline then it's probably not going to match the chemistry. But that's just a creative preference, not a moral judgement.

Agree this.

The alternative offered sounds a bit like an IKEA bolt it together bookcase to me, that you get home and discover shelves are missing. An odd way of writing, but if you put yourself out there and say that you do it, at least that's honest, even if the other bit's, not so much.

If you can't write it yourself, don't write it at all, I reckon.

 

[KeithD]

Writing up what you observe in a porn film is, in no way, either plagiarism or improper. It's exploiting/interpreting different media.

 

[SimonDoom]

Why the defence? He said that he "ripped" content - what else does the word "ripped" mean these days, given its colloquial meaning in the context of stealing digital music?

The words he used to describe what he did do not matter. What matters is what he did. I don't know what he did. The only thing that matters is looking at the work he published and comparing it with the work he "ripped." Nobody in this thread knows that, so nobody is in a position to pass judgment.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

There is an enormous difference between plagiarism and inspiration. Years back, not sure how many, a writer published a book for free the last week of NaNoWriMo he’d written in the competition. It was the Newfound Malediction or Newcastle Malediction, or might have been the Newsome Malediction.

Anyway, I could see the roots of it as having sprung from the old soap opera Dark Shadow. I only saw the show in reruns in Denver, probably on the Sci Fi channel. It wasn’t Dark Shadows; it had some elements of Dark Shadows, a Maine location, a house hundreds of years old, a curse older than the house.

The way it was most like the series was how many different elements of the supernatural and horror that were present in the movie. However, they were more unique than those in Dark Shadows, which were largely recycled from other movies and books.

On Literotica we have Written in Blood, a story inspired by the first quarter of the book Dracula. Again, this is not Dracula, but uses some elements from the book. Neither example is plagiarism, they aren’t really reimagined version; the other works inspired them.

If you read something, and it inspires your juice to produce, so be it. If you change words, don’t create new ones, not such a nice thing.

Thus spake the Jew bitch from Denver.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The words he used to describe what he did do not matter. What matters is what he did. I don't know what he did. The only thing that matters is looking at the work he published and comparing it with the work he "ripped." Nobody in this thread knows that, so nobody is in a position to pass judgment.

In particular: sometimes people use hyperbole.

Not that there aren't people who blatantly rip off other people's stories for real, but it's rare that they would pop on the forums and admit to doing so.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The words he used to describe what he did do not matter. What matters is what he did. I don't know what he did. The only thing that matters is looking at the work he published and comparing it with the work he "ripped." Nobody in this thread knows that, so nobody is in a position to pass judgment.

So words don't mean anything any more? Of course they matter, that's why we use words to describe what we're doing. Words have meanings, Simon, that's why we use them.

8letters has freely admitted he ripped off someone else's work, so we're quite entitled to judge him on that, whatever the specifics might be. He used the word twice in three adjacent sentences, but hey, maybe that was just a mistake.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'd agree, but beyond that there are other things which are less clearly stealing. If somebody gets stuck on a sex scene, watches a porn film where a guy sucks on a woman's breasts for a while, then goes down on her, uses his fingers, and they end up 69-ing, and if the watcher then goes back to their story writes a sex scene with those same events... that's a pretty generic outline, there are probably a thousand stories and porn videos which fit that pattern. At that point I'd be reluctant to call it theft.

It's not clear to me exactly how much the author has taken here, so I've asked for clarification and I'll wait to see what the response is. If he can link to the inspiration stories so people can see for themselves what's been used, that will save us guessing.

I will say: ignoring the ethical angle for a moment, this is not an approach I'd be keen to use. I write with the mindset that a sex scene should feel like an organic part of the story, something that flows naturally from who the characters are and what's happened between them up to now. Whether one character kisses another tenderly, or grabs her hair and pushes her down, that should come out of what I already know about these people. If I'm splicing in somebody else's outline then it's probably not going to match the chemistry. But that's just a creative preference, not a moral judgement.

Visual porn has inspired most of us to different degrees, but to watch something then be able to put that something into words is different than taking existing words and tweaking them.

As I said before, I've done this within my own work, taking from something unfinished and plugging it it and when I do its just changing character names and maybe a few other words to fit the two involved more than whoever was originally intended. BY that experience I would consider doing it to someone else, if not 'stealing' pretty damn cheap, lazy, and uncreative.

 

[jsmiam]

I would vote that the accused in question used a language element (ripped) rather casually, and it was taken literally. My interpretation is “they took an idea for a particular scene and incorporated that idea”, not that they copied it in recognizable form. Calling it plagiarism strikes me as (Lit specific folklore here) saying that any “mom’s lap” story plagiarized the first one.

So for example, I could go overboard and wonder since he said “ripped”, that perhaps he printed the other stories on physical paper, then using his fingers, tore (ripped) the pieces of paper and used glue to stick them to another piece of paper. Because he said “ripped.”

Would more clarity have been better? Yes. Is my interpretation guaranteed correct? No. But I think so.

Also, @eb, the term “ripping” in a computing context refers to the “how to do it” part of extracting content, not whether or not that extracting is being done illegally or not. It was a slang term since originally it was (still is to a degree) a cumbersome process to capture music CDs content at the sound card, as it is played in real time (not computer speed file copying), then redigitizing it to other file formats. It’s unknown whether it was ever a play on words of “rip off” as in steal. And even if it was once based on “rip off” (I don’t think so but can’t prove one way or another), that’s not what it means now. One word. Different meanings. (I suppose I’m also interpreting copying a CD I have in my physical possession for my own use in the more forgiving context of “hey, I bought it”, rather than what the recording industry would try to say where making a mix tape (cassette era) or ripping a CD is illegal no matter what, even if you bought it)

 

[SimonDoom]

So words don't mean anything any more? Of course they matter, that's why we use words to describe what we're doing. Words have meanings, Simon, that's why we use them.

8letters has freely admitted he ripped off someone else's work, so we're quite entitled to judge him on that, whatever the specifics might be. He used the word twice in three adjacent sentences, but hey, maybe that was just a mistake.

I don't agree.

"Rip" has no obvious, clear meaning in this context. He can explain what it means, if he wants to. I'm not going to make assumptions.

I "take" ideas from the stories of other authors all the time, with no compunction or sense of guilt, fully confident that what I've done is not legally copyright infringement or ethically plagiarism. Authors have been doing this forever. Shakespeare did it. Fictional ideas are not proprietary. Nobody owns them. The idea of mom and son in the backseat of a car, the idea of nude women delivering mail in an office, the idea of a woman being a hucow -- nobody owns these ideas. They are in the public domain, and authors are free to take them from stories they read and write their own twists on these ideas.

Some people might call this "ripping." I wouldn't, but others use words in a different way. I don't know what he did, and I'm not prepared to judge unless I do. If he used a sex scene in a story as a way of scripting his own sex scene, borrowing some of the sequences of activities, body part movements, and responses, then as long as he changed the character names and didn't crib the scene word for word I don't see a problem.

If by "ripping" he means that he literally took the words of another and inserted them into his story, then I agree that is unethical and wrong. I just don't know for sure from that passage that this is what he did.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I would vote that the accused in question used a language element (ripped) rather casually, and it was taken literally.

Psst - you're tagging the wrong "eb" there.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I don't agree.

"Rip" has no obvious, clear meaning in this context. He can explain what it means, if he wants to. I'm not going to make assumptions.

I "take" ideas from the stories of other authors all the time, with no compunction or sense of guilt, fully confident that what I've done is not legally copyright infringement or ethically plagiarism. Authors have been doing this forever. Shakespeare did it. Fictional ideas are not proprietary. Nobody owns them. The idea of mom and son in the backseat of a car, the idea of nude women delivering mail in an office, the idea of a woman being a hucow -- nobody owns these ideas. They are in the public domain, and authors are free to take them from stories they read and write their own twists on these ideas.

Some people might call this "ripping." I wouldn't, but others use words in a different way. I don't know what he did, and I'm not prepared to judge unless I do. If he used a sex scene in a story as a way of scripting his own sex scene, borrowing some of the sequences of activities, body part movements, and responses, then as long as he changed the character names and didn't crib the scene word for word I don't see a problem.

If by "ripping" he means that he literally took the words of another and inserted them into his story, then I agree that is unethical and wrong. I just don't know for sure from that passage that this is what he did.

Really? Isn't there some degree of latitude here?

I agree that blatant cut-and-paste copying of mass amounts of another author's work is unethical, but I frequently come across adjectives, descriptive phrases, or other pieces of work that I find inspirational and fitting to a section of a story that I am writing.

For example, if another writer describes a female character exactly as I envision one of my female characters looking, I see nothing wrong with "emulating" (not copying) that description. Rather than saying, "She had radiant blonde hair, a perfect ass, and tits to die for," I might write, "Her radiant blonde hair hung almost to her perfect ass in back and teasingly hid her bare 'to die for' breasts."

Where is the line drawn between inspiration and plagiarism?

 

[jsmiam]

Psst - you're tagging the wrong "eb" there.

True. I was too lazy to scroll up and do real spelling. I think one time I noticed that the @ links aren’t validated so that made me get lazy with them. But I should be more careful. Thanks.

Let me test my theory too: @JbdhdhdhdbdbbdbdbdbbdbdbdbbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbfbfbbfbfbbfbfbJL