Plagiarism Checking

[Lifestyle66]

Think again: https://forum.literotica.com/threads/the-ah-coffee-shop-and-reading-room-09.1574612/post-101929505

But "which is it?" was the final thought in that post.

The single word "Xerox" was a copyrighted trademark of the Xerox corporation, until a court ruled that it had become synonymous with "a machine copy of a document", and the Xerox company could no longer claim exclusive use of that name when others used it in that context.

So, many words or phrases are used so commonly that no one author can claim them as their own.

EDIT: In my last story, I wrote the sentence: "It's little wonder most of the area residents driving along the two-lane road passed the bar without stopping."

Does that mean I own that combination of words, and no one else can use it without plagiarizing MY story?

 

[alohadave]

I found this interesting. My husband told me that map makers put one fake town on every map, so they can tell if someone copies it, but I was skeptical.

What is a Mountweazel?

In the map world, they are called Trap Streets and Paper Towns.

 

[SimonDoom]

Think again: https://forum.literotica.com/threads/the-ah-coffee-shop-and-reading-room-09.1574612/post-101929505

That's trademark, not copyright. That's something completely different. Apple has a registered trademark in its name when used in connection with the sale of computers and related technology. That doesn't mean it has a monopoly on the use of the word "apple." It doesn't mean you have to be in any way concerned about using the word "apple" in your stories.

 

[Rob_Royale]

It's not something I worry about at all. Anything I use consciously is acknowledged in my author's notes, like using a weird version of the cast from Gilligan's Island, in Boldly Cumming. Anything I use unconsciously would be up to the wronged party to prove I did so with the intent to profit from their product.

 

[Djmac1031]

I "borrow" movie lines all the time. Ive also "borrowed" elements from novels I've read etc.

Ive lost count of how many times I've had characters quote Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings.

There's a big difference between quoting a line or two and copying an entire scene and claiming it as your own of course.

I always put acknowledgements at the end if I feel its warranted.

Just as an example:

In The Devils Sting, I have my Succubus character Annej reenact the heart removal scene from Temple Of Doom. Right down to her quoting the Hindi spell chant.

In story, she acknowledged she "saw this in a movie once, always wanted to try it."

And the end i of course credit the film as the source and inspiration.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I "borrow" movie lines all the time. Ive also "borrowed" elements from novels I've read etc.

Ive lost count of how many times I've had characters quote Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings.

There's a big difference between quoting a line or two and copying an entire scene and claiming it as your own of course.

I always put acknowledgements at the end if I feel its warranted.

Just as an example:

In The Devils Sting, I have my Succubus character Annej reenact the heart removal scene from Temple Of Doom. Right down to her quoting the Hindi spell chant.

In story, she acknowledged she "saw this in a movie once, always wanted to try it."

And the end i of course credit the film as the source and inspiration.

I do the same, ... when it's warranted.

The opening scene of my story, "Amorous Goods: The Anklet Pair" comes from an old movie which I point out in my Autor's Note at the beginning:

"The 1958 movie with James Stewart and Kim Novak, "Bell, Book, and Candle" is the inspiration for the character Rylan, her cat Meyollnir, and the Zodiac Club. That world of the 1950's witchcraft, spells, and emotionless quirky characteristics fit well into this present-day story."


I consider that enough attribution to take the scene further into my own story. After all, my story wasn't a re-creation of that movie's story. It just spawned off in a different, but similar direction of witchcraft from that movie's nightclub scene.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I found this interesting. My husband told me that map makers put one fake town on every map, so they can tell if someone copies it, but I was skeptical.

What is a Mountweazel?

As I understand it this used to be a fairly common thing, but a 1991 case established that a collection of information without some degree of creativity isn't protected by copyright, so proving that somebody has copied the data from your maps doesn't get you anywhere.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Nobody has a proprietary right in a sentence

Not usually, but courts have recognised that a single sentence can be protected by copyright if sufficiently original - cf. the 1979 Ashleigh Brilliant case discussed at https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_for_short/.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

Does anyone else run their work through a plagiarism checker? Since I read so many stories across so many genres and watch so many movies and TV shows in various genres, I run my work through a plagiarism checker. Sometimes, a line or two shows from a website. It's usually a ubiquitous phrase or simple sentence.

The reason I do it is that I watched a movie once, and used a phrase from it, and still do. "Yes, yes, you are," Sam Sapde to his partner, Miles Archer. That's a little thing and no big deal. I remember hearing "I'm not in the habit of throwing kerosene on fire," in a John Wayne movie, and seeing it as "kerosene," "gasoline," "coal oil," or "alcohol" in various sundry stories. So some things are acceptable. But if it is enough, fire off a checker, I change it.

Are there others here who inadvertently reuse things they've read or heard in their stories? When you do, do you change them or leave them as is?

No judgment, I'm only curious.

I never do because no freaking way in hell would I ever plagiarize.

On an unrelated note, I'm writing an opening line to my novel and getting stuck. So far I have: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - little help?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Try it this way.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate."

I never do because no freaking way in hell would I ever plagiarize.

On an unrelated note, I'm writing an opening line to my novel and getting stuck. So far I have: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - little help?

 

[WhoDunIt77]

For the first sex scene for the protagonists in the 4th chapters on my current story, I did use lines from other media. One line from a 30+ year old Hollywood Movie from the another from a 40+ year old TV show, then a short line from an even older rock song.

Nobody seems to have caught on to them though.

 

[designatedvictim]

Does anyone else run their work through a plagiarism checker? Since I read so many stories across so many genres and watch so many movies and TV shows in various genres, I run my work through a plagiarism checker. Sometimes, a line or two shows from a website. It's usually a ubiquitous phrase or simple sentence.

The reason I do it is that I watched a movie once, and used a phrase from it, and still do. "Yes, yes, you are," Sam Sapde to his partner, Miles Archer. That's a little thing and no big deal. I remember hearing "I'm not in the habit of throwing kerosene on fire," in a John Wayne movie, and seeing it as "kerosene," "gasoline," "coal oil," or "alcohol" in various sundry stories. So some things are acceptable. But if it is enough, fire off a checker, I change it.

Are there others here who inadvertently reuse things they've read or heard in their stories? When you do, do you change them or leave them as is?

No judgment, I'm only curious.

I doubt that such a check should be much to worry about unless the resulting percentages are significant.

I'd never considered using a tool like that because I know where my material comes from.

Having said that, of course we all lift words and phrases from outer sources. You like how something sounds. You like the twist it makes. You like how two or three words invoke something from a source.

Most times it's done subconsciously and you don't realize you've done it, or you know the source and want that invocation.

My last two works I've used the line

'Laundry day? No clean clothes?'

As a direct homage to The Terminator. Not so much because it was the harbinger of a really bad night for the punk who uttered it, but because it was a light hearted call back to the movie, which was where I first heard it.

"I'm not in the habit of throwing [something flammable] on fire,"

This is an example of the writers doing just that. It's a known turn of phrase and hardly original. I can't imagine anyone thinking it was plagiarism based on ubiquity and short length. You can pack in more data by using the well-known phrase without needing to actually explain it.

The only time I'd worry would be when large tracts of text report-out as being lifted or closely paraphrased from other works.

(Since I've never used an outside tool for this type of check, I don't know how it would report such information. Is it a rough percentage? Does it show which text it thinks is copied and does it suggest where it may have been boosted from?)

Just my two bits.

 

[Britva415]

a collection of information without some degree of creativity isn't protected by copyright

Good news! They still can’t copy the creative part! (of a map with creative “data” on it)

 

[RocketGrunt]

In one of my Pokemon related stories, Swoobat used Confusion (New Order, 1983) and readers got the joke.
Parody remains protected, so even explicit use of lines from songs in that way isn't plagiarism. I'm not sure whether a plagiarism detector program would claim it was not allowed, but I also wouldn't care if it did.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've got a bad feeling about this!

I "borrow" movie lines all the time. Ive also "borrowed" elements from novels I've read etc.

Ive lost count of how many times I've had characters quote Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings.

There's a big difference between quoting a line or two and copying an entire scene and claiming it as your own of course.

I always put acknowledgements at the end if I feel its warranted.

Just as an example:

In The Devils Sting, I have my Succubus character Annej reenact the heart removal scene from Temple Of Doom. Right down to her quoting the Hindi spell chant.

In story, she acknowledged she "saw this in a movie once, always wanted to try it."

And the end i of course credit the film as the source and inspiration.