AwkwardMD
The worst Buddhist
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2014
- Posts
- 2,874
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It bothers me too, but you started a very useful thread. We have a lot of theoretical discussions about infringement and plagiarism in this forum, and here we had the opportunity to look at a real Literotica case, and it's illuminating.Thanks for your quick and thorough review of the stories, Bramblethorn.
For the record, I contacted 8letters directly about this as soon as I saw his post and gave him an opportunity to right the wrong. It was only after he did nothing that I came here.
This saddens me greatly as I've been a past beta reader for him, but it is what it is.
I breaks my heart when authors like FemmeyFemmeFemme quit writing here and remove their works because someone chose to steal them. It hurts even more to see of one your own do it.
If it's your own work, you're editing it, surely? Or releasing a "Special Edition".LC68 brought this up, what about plagiarizing one's own work?
LC68 brought this up, what about plagiarizing one's own work?
I've been rewriting some of my stories (tightening them up and cleaning continuity), and the similarities among them are, shall I be generous and say, striking. To make each of my stories as original to each other as the criteria being suggested here implies would be flat-out impossible. I know I'm overstating the case, and with popular artists (isn't that what we all are at the end of the day?), their audiences usually want more of the same, much more, and precisely the same (but better and different). I believe that John Fogerty (Credence Clearwater Revival) was sued for plagiarizing his catalog. I know that case involved business technicalities, and he won, but this does have real-world ramifications.
Something else that LC mentioned is less clear. I worked on a sequel to my first story and reached a dead end. Rather than throw away 60k words, I chopped it up into five pieces to post five shorter vignettes. I reworked the first and posted it. In the process, I figured out what was wrong with the bigger story and returned to working on it. Some day (or year), I'll finish the long sequel and post it, but the shorter vignette is out there. I've reworked the shorter post for the bigger story, but it's important to the bigger story and will be evident to anyone who has read it and remembers it.
A final example. Several years ago, I wrote and posted a story with a set-up and inciting incident that went in a particular direction. It did well and continues to do well. I now have an idea for a story that takes the same set-up, a slightly modified inciting incident, but takes the story in an entirely different direction. Would that be a bridge too far, and what is the standard one could employ to know?
Thanks for your considered and detailed reply to me and the above, too.As long as you own the rights, the main issue here is misleading your market about the novelty of the work. I imagine if Fogerty had released a "new" album that was actually just a rerelease of previous hits, the buyers would be justifiably annoyed, whether or not he still owned the copyrights. Less of an issue here where readers aren't paying money, but if you're releasing something that's essentially an edit/remix of a previously released story, it's probably a good idea to acknowledge that up front.
Not least because it stops readers from having to think "I read something like this a few years back, did this guy plagiarise from it?" because they remember the previous version but don't remember that you wrote that one too.
I don't think this is especially uncommon in professional publishing. Clarke's "The Sentinel"/"2001", King's "Jerusalem's Lot"/"'Salem's Lot", Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon", plenty of other cases where an author released a short story and then later developed it into a novel. Usually expanding it to a novel adds plenty of new material anyway, but it you have doubts, a quick note at the beginning of the story can let readers know.
"Author's note: after writing my previous story $STORYNAME, I wanted to explore how things might have turned out if one of the characters had made different choices. This is the result."
Nobody can say you didn't tell them.
Ain't the truth, I've made some of my biggest mistakes while under no pressure at all.There's no error like the unforced error.
I hope I do better than George Lucas with his reworked original Star Wars IV. I believe that unless you have one of the original Laserdiscs (or VHS tapes) from the 80s, you still can't get the theatrical release.If it's your own work, you're editing it, surely? Or releasing a "Special Edition".
Plagiarism is stealing content from another author, not yourself.
I hope I do better than George Lucas with his reworked original Star Wars IV. I believe that unless you have one of the original Laserdiscs (or VHS tapes) from the 80s, you still can't get the theatrical release.
I hope I do better than George Lucas with his reworked original Star Wars IV. I believe that unless you have one of the original Laserdiscs (or VHS tapes) from the 80s, you still can't get the theatrical release.
Aw, thanks!Thanks for your considered and detailed reply to me and the above, too.
As much as I enjoy your contributions to the AH, I hope you'll find time to continue with your fiction. I miss your work on the other side of Lit.
I can see your point based on the example that I threw together.I would consider that example to be over the line. Not a long way over, but over.
Here's a litmus test: if one reads the two, side by side, is it obvious that the writer of one passage has read the other?* In this case, I'd say yes. There are probably a million stories out there starring a blonde woman with a great ass and great tits, but how many would use the same specific combination of "radiant blonde", "perfect ass", "to die for"? Any one of them would be unremarkable, two might be coincidence, but all three? Even if the two of you were looking at the exact same picture of the exact same woman, it's unlikely that you'd hit on the same word choices to that degree.
*or other similar connection - sometimes the answer turns out to be "both of them copied off a third thing".
The only potential problem I could see would be if you published the newer work under a different name that readers didn't immediately associate with your ownership of the original work.LC68 brought this up, what about plagiarizing one's own work?
I've been rewriting some of my stories (tightening them up and cleaning continuity), and the similarities among them are, shall I be generous and say, striking. To make each of my stories as original to each other as the criteria being suggested here implies would be flat-out impossible. I know I'm overstating the case, and with popular artists (isn't that what we all are at the end of the day?), their audiences usually want more of the same, much more, and precisely the same (but better and different). I believe that John Fogerty (Credence Clearwater Revival) was sued for plagiarizing his catalog. I know that case involved business technicalities, and he won, but this does have real-world ramifications.
Something else that LC mentioned is less clear. I worked on a sequel to my first story and reached a dead end. Rather than throw away 60k words, I chopped it up into five pieces to post five shorter vignettes. I reworked the first and posted it. In the process, I figured out what was wrong with the bigger story and returned to working on it. Some day (or year), I'll finish the long sequel and post it, but the shorter vignette is out there. I've reworked the shorter post for the bigger story, but it's important to the bigger story and will be evident to anyone who has read it and remembers it.
A final example. Several years ago, I wrote and posted a story with a set-up and inciting incident that went in a particular direction. It did well and continues to do well. I now have an idea for a story that takes the same set-up, a slightly modified inciting incident, but takes the story in an entirely different direction. Would that be a bridge too far, and what is the standard one could employ to know?
I can see your point based on the example that I threw together.
The descriptors grouped together does make them appear too similar to the original, but if used individually in different contexts throughout the story, they become just the same words being used.
I see no problem in that regard.
If that's a coincidence, no problem. If it's deliberate, well, you're the only one who's going to know, and it's unlikely to harm the person you're taking from; if it's a sin it's a pretty small sin. But, ethics aside, I'm not sure it's a good idea for a writer to be leaning on somebody else's strengths this way.I can see your point based on the example that I threw together.
The descriptors grouped together does make them appear too similar to the original, but if used individually in different contexts throughout the story, they become just the same words being used.
I see no problem in that regard.
This.If that's a coincidence, no problem. If it's deliberate, well, you're the only one who's going to know, and it's unlikely to harm the person you're taking from; if it's a sin it's a pretty small sin. But, ethics aside, I'm not sure it's a good idea for a writer to be leaning on somebody else's strengths this way.
By that ethical logic, it would be inappropriate to reference a thesaurus in an attempt to find descriptors or words that you might be searching for as a writer.I'm not sure it's a good idea for a writer to be leaning on somebody else's strengths this way.
The ethical aspects arise when the words are used purposely in an effort to emulate the larger work of another writer.
No one has an exclusive right to words, but they MAY have an exclusive right to certain word combinations. Think of it statistically, like rolling a series of dice. It only takes a few die roles to get to a combination of rolls that, statistically, is unlikely to be reproduced in a purely coincidental way. If you are plucking, word for word, sentences that combine more than four words from another author's work, and you put them in different places in your own work, there's an excellent chance nobody will catch you without careful analysis. But it's still willful copying, and it's still a bit icky, isn't it? There's nothing at all wrong with saying to yourself, "I really like the way they used the word 'radiant' in that story! I'm going to do something like that in my story." Perfectly fine. But if you're lifting entire sentences, that's not fine. It's lazy, it's unoriginal, it's cribbing from other's work, and it's misleading readers into thinking YOU are the one who came up with those clever word combinations, not someone else.By that ethical logic, it would be inappropriate to reference a thesaurus in an attempt to find descriptors or words that you might be searching for as a writer.
The fact that a particular word or words are used by one person to describe something doesn't give them sole rights to them, even if they have a keen way of turning a phrase. The ethical aspects arise when the words are used purposely in an effort to emulate the larger work of another writer. The examples that you showed of 8Letter's work demonstrate that. Re-using the word "radiant" or phrase "to-die-for" do not in and by themselves meet the same standard.
If so, writers would have no words left to use.
Integrity move.I don't know what it's like to have sex from a female perspective. That story had a female narrator, and, as much as possible, I wanted to use a woman's words to describe what sex with another woman is like.
I made a bad decision on how much to take from "A Girl Named Mitch". I rewrote the vast majority of the sex scene, which is a MFF threesome. If you look at the comparison, what's from "A Girl Named Mitch" is 10-20% of the whole sex scene. To me, the sex scene is very much an 8letters' sex scene. And the sex scene is just a half a page of a seven page story, which is in a different category from "A Girl Name Mitch".
It doesn't matter. If people felt I crossed a line, I crossed a line. It wouldn't be hard to rewrite what little is from "A Girl Name Mitch", but I'll take the story down instead.
I hate calling the originals 4-6, like BS that was how it was going to be all along, he made a fortune and wanted to keep going.For that matter, the plot of Star Wars 7 is an awful lot like Star Wars 4.
I would vote in these cases that they are catch-phrases, part of pop culture, and just fine. I give you permission. ;-). If you really wanted to cite, credit the movie quote. I once used a girl saying “I love the smell of dried cum in the morning” and built into the plot line that she was even sexier to a man from (a) using a movie quote, (b) using a movie quote from both Robert Duvall AND what arguably is a guys movie, and (c) using a movie quote from both Robert Duvall AND what arguably is a guys movie (such a good reason I’ll say it twice.This.
I've lost count of the times I've regretted Jesse Ventura's line from Predator, during the "bunch of slack-jawed faggots" tirade in the helicopter: "a goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus." Jim Thomas, John Thomas, or Shane Black came up with that little throwaway gem, but it's passed through my head a million times as the perfect descriptor in many of my stories. I hate that I didn't come up with it.
I'll never use it, of course. I'm even leery about phrases like goddamn sexual dynamo/sexual volcano/sexual tornado and the like. Not because they're not valid descriptors, but because I know full well that I did not come up with that formula, as perfect as it would be for so many of my characters. That formula was not mine; it belonged to someone else. It would be wrong for me to take it.