When does plagiarism begin?

[Whanmore]

Who was it that said... "Stealing from an author is plagiarism. Stealing from a bunch of authors; that's research!" ?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Who was it that said... "Stealing from an author is plagiarism. Stealing from a bunch of authors; that's research!" ?

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/when-does-plagiarism-begin.1651129/post-102490213

 

[RetroFan]

Sometimes this sort of thing can happen by pure accident.

For example in one of my stories that I wrote back in 2016, an abusive husband/father is unhappy with the meatloaf he is served for his dinner so feeds it to the dog, then heats up a can of dog food and eats that for his dinner instead. At the time I had never read the book 'The Prince of Tides' nor seen the 1991 movie based on this novel, but there is also a scene in this where an abusive husband/father doesn't like his dinner and ends up eating dog food instead.

There are some fairly significant differences between my scene and the one in Prince of Tides. In Prince of Tides, the long-suffering wife/mother secretly cooks the dog food for her ungrateful husband disguising it as beef hash and rice, and he really enjoys it, not knowing he is eating dog food. In my scene the father prepares the dog food himself and eats it willingly to make a point about how much he dislikes his wife's cooking. Also the way the two scenes play out are different and take place in different locations and eras, Prince of Tides in the South in the 1950s and mine in New York in the 1980s, but still many people reading the story might think I was inspired by the novel or movie, which I most definitely was not, it's just an amazing coincidence.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sometimes this sort of thing can happen by pure accident.

For example in one of my stories that I wrote back in 2016, an abusive husband/father is unhappy with the meatloaf he is served for his dinner so feeds it to the dog, then heats up a can of dog food and eats that for his dinner instead.

When I lived in a college in the late seventies, we had a guy protest at the quality of the meals by emptying out a can of dog food, filling it with soup, and bringing it into the dining room to eat. Long time before 2016, that's for sure!

Worrying about plagiarism with only five words on the table is ridiculous, frankly. Someone, somewhere, will surely have written those same words, and readers in 2026 would never know.

 

[AlexBailey]

A little bit different than copyright but still about control of words:

“Taco Tuesday” was a trademarked term until a couple years ago when Taco Bell challenged the owners of the term in court.


https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/18/business/taco-tuesday-lawsuit-ends/index.html


“We’ve always prided ourselves on being the home of Taco Tuesday, but paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do,” Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement

 

[Statius]

A little bit different than copyright but still about control of words:

“Taco Tuesday” was a trademarked term until a couple years ago when Taco Bell challenged the owners of the term in court.


https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/18/business/taco-tuesday-lawsuit-ends/index.html


“We’ve always prided ourselves on being the home of Taco Tuesday, but paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do,” Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement

I'm ok with that. We had Taco Johns here for a bit; that place was absolute slop. Think they lasted in our area less than a year.

 

[AlexBailey]

I'm ok with that. We had Taco Johns here for a bit; that place was absolute slop. Think they lasted in our area less than a year.

I guess my point is that even if something is not for sale, with enough financial leverage, any intellectual property can be stolen. Even a name or a family crest.

 

[OralAllOver]

In my current fiction book from the library I read "his cock was a rod." I quite liked this description. We're always casting about for new ways to describe the same old things. I don't anticipate writing any more stories, but if I did, would it be plagiarism to use that? I could well have thought it up myself. Does plagiarism have to be a whole sentence? Even that doesn't work, as whole sentences have been repeated ad nauseum in the word of erotica.

Plagiarism is more than an obvious analogy
Contex important -- a joke (comedian) or poetry not same as long nonfiction work

Basically, you know when the "creativity" is not yours (Steve Jobs stole mouse and drop down menu from Xerox Park -- true!)

When in doubt give credit! It's a nice thing to do anyway

 

[Statius]

I guess my point is that even if something is not for sale, with enough financial leverage, any intellectual property can be stolen. Even a name or a family crest.

Yeah I got that, I was just throwing in my own IDAF about taco tuesday- I will say though being serious for a moment, TB sounds like they were definitely in the wrong there; but as you say, corp money gets it's way, every time, unfortunately.