# What constitutes plagiarism? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 28, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714 "2013-07-28T03:09:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/21 "2013-07-29T13:51:39Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Was Kingsbury’s story really nothing but a bunch of specific ideas copied from Asimov but with new names? If so, he’s lucky to have gotten away with it, but I’d advise against trying the same trick. No, Kingsbury’s **story** was entirely original. It was the underlying universe that was Asimov’s under a different name. In a sense, all three novels were about crises in psychohistory and this was an entirely different one. But in what I said about a magical school, I didn’t say a word about the story line. I was assuming it is was an entirely different plot, unrelated to Rowling’s. Imagine, for example, that magic mysteriously start to progressively weaken and it is up to Marty (say) to discover its cause and end it before it disappears. Suppose, say, that magic is actually due to the presence and health of the unicorns and some virus is killing them. Marty eventually discovers the cause and creates, somehow, a vaccine, to immunize them. There. I have imagined a story utterly different from Rowling’s and I don’t see how it could be plagiarism. I hope someone goes ahead and writes it. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/22 "2013-07-29T15:10:07Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > However, the deeply hilarious [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10016013-harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality) seems to have gotten away with it. Whether that’s because there’s an exemption for satire or because Rowling herself seemed to rather like it, I don’t know. The fact that IIUC its author hasn’t attempted to profit from it is likely a factor. This is one big reason why “fan fiction” gets away with stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/23 "2013-07-29T18:13:06Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > If Don is right, then you could write a novel about a magic school called Beautiful Wands (well maybe that would violate Beaubatons) that you got to from platform 3.141592 of Euston Station, that had four houses called Dragonden, Snakey, Crowfoot, and Tornado, had a game called Wretched (that’s my private opinion of Quidditch, BTW) and the you could never quite figure out on whose side the headmaster of Snakey was on, and an evil genius named Pleintot. > [@Lamia](#): > > You can write whatever you want, but I don’t think a legitimate publisher would touch such a novel. An idea like “mundane object hides portal to a magical world” cannot be copyrighted, and is at least as old as _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. But “hidden between platforms 3 and 4 in a London rail station is a portal that will allow you to travel to a magic school” is a very specific version of this idea and one that’s easily recognizable as having been previously used in an extremely well-known series of books. As bad or worse has been done with Tolkien; _The Sword of Shanarra_ sold a bajillion copies and was sufficiently close to the Lord of the Rings that you could predict what would happen in sword at a scene-by-scene level based on what happened in Lord of the Rings. I’m told that the [Iron Tower Trilogy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Tower) is worse. ---
**Author:** ![Mgalindo13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea5d25/32.png) [@Mgalindo13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mgalindo13)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/24 "2013-07-29T18:21:48Z")
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a really interesting piece about plagiarism in the New Yorker. You can read it [here](http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_11_25_a_borrowed.html). It touches on some of the questions you have, though more from a philosophical and social aspect and not so much legal. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/25 "2013-07-30T01:01:33Z")
> [@hniyer](#): > > Let’s say for the sake of argument here that the intent is to tell a substantially different story that reuses the main elements of let’s say the Alien franchise. And lets say the intent is not to add to a body of fanfic, but to eventually publish in some form, though perhaps not for profit. I’m in academia, so my experience with plagiarism and copyright issues is from that realm and not the realm of entertainment/fiction. But what you describe sounds like copyright violation to me. If this story were posted for free online (like _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_, which I’ll talk about more below) then there’s a good chance that no one would ever come after you. If they did, it would probably begin with a cease and desist letter and you could avoid a lawsuit by just taking the story down. However, attempting to profit from a work that violates someone else’s copyright is the sort of thing that copyright holders tend to be less understanding about. Personally, I’d be particularly reluctant to screw around with something like the _Alien_ franchise. An individual author might never learn about a minor commercial work that violates their copyright, or might decide it’s not worth going to court over. A major Hollywood film studio seems in a better position to both learn about the violation and sue over it. > [@Aspidistra](#): > > However, the deeply hilarious [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10016013-harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality) seems to have gotten away with it. Whether that’s because there’s an exemption for satire or because Rowling herself seemed to rather like it, I don’t know. As \*\*Thudlow Boink \*\*mentioned, _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ isn’t a commercially published novel. It’s posted for free online on [FanFiction.Net](http://FanFiction.Net). I’ve never heard of J.K. Rowling going after fanfiction authors. Most copyright holders don’t bother trying to stop fanfic writers, although there are some notable exceptions (e.g. Anne Rice). In general though I think copyright holders tend to feel that fanfiction isn’t really hurting them and that playing Whack-A-Mole with fanfic sites isn’t worth the trouble. While the _Methods of Rationality_ author could probably make a decent case for this particular story being a parody that is protected under fair use, it’s unlikely to ever come to that. > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > No, Kingsbury’s **story** was entirely original. It was the underlying universe that was Asimov’s under a different name. In a sense, all three novels were about crises in psychohistory and this was an entirely different one. But in what I said about a magical school, I didn’t say a word about the story line. I was assuming it is was an entirely different plot, unrelated to Rowling’s. Imagine, for example, that magic mysteriously start to progressively weaken and it is up to Marty (say) to discover its cause and end it before it disappears. Suppose, say, that magic is actually due to the presence and health of the unicorns and some virus is killing them. Marty eventually discovers the cause and creates, somehow, a vaccine, to immunize them. > > There. I have imagined a story utterly different from Rowling’s and I don’t see how it could be plagiarism. I hope someone goes ahead and writes it. And I hope they’re prepared to deal with a copyright violation lawsuit. An entirely original _plot_ does not change the fact that the hypothetical novel you described earlier made extensive use of specific ideas, characters, and settings from the _Harry Potter_ novels. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/26 "2013-07-30T01:06:53Z")
You guys are neglecting a major difference between plagiarism and copyright: If something is a copyright violation, it is still a violation even if they name their sources. This is not true for plagiarism. If I announce my source, I am quoting you. Plagiarizing is specifically claiming work to be your own when it is not. The concern is about people getting credit when they shouldn’t, not about who gets paid. That’s why plagiarism existed even before copyright. That said, you really shouldn’t do either. But more and more authors are okay with technical copyright violations as long as you don’t try to make money off of it. And even some are okay if you make money off of it–see many companies and their Let’s Play policy, or some specific works that allow [fanfic of them to be sold](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-13/amazon-wants-to-sell-your-fan-fiction-through-kindle-worlds) on Amazon. (or, to be more specific, Amazon bought the rights to allow it. They get a cut, too, so why not?) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/27 "2013-07-30T01:27:19Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > And I hope they’re prepared to deal with a copyright violation lawsuit. An entirely original _plot_ does not change the fact that the hypothetical novel you described earlier made extensive use of specific ideas, characters, and settings from the _Harry Potter_ novels. Then why didn’t Kingsbury’s? That’s what he was trying to do: mimic Kingsbury’s method of filing off the serial numbers off a work in order to publish something in another author’s universe. What specifically would he have to change to make it work? My guess is that Kingbury changed a lot more than the names to make it work–the names were just one of the things he changed. I could see making a story about a boarding school just with clubs, that you get to via portal in your dresser, and no real mention of a sport at all. And, yes, with a teacher everyone thinks may be evil. And perhaps the entire world is magical, and that raises the stakes even higher–the world is ending. Just because you know you’re basing it on the Harry Potter universe doesn’t mean the final result will be based on the Harry Potter universe. See Shades of Gray, which was explicitly a Twilight fanfic. And, even knowing its origins, it’s perfectly legal. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/28 "2013-07-30T10:39:57Z")
I once pointed out to Terry Pratchett that one of his books (don’t remember the title) had many similarities with the book [Comet in Moominland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_in_Moominland) by Finnish author/artist Tove Jansson and he seemed a bit upset about it. However, I wouldn’t say that these similarities are plagiarism. Instead they are an homage to Jansson. He probably had read the book as a child and forgotten about it, but the plot had been lingering in the back of his mind all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/29 "2013-07-30T13:57:29Z")
This thread has been interesting, but the answers contradict what I had always heard: that you cannot copyright ideas, only their expression. Rowling’s world of magic and Asimov’s universe are ideas. An original story based on them uses the idea, but not their expression. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/30 "2013-07-30T15:05:47Z")
> [@hniyer](#): > > And that is where the ambiguity lies. What is “copyrightable” about the alien monster? Black slimy body? Acid for blood? Nasty attitude? Bad teeth? Mouth within a mouth, or a serrated tail blade? All of the above? I can make the body red, describe the acid as a solvent, rename a bunch of characters, and invent a suitably creative name for the species itself. One can morph all the outward details, but the essence of the idea being reused remains - that is the purpose of the reuse itself, because it adds something critical to the storyline. > > Based on what has been said upthread, even with all this camouflage, I would probably end up with a lawsuit. There’s no clearcut answer. Nothing about what you describe is not necessarily a copyright violation, even if you use it all. Ideas are not copyrightable, so you’re free to use the idea of the terrorizing alien. You just can’t set it up as part of the “Alien” universe. The bigger question is why reuse an existing alien? Your job as a writer is to make things up and come up with something just as good or better (as Alfred Bester said, the only thing a writer has to offer is originality). Create your own terrifying threat and you’ll be a better writer for it. I’ve been writing and selling SF for over 30 years and my goal was to never write anything I could find before. Other than a Star Trek proposal (the editor solicited it), I have never tried to work in another author’s universe and my advice is that you’re far better off writing something that’s nothing like the alien than just using what already exists. It’s harder, but the results are going to be better. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/31 "2013-07-30T21:13:50Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > This thread has been interesting, but the answers contradict what I had always heard: that you cannot copyright ideas, only their expression. Rowling’s world of magic and Asimov’s universe are ideas. An original story based on them uses the idea, but not their expression. That’s why the subject is so damn tricky. Asimov’s “psychohistory” in the Foundation series is an idea – but it is expressed in specific ways that make it recognizable. If someone else expresses an idea in similar ways, there may be trouble. It can be subjective. Try to avoid doing anything that a jury might find derivative. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/32 "2013-07-30T21:27:06Z")
Regarding the Niven quote, I know that it’s in as a preface to one of the Man-Kzin Wars collections. That, of course, is a way to use someone’s IP. Shared universes are fairly common in science fiction and fantasy and there have been some pretty good stories written over the years. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/33 "2013-07-30T23:35:43Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You guys are neglecting a major difference between plagiarism and copyright: If something is a copyright violation, it is still a violation even if they name their sources. This is not true for plagiarism. If I announce my source, I am quoting you. > > Plagiarizing is specifically claiming work to be your own when it is not. The concern is about people getting credit when they shouldn’t, not about who gets paid. That’s why plagiarism existed even before copyright. > … Good point. In school, if you are asked to write an essay on quadratic hypotenuses and you submit a paper that clearly identifies itself as a copy of Johnson’s (2003) landmark “Hypotenuses and the quadratic barrier”, you haven’t committed plagiarism per se because you have admitted that you didn’t write the paper. You’re very likely to flunk the assignment, though, because you didn’t actually write a paper, which was the point. Lack of attribution or insufficient attribution is normally an essential element of plagiarism. On the other hand, if you upload copies of Star Wars to a website and clearly and unambiguously identify Lucasfilm as the creator and Disney as the copyright owner , you may still be guilty of a copyright violation because lack of attribution is not an element. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/34 "2013-07-31T01:16:19Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > This thread has been interesting, but the answers contradict what I had always heard: that you cannot copyright ideas, only their expression. Rowling’s world of magic and Asimov’s universe are ideas. An original story based on them uses the idea, but not their expression. “A world of magic”, or even “a young boy attends a school for wizards”, is an idea that cannot be copyrighted. But US copyright law grants the copyright holder the exclusive right “to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work” (see section 106 of this [very large PDF](http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf); it’s on pages 31-32 of the PDF, numbered as pages 16-17 of the original document). If J.K. Rowling and her lawyers could convince the judge that a particular story about a school for wizards was an unauthorized derivative work based on the _Harry Potter_ series then she’d presumably win this hypothetical lawsuit. In a copyright lawsuit the judge does have to consider the specifics of the original work and the work that’s allegedly an unauthorized derivative. A story that resembled _Harry Potter_ wouldn’t necessarily be found to be in violation of Rowling’s copyright. There have of course been plenty of stories about schools for wizards, so borrowing that general idea isn’t enough to make a story a derivative work based on the HP series even if the author was inspired by the HP series. But if the story is about a young boy who attends a school for wizards that is reached by passing through a portal between platforms in a London rail station, etc., that’s not going to look good in court. It wouldn’t look as bad as if the boy was named Harry Potter and the school was called Hogwarts, but I don’t think just changing the names while keeping the details the same is likely to fool a judge. Todd McFarlane tried to make a “but the names are different!” argument during his lengthy legal battle with Neil Gaiman over characters Gaiman had co-created while guest writing an issue of the _Spawn_ comic. For more info see this [short article from the AV Club](http://www.avclub.com/articles/spawn-continuity-and-illfitting-armor-bras-help-ne,43688/), but basically the judge found that the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Tiffany, and Domina were essentially the same characters as Gaiman’s Medieval Spawn and Angela even though they had different names. ---
**Author:** ![mandala](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mandala/32/95_2.png) [@mandala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandala)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714/35 "2013-07-31T02:45:05Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The bigger question is why reuse an existing alien? Your job as a writer is to make things up and come up with something just as good or better (as Alfred Bester said, the only thing a writer has to offer is originality). Create your own terrifying threat and you’ll be a better writer for it. > > I’ve been writing and selling SF for over 30 years and my goal was to never write anything I could find before. Other than a Star Trek proposal (the editor solicited it), I have never tried to work in another author’s universe and my advice is that you’re far better off writing something that’s nothing like the alien than just using what already exists. > > It’s harder, but the results are going to be better. The intent of my post was to understand how much, and what type, of a reuse constitutes plagiarism and/or copyright violation. I wanted to understand if there is any tolerance at all, socially and legally, for an author that wants to retell / refine / build upon a story already told by someone else, and whether that qualifies as a “creative effort” or is frowned upon as an imitation worthy of a lawsuit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-constitutes-plagiarism/664714.md?page=1)