Aha, the line between plagiarism and fanfic! There, there it is!

[icarus]

I apologize that I won't have time to reply to comments. I'm in finals, behind, asking for extensions even, and I won't have time to deal with the distraction. This is picked up from telesilla.

Aha! The Line! Or -- The Line Between Fanfiction and Plagiarism

For those who have trouble deciding where the line is between fanfiction and plagiarism, here it is.

caras_galadhon writes of a popular Lord of the Rings fanfic that turned pro-fic A Hidden Passion by Lucia Logan, which was then revealed to follow Jane Eyre on each plot point, and even in its wording. (I'll leave aside my surprise that the Jane Eyre plot wasn't recognized in the first place. I understand it was called an "homage.")

Next we have Gehayi's report on the pro version A Hidden Passion, which has a handy chart demonstrating where A Hidden Passion copies Jane Eyre.

This example is invaluable. I'm sorry so many people have been burned and the publisher invested in this book and had to withdraw it. (I'll leave aside my surprise that the publisher didn't recognize the Jane Eyre plot either.) Yet what we have here is a perfect example of where the line is drawn between fanfiction and plagiarism. Fanfiction haters take note.

Distance Between the Source and Fanfiction

Why is this such a perfect example? Because there is already published work based on Bronte's Jane Eyre. It's called Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It takes the madwoman in the attic of Jane Eyre and tells another related story. Wide Sargasso Sea follows the two most important rules of fanfiction. Every word of Wide Sargasso Sea is (1) the author's own words. That's the easy part, the litmus test for pure plagiarism. But beyond that, (2) the plot is entirely the author's own. Even though it links up at key points to Jane Eyre. Geraldine Brooks' 2006 Pulitzer winning March does the same with the absent father from Little Women.

This is exactly what is done in loupnoir's fanfic The Durmstrang Chronicles, mctabby's Two Worlds and In Between, and to a lesser extent miss_porcupine's The Jenny Code (not to mention many others). Like Wide Sargasso Sea, they take minor characters, displace them, and expand on their story to tell us something completely different.

Wide Sargasso Sea tells us of the colonialism that takes place between the lines of Jane Eyre. The Durmstrang Chronicles explores the moral grey areas of the "bad school" in Harry Potter that's only briefly mentioned in the series. Two Worlds and In Between, although unfinished, gives us a rich portrait an 18th century wizard culture based on Harry Potter. The Jenny Code gives us a purely military viewpoint of Stargate Atlantis through the eyes of one Major Lorne, a character who at the time didn't even have a first name on the television show. Telling us something completely different isn't a requirement of fanfiction any more than it is in any other fiction. It just tends to be a marker of better quality.

Embedded Fanfiction

Most fanfiction, however, is closer to the source material than these. Most fanfiction involves the main characters of the source work. There is an entire subgenre of "missing scenes." The Wolfie Twins' Call of the Wild takes a supporting character in Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, fills in twenty years of his life and creates a werewolf culture set in Transylvania. It's highly original, without a doubt the co-authors' own words and plot, but it revolves around a Harry Potter character whose characterization was definitely fleshed out by J. K. Rowling.

Other "missing scenes" are even closer. mahoni's From One End of the World to Another takes a single moment in Stargate Atlantis between one scene and the next -- where viewers were only given the hero going to sleep and the next his panicked return home -- and shows us what happened. The character and situation are the creation of the television series, but this scene is only hinted at. The words belong to mahoni as do the exact plot points, but it is intended to drop into the show like a missing puzzle piece. There is no attempt to create or flesh out new characters. That would defeat the purpose.

Paid and Unpaid Tie-In Novels

A segment of fanfiction stories are simply new adventures created for the main characters. This is what most people imagine when they first hear of fanfiction -- amateur tie-in novels. Stories like ltlj's Fellow Traveler and auburnnothenna's The Taste Of Apples focus on the source material's main characters, and while it's their own plot and words, at the end they return them in good condition.

Subversive or Transformative Fanfiction

Now the vast majority of fanfiction stories take the heroes further afield and place them in circumstances that are highly unlikely. A gay romance between a military commander and the head scientist? A pregnant man? Characters switched to a different gender? The hero turned into a small, fuzzy cat?

Here Professor Henry Jenkins' definition of fanfiction as "subverting" the original text is appropriate, or we could go with otw's description of fanfiction being "transformative works," which is similar but avoids the negative connotation of "subversiveness." These stories explore possibilities within the characters and world of the original that might run counter to the intention of the author.

Some fanfiction stories are more likely than others but couldn't happen in the source for darned good reason. One of the most popular types of fanfiction is porn, or dramas that contain at least one very explicit scene. No doubt many viewers of Stargate Atlantis would appreciate a sex scene between actor Joe Flanigan and any number of his co-stars, but that's not the kind of show they're writing (also, they'd probably have to pay him a lot more). Then there's the mutiny that takes place in cesperanza's Written By The Victors which would end the series, the violent deaths of important characters in auburnnothenna's bleak Legion The Things I Would Give To Oblivion would pretty much do the same, while tevere's sexually explicit relationship between enemies in The Human Stain wouldn't happen in the show for a whole host of reasons.

The bottom line is that more "subversive" or "transformative" stories make up the bulk of fanficion and while they begin with the main characters and world, by the end, so much has changed they no longer "click" into the main source. Some changes are so radical (or even absurd) they could be classified as parody.

Character Displacement - Alternate Universes

The furthest extent of character displacement is the fanfiction "alternate universe." Here the characters are removed from the context of the original world entirely. celli revisualizes a military commander as a Nascar driver in Fireball. toft_froggy in String Theory: A Concerto For Violin In D Minor plucks a physicist out of Stargate Atlantis and drops him into the role of a composer. Characterization remains similar, but the characters are given entirely new histories and there is a considerable amount of world-building.

Character Displacement - Crossovers

A variation on character displacement is the "crossover," where characters are plucked from one writer's world into another. For example, astolat writes the physicist Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis in the role of Jedi master and the Colonel Sheppard as a Sith Lord from Star Wars in her The Dark Side. In xparrot's On The Wings Of Imagination the same two characters are placed in Anne McCaffrey's Pern, with the colonel as a hungry bronze dragon.

Character Displacement - Remakes and Remixes

The farthest range of this type of crossover is the adaptation or "remake." Characters are put into the plot of a popular (often classic) movie, such as linaerys' fanfiction remake of Hitchcock's Notorious, Entanglement. Here the movie's plot points must be followed. The challenge is in adapting the dialogue, viewpoint, and description to the new personalities in those roles. What changes when a laconic male lead takes Ingrid Bergman's role? The fanfic version of the remake is the "remix," where fanfic writers volunteer to have one of their stories re-written by another. The benefit to the writer isn't obvious unless one understands the exploratory nature of fanfic writers and the promotional value of having your work linked to a better known writer.

In both cases, for the most part only the words belong to the fanfic author, breaking with the (2) second rule of fanfiction although following the film tradition of remakes. Adaptations are widely accepted (how many adaptations of Shakespeare have there been?) and may be what the publisher of A Hidden Passion assumed Lucia Logan had written. It's an important line, respected by publishers and fanfiction writers alike. There was a tremendous uproar and cries of plagiarism from the fanfiction community in 2006 when an author of a remake lifted dialogue in its entirety from a movie without adapting much of anything. Like Logan's book, the story was removed from circulation.

Author Reaction to Fanfiction

Although the accusation of plagiarism is leveled at fanfiction writers, I've noticed that authors tend to be more comfortable with "tie-in" type fanfiction that's similar to their world, which actually changes less. They are irritated with stories that change it too much. The fans who don't read fanfiction tend to react the same. "Frodo's not gay!"

Fanfiction writers aren't very different. Copyright is assumed among fanfiction writers. It is customary and polite to ask a fanfic author before one writes a fanfic based on theirs (oh yes, there is fanfiction based on fanfiction) although granted, some ignore this. (J. K. Rowling is not expected to sign off each of 300,000+ Harry Potter fanfiction stories; permission is considered tacit unless professional authors opt out on sites like Fanfiction.net, although granted, some ignore this, too.) But when the resulting story varies radically from the original fanfic, it's often read as a critique. When helenish wrote her unauthorized Take Clothes Off As Directed, a inversion of xanthe's BDSM novels, General & Dr. Sheppard and Coming Home, many readers took it as a feminist critique, if not quite a parody along the lines of Fielding's 18th century Shamela which mocked Richardson's Pamela.

It's interesting to note that author feelings about this haven't changed in the last 300 years. After the publication of Pamela, a number of unauthorized additions to Richardson's novel were published, irritating Richardson to no end -- for the very same reason. These "Pamel-ites" didn't write what he had in mind. Pamela pre-dated the legal enforcement of copyright. The difference between these Pamelites and modern "tie-in" type fanfiction is that modern fanfiction is non-profit.

Fanfiction Plagiarism

Fanfiction writers respond violently to the plagiarism, a fact that critics of fanfiction like Lee Goldberg find ironic. Fanfic plagiarism is the stuff of ferocious flamewars. The perpetrator is run out on a rail and entire communities like stop_plagiarism are devoted to the removal of plagiarized fanfic from the internet. While the motive of the plagiarism of Jane Eyre in A Hidden Passion seems to be profit, most fanfiction plagiarists covet the positive comments received by other writers. The standard pattern is the plagiarist will post one or two stories that are not well received, then they will plagiarize a popular fanfic author and rake in the praise -- until they're caught, which is usually pretty quickly, because they, uh, plagiarized a popular story.

There is the peculiar case of epicyclical where the popular Harry Potter writer collected bits and quotes with magpie-like abandon. The large section of word-for-word plagiarized work embedded in her Draco Trilogy was out of place. It added nothing to the story and was not an improvement. Was this a case of lack of confidence, or a plagiarist who learned after the fact that she could write? Or her own plot developed around plagiarized pieces, like concrete emedded with glittery bits of glass? Or perhaps the rest of her writing was such a patchwork of plagiarism that no one can track down all the original sources? Later she credited many sources, but missed quite a few and seemed unclear where she got them. The effort involved in stringing it all together... well, writing it from scratch would have been easier. It's a strange case.

telesilla mentions that the Harry Potter fans don't give a damn about plagiarism, based on her continued popularity and the support for the published version of the Harry Potter Lexicon, I'm guessing. But I think the reality is that many, many people were friends with epicyclical and the owner of The Harry Potter Lexicon (currently in legal trouble for trying to publish a copy of the Lexicon). It's harder to thrash your friends, even when they're in the wrong. Copying word-for-word and claiming someone else's work as your own breaks rule (1) and is plagiarism, no matter who does it. But how you treat a friend will always be different. For good reason. Friends have done things for you that weigh into the mix.

Fanfic Leeches? Perhaps Symbiotic is the better word.

While Fanfiction isn't plagiarism, I can be honest in that there is a kind of... leeching... going on. As a creative writing professor told me, "Fanfiction solves the problem of finding an audience."

A fanfiction writer probably wouldn't find such a large audience for their first original story. No way. Most fanfic writers are also fanfic readers, so a tight supportive writing community grows around the source text, the kind of support new writers can't find anywhere else. Some people characterize the relationship between the fanfiction community and the original source as an homage, and it's true that the original source is elevated and treated as Canon (with a capital C). In fanfiction writers, the source author has his or her most dedicated and obsessive fans. They buy everything related to their favorite book or television show or movie, sign petitions, and call television stations to fight for their show. But the relationship is also... well, we can admit it... somewhat parasitic.

It's like the hotdog stands outside a major league ballfield. The fanfic writers have a vested interest in the survival and continued success of their favorite show or author. Their own audience depends on it.

Yet fanfiction writers relate to other writers as writers, first and foremost. If fanfiction writers viewed the other writers as commodities, they would not have responded as they did to the WGA strike. When the Writer's Guide struck, fanfiction writers called stations to tell them they wouldn't be watching replacement television, got the word out, signed petitions -- and then raised $21,339.18 to support writers who'd lost health benefits due to the strike.

My Point, if I have one....

I've heard critics call fanfiction plagiarism. The O.E.D. gives the definition "to take (the work or idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own." That doesn't occur with Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea or Brooks' Pulitzer winning March. Both acknowledge their debt to Jane Eyre and Little Women respectively. Fanfiction writers do the same. No one is passing the work of others off as their own. (Except, apparently, Lucia Logan.)

But the sense that fanfiction is unoriginal and ripping off authors' ideas is what's really meant by those who blanket fanfiction with the term plagiarism. Answering that complaint with a flat definition of plagiarism then is unhelpful and sounds like so much legal nitpicking. Hopefully now the relationship between fanfiction and professional authors' ideas is more clear. (I've mentioned copyright in a few places as it's also often conflated with plagiarism, but I haven't gone into it at any depth. The legal status of fanfiction and copyright is unsettled, largely theoretical--due to a lack of case law--and varies from one country to the next. Fanfiction writers attitudes towards copyright is a topic for another essay.)

At the opposite extreme, I've heard it said in the fanfiction community that the difference between Wide Sargasso Sea and all fanfiction is merely that Charlotte Bronte's copyright has expired. That's an oversimplification. Yes, some fanfiction is very far from the original source, like Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and Brooks' March. But the relationship between fanfiction stories and the original source varies. They range from tightly embedded stories, to extra episodes, to irreverent stories, to stories that have only the characters in common with the original.

This doesn't mean that more independent, distant fanfiction stories are better or somehow more "valid" (whatever that means) although it looks like the March-es of this world are more likely to win a Pulitzer. But the various types of fanfiction stories have different aims, and are trying to accomplish different writing challenges. What the different types of fanfiction have in common with each other is the intention to explore the characters and facets of the original writer's world.


I think I've written this long post just to avoid all the work I'm supposed to be doing right now. Do me a favor and if you comment, be patient about the lack of replies? It's going to be a week before I finish finals.


ETA: So I don't have a dozen comments misunderstanding me --

*sneaks in one more answer before I'm caught by the final-fairies*

I didn't say this explicitly though I probably should have. People who call fanfic plagiarism are usually conflating "plagiarism" with "lack of originality." (I should probably add that to clarify, thank you.) Some don't know any better, others count on people not knowing any better so that any argument against them sounds like hair-splitting.

I return to plagiarism at the end, but mostly I'm addressing the underlying accusation of "lack of originality." That's why I begin with Wide Sargasso Sea and March (obviously not plagiarised) and set them alongside fanfiction that does exactly the same thing as those two, is similarly original and quite far from the source material. I'm addressing both actual plagiarism and what they really mean by "plagiarism" at once.

Then I address the "yes-buts," because it is true that not all fanfiction is far from the source. So I analyzed the distance of various texts from their source and what that says about their "lack of originality."

There's a little bit about copyright in there with the discussion of fanfiction authors' attitudes about copyright with eachother, because people also conflate "plagiarism" with "breaking copyright" and "lack of originality," but I don't go into it. I probably should draw that point out more clearly. I just didn't want to get into a legal digression since the whole point is to avoid the legal nitpicking and address the underlying issue.

I've tried to look past the word "plagiarism" into what's really in question.

Comments

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow. I'm still digesting all of that, so I currently have nothing constructive to add. Except wow. :D

And may I link this out? I have fanfic buddies that will find this very insightful and interesting.

Thankies much!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Sure, go ahead. I just... I think I'm doing anything to avoid these essays so I-- I'm going to have to rein myself in on replying.

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

It's all good. Whether you get around to replying or not, this is still a good read for any fanfic fans.

Thanks for doing this!

[inkscribe.livejournal.com]

Excellent summary of the many and various ways this plays out. I am still boggled by people who scream 'fanfic is plagiarism'. Frankly, it tells me they understand neither the term nor the general terms of what copyright does or does not apply to (not to mention other parts of intellectual property law).

That said, most of us singular fanfic writers can't really afford an entire legal firm or department dragging us through the muck, so I am quite certain we'll continue to hear the parties of the second part continue to make those types of claims, regardless of their lack of veracity. ;-)

*don't worry about replying to this one ... it is just a longwinded "yes yes I agree!" comment

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was fun.

I'm tempted to tack on a "To summarize, in order to define the difference between plagiarism and fanfiction, I've broken the range of fanfiction down into the following types and compared it to professional novels that have been called fanfiction:

- Tangental, or "very distant from the source" (minor character POV, outside the main world). Aim: step outside the world and characters and explore what is only hinted at in the source.

- Embedded, which comes in the form of episode tags, missing scenes, and tie-in novels (major character POV, deep within the main world). Aim: flesh out what is missing, or add to the source.

- Subverting or Transformative (usually major character POV, develops the characters and changes the main world significantly). Aim: explore the road not taken in the source.

- Character displacement, which comes in the form of AUs, crossovers, "remakes," and remixes (characters removed from the main world; hunh. I don't think remixes belong here). Aim: explore the characters and how they interact with a different set of circumstances and constraints.

Finally, I brought it back to plagiarism, the relationship between source text authors and fanfiction authors, the relationship between fanfiction authors and plagiarism, and at last, returned to the question of 'is fanfiction plagiarism or do works like Marsh prove that it's not?'"

But I think I've spent too much time on it as is. *blush*

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

That's a good overview of the situation.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

I'm just curious where you'd put a book like "Jenna Starborn" which lifts the general plot of Jane Eyre and makes it a sci-fi story. (It doesn't bother with "homage" and comes right out and says on the cover it's an adaptation).

[lttledvl.livejournal.com]

A tad bit of procrastination perhaps? :)

I don't feel that fanfic is plagiarism. However, per Mr. Webster it *is* that by sheer technical defintion:

plagiarize
: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

But, under the lines of the first instance, if the credit is given to the orginal source (author, producers, etc) is the fanfic still plagiaristic? Does having the simple disclaimer 'XYZ belongs to Whomever' qualify that particular piece of work as 'not plagiarism'?

And 'homages' hit another tricky area. How often do art students have to produce a 'master study'? How many people out there have done one? *raises hand* Since they are doing it in reverence to the orginal artist *and* they state that it is a reproduction, it suddenly isn't plagiarizm?

By the same token, when writing fanfic, if I *don't* include a disclaimer is it then plagiaristic? Does it suddenly become not plagiarism if I *do* have it?

Interesting though, how the definition implicitly includes 'literary work'. Where it does not mention giving credit at all. So if I paint a copy of 'Starry Night' and say that it is a 'master study' that is not plagiarism but if I write a story based on 'Huckleberry Finn' that is still plagiarism even if I do credit Mark Twain. Quite a disparity here. Are we (as a society) more protective of written works than other creative artistic forms?

Hm. Now I seem to have gone off on a tangent...

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

Really an excellent, lucid summation of the various types of fanfic and its relation to profic that riffs off other novels. Going into memories.

Don't worry about answering this, either, just wanted to poke my head in and say hi.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I still think the best argument for fanfic not being plagiarism (at least of its source material) is that it explicitly credits that source material. If you call something SGA fanfic, you're saying that the characters and world come from SGA. And there's an expectation that readers will be familiar with the source so will know what parts of the story are taken from episodes and what are your own. Since plagiarism is passing off another's ideas as one's one, then just calling it fanfic makes it not plagiarism. There's no fraud--you're citing your source.

Copyright's a whole other, thing, though...

This is a good classification of types of fanfic, though. I often think of fanfic as expanding circles away from the source--you start in a fandom with missing scenes, and the more time you spend, you progress to tie-ins, subversions, and eventually AUs, which are so distant from the canon as to be unrecognizable.

[kitsune13.livejournal.com]

This is great; my heart belongs to genre studies, and this is a really, really nice breakdown of different types/genres (in the broad sense) of fanfiction.

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this rational, helpful, calm and thorough analysis of the issues and of the options. (I went off and read up on the Lucia Logan hooha, and am particularly unimpressed by the publisher's idiocy. No further comment on the 'author'.)

No need to respond, just want to acknowledge a much-appreciated essay.

Displacement activity rules, in spades! Good luck with finals.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOL!

It complicates and may very well disprove much of my conclusion. I will allow myself to delve into it as soon I've finish the first of three papers that are due Monday. There. That's the bargain I've struck with myself.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

A tad bit of procrastination perhaps? :)

Maybe more than a tad.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hi! *hook drags Icarus away, clawing at the floor, wailing, "Noooooo... this more fun!"*

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

This is an awesome and clear and eloquent essay. Thank you.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Maybe I can hand this in instead of the one I'm supposed to write. You think my professor of 18th century lit will go for that? I mean, I do mention Jane Eyre.

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

hee! Maybe you could tweak it a little, play up the "everyone copies Jane Eyre, even now!" thing :) *giggles*

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

Replying to you because you're already bringing up what I'm interested in talking about. :)

This is what I was wondering too, while reading about this case. It does seem to me that a really *key* component of plagiarism isn't the borrowing/copying -- it's the attempt at fraud.

All the definitions quoted contain that aspect. So it really *does* follow, doesn't it, that if there isn't a fraud component, what you're talking about *isn't* plagiarism.

Since they are doing it in reverence (or to pass a class) to the orginal artist *and* they state that it is a reproduction, it suddenly isn't plagiarizm?

Exactly correct. Right? How can it be actual plagiarism if you aren't trying to fool anyone into thinking it's entirely yours? (I.e. not just your labor and skill -- creating the copy -- but also your concept/idea.)

This is why I don't quite get the parts of the discussion that apply to the work in question when it was a fanfic, or talking about That Genre of Fanfics -- the ones that are intentional reworkings of one extant source blended in some way with the characters/world of another source. (I.e. "X movie/book redone with the characters from X show".) Everyone is discussing the fact that one runs into a lot of those in various fandoms -- I have, too -- and they vary widely both in quality and in the amount of changing they do of the original. But *are* they plagiarism? Because those that I've run across are usually very, very clear what the sources are. Usually. The writer isn't trying to fool me into thinking that the situations (and often, wording/dialogue) are their own invention; they want me to know what movie/book they're transforming.

I think the problem of definition for me is that I don't think we have a good *other* word (do we?) for a work that is slavishly copied, but doesn't seem intended to commit fraud. Besides "too slavishly copied", of course. "Overly quoted", I suppose. It's not *good style* (IMO), but it's a flaw of some writers of that fanfic genre; not the only way the genre can be approached.

That's why I think it's inaccurate to say that fandom winks at plagiarism because of the popularity of that subgenre of fanfic. Fandom *isn't* winking at plagiarism just because it allows those works. Fandom is insistent that those works be clearly labelled, so that they don't give the appearance of committing fraud. If you look like you're trying to commit fraud, fandom is very harsh.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

but if I write a story based on 'Huckleberry Finn' that is still plagiarism even if I do credit Mark Twain. Quite a disparity here.

I don't think there *is* that much of a disparity, actually. Or to create the disparity, you need more detail in your second example, there. Compare with "March" -- nobody's calling that plagiarism.

So yes, you can write a story/novel that is based on Huckleberry Finn, as long as it's in your own words, and credit it to Mark Twain. Indeed, even if you didn't credit it to him, it would be difficult for you to fool people into thinking that *you* created Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and the situations of the novel -- if you're still using the novel's names and situations, that is. Even if what you wrote was an "updated, modern" version of Huckleberry Finn, but borrowing Twain's names and situations, and acknowledging that -- that's not plagiarism, right?

But yeah, if you write a novel set in the modern day that closely follows the plot/situations of Huckleberry Finn, but changes all the names (and other details, like genders or races, perhaps) and otherwise tries to hide its relation to Twain's novel, and you don't present it to anyone as based on/inspired by Twain's novel -- yes, that's plagiarism, because you're trying to commit fraud by hiding those things.

The sad thing, I think, is that we can all probably imagine that there are stupid enough people out there who might actually believe you if you tried to sell them your painstaking copy of "Starry Night", claiming it was totally your own work. That's clearly what's happened in this case -- "Jane Eyre" is hardly obscure, yet apparently a bunch of people failed to notice the huge honkin' similarities between this recent book and that classic. Maybe... it's not that we're more protective of written works... maybe it's that we fear that it's easier to be fooled by fraud involving them. That it's easier to recognize a visual copy, but we fear that we'll fail to spot a written work that's too close.

(After all -- you could redo "Starry Night" all in shades of red and orange; it'd still be plagiarism, but it would also probably still be instantly recognizable to anyone who knew the original. Just as all the "clever" slight redoings of "The Scream" are recognizable even in different color shades, or in b&w, with the central figure changed slightly. But apparently if you change all the names and some genders, people may not instantly recognize a reworking of Jane Eyre.)

I'm not trying to say that copying (in writing) is necessarily good, mind you. In art, copying teaches you certain things. In writing, I don't think it does. I kind of enjoy the fanfic subgenre of reworked sources with characters from another source -- but I *don't* like the ones that are just slavish copies with different names plugged in and pronouns changed as required. I agree that it's an *odd* genre. I don't particularly think of it as a *publishable* genre (whether the original source work is out of copyright or not). But I don't think of it as plagiarism, either. And this is just mostly me poking at the ideas, trying to figure out why I feel that way... if there is some reasonable basis for that feeling.

[argosy.livejournal.com]

Really well-done essay. I admire people who meta well and thoughtfully.

I am just now in the very early stages of adapting a book into an SGA AU, so it was especially interesting. I feel pretty confident I wouldn't have stolen direct passages even without the cautionary tale this essay provides, but I guess now we'll never know. :D

[perfica.livejournal.com]

telesilla mentions that the Harry Potter fans don't give a damn about plagiarism, based on her continued popularity and the support for the published version of the Harry Potter Lexicon, I'm guessing.

I'd strongly disagree. HP is by far the largest fandom; ergo, we have the most fans (whether you're counting number of writers and/or readers) and we're a diverse group. There's a lot of people in HP fandom that have a problem with plagiarism (and are very vocal about it) as there are a lot that don't agree with the whole Lexicon mess.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

I'll leave aside my surprise that the Jane Eyre plot wasn't recognized in the first place.

As someone who comes from this fandom O_O I have to say that everyone knew A Hidden Passion was based on Jane Eyre. Yes, we knew that the plots were essentially the same. Re-using a basic plotline isn't a problem, especially if you say, "Hey, this is an adaptation of Title of Book or Movie" in your header, which this author did.

What most of us did not know was that the writer had lifted lines, some word-for-word and some slightly altered, from the original novel. Plots don't get copyrighted. Strings of words do. And saying "This is an adaptation," is not the same as saying, "Scattered throughout this story are lines lifted directly from the book," which is what it should have said.

The surprise isn't because we didn't know she'd used the plot. :P It's because we didn't know she'd copied lines. Very different, and that is where the line between adaptation and plagiarism is drawn.

telesilla mentions that the Harry Potter fans don't give a damn about plagiarism, based on her continued popularity and the support for the published version of the Harry Potter Lexicon, I'm guessing.

I'm pretty sure it's because of the Cassie Claire thing, and specifically the fact that it took several years of a number of different people insisting that there were many unattributed lines lifted directly from various sources, people who persisted in the face of snark and abuse and fannish ostracism, to get the fandom as a whole (or at least the Draco end of it) to realize that yes, what Cassie Claire did was wrong.

Angie

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

Interesting essay. but there's a minor detail wrong, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron and the owner of the HP lexicon are not the same person. It's the latter guy who's in trouble with JKR and Warner

[failing-light.livejournal.com]

This is a very clear and insightful treatment of the subject. Thanks for sharing!