When is plagiarism not plagiarism?

[Ray McCarthy]

Musicians have even copyrighted phrases from songs

The song is automatically copyright. Maybe you mean a Trademark, which is different.

Even if a Trademark is issued, it can be unenforceable.

Trademarks unlike Copyright are never automatic and usually only apply in a single "domain". Thus Apple Inc got sued a second time by Apple Corp Ltd (Beatles) when they started iTunes (Apple Inc publishing music, but Apple Corp was a music publisher).

 

[Tower75]

Hi, all.

Now I know it's been weeks since I brought this up, but I've been giving it a lot of thought.

Lets say I want to write an homage to, I dunno, take Blade Runner for an example. I don't actually want to write a homage to Blade Runner but it's a good case study.

The story of Blade Running is pretty straight forward, cop (or bounty hunter, or whatever) has to chase down rogue droids (or simulants, or whatever) and kill them or arrest them.

Now, say my homage is the same premise, it's about a cop guy who hunts down and turns-in rogue driods and meks, etc., etc. It's a dark moody city, all very Daft Punk in the '80s.

Now, in all seriousness, is it worth even starting this story. I'm well prepared for people to say that I'm stealing Blade Runner and that I'm a hack. But what I need to know is when does it become plagiarism? Regardless, people will always read a good story.

Okay, so going back to my Lord of the Rings example, how many fantasy books are out there that includes magic, and orcs, and elves, and wizards? Possibly ad infinitum? You'd be close. How many post-apocalypse stories, how many vampire and zombie stories? No one calls labels them a work of plagiarism.

Hell, I remember on CITV years ago there was a kids show about a wizarding school!

How careful do you have to be?

 

[Zoe Mackay]

You don't have to be careful at all. To avoid plagiarism: Do not copy any of the text.
To avoid other intellectual property issues: Use no character or place names (or other proper nouns), even ones that are different but clearly the same. Captain Klirk and Mr Splock are not going to save you.
To avoid being dismissed as a derivative hack: Come up with your own story and world. It's fine to be influenced by something, or to include some elements from works yours is close to, but make it your own story-telling.

Writing a homage is not just a case of lifting the thing wholesale - it's about engaging with it, diverging from it, essentially doing something that is both new and different which at the same time celebrates the original. I actually think it's quite difficult to do over the whole length of a novel, and usually bits of homage are included as grace notes.

The kids show was presumably "The Worst Witch". J K Rowling did not invent magic schools, and has never claimed to. She invented Hogwarts. It's easy to tell the difference.

 

[J Riff]

When you make enough money from the plagiarism to pay off the plagiarized (see: Led Zeppelin)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

CITV years ago there was a kids show about a wizarding school!

Worst Witch based on the Jill Murphy books was on ITV. HP is a little like Enid Blyton's Adventures and School stories mixed (and 40 years of earlier school stories) + Worst Witch. But it wasn't plagiarism and has its own thing.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

story of Blade Running is pretty straight forward

I don't think the film or the book is at all straight forward. Many questions are raised and there is no resolution, no answers.
Actually, read the book? "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep". The film isn't quite the same. But anyhow, it's not a futuristic version of a bounty hunter story. The bounty hunter aspect is just to set up the dilemmas. It's asking complex questions about humanity, good, evil, morality, exploitation. Not ultimately even about should Androids have the same rights as humans. Hence the many layers of ambiguity.

So are you writing a book inspired by the surface events of the film, or writing a book examining the same deeper themes that Philip K. Dick is musing on? I don't believe the book has "answers" or even opinions, but primarily to have the reader think about the themes, and probably to entertain as it's fiction written to make money.

Write it and see what you have afterwards. If you are not lifting text or names, it's not plagiarism. Is Shakespeare accused of plagiarism? Yet perhaps only a Midsummer Night's Dream was "really" original.

 

[Tower75]

Hi, all.

Thanks for the info. This is making more sense to me. Seems like I can start my homage after all. Yay!