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Plagarism question
KurnDerak
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was just recently talking to my girlfriend about an idea I had for a possible book. Her response was along the lines of "That's been done, by Terry Goodkin in fact. That's plagarism." I simply said no, I came up with it more or less by myself. I was inspired to do it by a story she's writing, but wanting to change a lot of things (the basic theme is people who control the elements in both my story and hers).
I am assuming, that since I have never read a single Terry Goodkin book, nor have I even heard the plot of any of his books, that I am 100% not plagarising him. To be safe all I would have to do is make sure there are enough inherent differences (characters, plot points, setting, themes, etc...) that it would be easily classified as my own work and not stolen, correct? At this point I have more or less a few possible scenes in mind, and the basic plot.
As a side note, just to make sure this doesn't become an issue, this isn't about me winning the arguement. I consider myself right, but the arguement is over and I just want to make sure I'm right.
I am assuming, that since I have never read a single Terry Goodkin book, nor have I even heard the plot of any of his books, that I am 100% not plagarising him. To be safe all I would have to do is make sure there are enough inherent differences (characters, plot points, setting, themes, etc...) that it would be easily classified as my own work and not stolen, correct? At this point I have more or less a few possible scenes in mind, and the basic plot.
As a side note, just to make sure this doesn't become an issue, this isn't about me winning the arguement. I consider myself right, but the arguement is over and I just want to make sure I'm right.
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Also... ruzkin, something about your explanation of Terry Goodkind books has simultaniously turned me off of them and made me laugh far too much.
It may not be plagiarism, but it could be seen as a derivative work and therefore protected by copyright law. Then you would have to hope that no one (a person in a position to protect said original work) is around to sue you, if you manage to publish. If you don't publish, or only make a manuscript available for close friends and relatives, then it isn't a problem.
For a recent example of this, J.D. Salinger is suing someone who made a derivative work/sequel of his "Catcher in the Rye". Even though the main character is 60 years older and not explicitly stated as the protagonist of "Catcher in the Rye", it's still going through the courts.
Thank you, Rubacava!
As for the non-legal idea of plagiarism, inspiration takes many forms. There's a Stephen Donaldson book - Mordant's Need - which is basically 'King Lear makes good'. It's obvious that Donaldson was inspired by Shakespeare. But I wouldn't call it plagiarism.
And anyway, 'People who control the elements', in fantasy and myth, is generic.
Well, the Shakespearean stuff stuff is all public domain now anyway, so you could write Hamlet the Gay Nazi and not get in trouble (legal trouble, anyway. I'm sure people would have some choice words for you.) This is why there are, for example, so many mystery novels still being written that feature Sherlock Holmes. The character is now public domain, and can be used by anyone for any purpose.
As for living authors -- yeah, plagiarism is tricky. You can't really sue someone over a trope or idea or ability (otherwise Heroes, for example, would have to pay DC licensing fees for the speedster character -- and Marvel licensing fees for the telepath). You can get in trouble for stealing recognizable characters, names, places and so on.
IANAL.
That said, I think you're fine.
While that IS going through the courts, it's 99% likely to stay there without actually achieving anything for Salinger. Parody protection is pretty expansive.
I would read that book purely to see the term "Bangle of Blasting" as many times as I could.
But no, you cannot lay claim to ideas, either for academic reasons or for copyright reasons. Just because someone else has the idea doesn't mean you can't do anything about it. Look at the entire catalog of rock music, a large percentage of which deals with very similar ideas, both musically and lyrically.
So your girlfriend is wrong in that using someone else's idea is not plagiarism. Now, if she were to get an idea for a plot device or element of the story from somewhere -- say, she read American Gods by Gaiman and liked the idea of in-flesh gods -- then she would be dishonest to not put a little statement in the acknowledgements section of her book to say "I would like to thank Neil Gaiman for seeding the idea about blah blah blah." or whatever. Even then, she wouldn't HAVE to -- but someone might say she took the idea from Gaiman. If you say "Yeah of course I have influences, who doesn't?" then it's seen more as an expansion on a theme, rather than just using the same ideas.
But yeah, there's nothing wrong with using similar ideas, themes, and so on. There's a reason so many novels have similar ideas, after all.
But she is right in that she shoudln't use an idea that she associates with a Goodkind novel.
Thanks everyone.