Inspiration vs Plagiarism Consolidated Discussion

For examples of the extreme compare the attitudes of Eric Flint – an author that has embraced his fandom 100% to J.K. Rawling , an author that I think has rebelled against her fandom.

If there is a need for further Fanfic discussion, perhaps we should open a new thread for that… @rinari – I leave that decision to you, since you are our community expert :two_hearts:

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Oh, I do understand the point about it being legal stuff, but in that case I feel a phrasing of “I am not giving permission for X to be done with my work” (which from the list, some authors have chosen, to their credit) is both clear and avoids coming across as unpleasant.

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Yes, I’ll refer anyone who wants to continue the fanfiction discussion to this earlier thread and add my earlier link there as well:

Fan Games and Fan Fiction

On the topic of inspiration vs. plagiarism, I’d just like to add: I think it’s good for all writers to keep in mind that there are virtually no stories that haven’t been done or written before. Especially when we start taking into account ideas of Jungian archetypes or the hero’s journey (Star Wars, Eragon), which posit that all human narratives boil down to the same subconscious themes and tropes… there are whole books out there written about how there are only 7 types of stories (or whatever number the author picks).

Don’t stress too much about writing a 100% original, never-been-done game or book, and don’t freak out if the first name of your main character shares the name of another (Harry is okay, just not Harry Potter). All writers start off drawing inspiration from other writers they love and admire, and cobble together worlds from bits and pieces of other worlds they liked first. Just don’t plagiarize!

And with that, here’s a useful article I found about plagiarizing fiction and related myths!

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Not sure if my input is really needed here, but I’ll throw in my two cents anyways. The longer bit is in the summary below.

Summary

I long time ago I read Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, which actually does briefly touch on the value of fanfiction in the book (although it doesn’t use that name). The gist of the book is essentially: the best way to avoid plagiarism is to take inspiration from several sources. Instead of relying on one story/idea to inspire you, take many. The devil’s in the details and your voice should bring your work further away from any inspired works. And obviously, don’t steal lines/characters.

The final thing I have to say is- don’t worry too much if your first draft feels uncomfortably similar to a work you enjoy. It’s something to be aware of and address, for sure, but as you change things and re-write your work, you might find your work becoming less like your inspiration.

These, of course, are just my own thoughts and I apologize if they’ve been repeated before. :slightly_smiling_face:

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Fan Games and Fanfiction

The point @Eiwynn brings up about waiting to draw inspiration until after you’ve finished reading is a huuuuge thing, so thank you for bringing that up! I found myself writing dialogue in my story to the same tune as The Witcher, since I had just finished an episode before writing. It can be extremely unintentional to sound exactly like what media you are receiving when writing, but it something to pay close attention to, even if it’s subconscious. This is a really good thread for authors, appreciate it being made!

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So I’ve been working on a superhero game for a couple months now and I have also taken a liking to checking out the other supehero CoGs and HGs. However, I am a bit worried that my story is beginning to look like a rip-off of other stories.

In my story, it details a world where a hierarchy of superhero powers is present, leading to those with mediocre and harmful power being discriminated against by those with more powerful abilities.

I am worried that this concept is ripping off Heroes Rise and The Hero Project.

My second worry deals with my characters. One of my characters has the ability to cast a force field, but it only covers their body whenever they hold their breathe, making them invulnerable. Another character has the ability to telekinetically control their hair, but it is limited by their actual hair length.

At first, I thought these were sound ideas since they changed the roles the powers used to serve. The force field character is now a lot more aggressive than most force field characters and the hair control character now uses their powers for hand-to-hand combat than it’s standard long-ranged melee attack role.

However, I feel as though these characters feel way too similar to Stoic and Tress from Community College Hero (not to mention the story concept’s emphasis on power levels similar to the ones found in CCH)

Have there every been similar situations between others like this? Was it okay? Should I rework certain aspects of my story?

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@MonkeyLottery – I believe if you read this thread, it will be a good start.

Once you do this, and if you still have concerns, perhaps the next step is to write a prototype of your story and then judge if it is inspiration or plagiarism.

If at that point you still have questions or concerns, I’d consider talking directly to some of the authors that write superhero stuff… @Eric_Moser, perhaps @adrao … Sergei, doesn’t communicate directly here but I believe he has both a Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The demo you write will be the true test; once you release that in the wild, here, listen to the feedback.

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I appreciate the response and I will read up on this thread. Thanks!

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There will always be people who will say you rip something or the other off.
The core thought should usually be not to have too many things in common with other games. Superpowers are superpowers, neither of the above writers invented them. But if you, for example, give the characters the same personality and backstories as in those other games, then it gets a bit yikes.

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@MonkeyLottery, I’d be happy to talk with you whenever!

Trust me, I know what it’s like to be nervous about appearing to be “too inspired” by certain properties.

I started writing CCH1 back in 2013, and I stayed as far from Heroes Rise as I could, but over the years I’ve gotten more “Have you watched My Hero Academia???” emails than I can count!!

I do think that when an author starts to wonder, “Am I too close to xyz?” that that might mean a bit more scrutiny is in order. I’ve always thought a good take is to combine features inspired from 2 or 3 different properties so that the end result is something fresher.

For example, for CCH, my original idea was to combine some of Kick Ass (the lame costumes and names, especially, plus the cussing) and some of the humor, camaraderie, and setting of the NBC show Community and yes a bit of Harry Potter in the most general “in a school, taking classes, leaning the ropes” sense. And STILL I’m told that 'My Hero Academia" is much like CCH, or perhaps CCH is much like it? (I’ve never watched it, and I still have no clue what it is other than an anime, which is not my thing).

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@MonkeyLottery Sorry for the super-late reply. Normally I try to reply to everything, but this somehow slipped!

But, I basically agree with @Eric_Moser. Note also that its almost impossible to come up with something nobody has thought of before. But, note also that you may think you are “too close to xyz” and somebody might say, “this story remind me so much of abc” (I’ve been really surprised by this).

I’d say, just go ahead with whatever you want to write, and draw inspiration from many places (As @Eric_Moser said). Its good to think about “am I too close to xyz?” as this will then force you to change the story and characters a bit more, driving the creative process (I’m often wandering around the streets thinking how to make my story differently, yesterday a friend told me I past by her without saying hi… I hadnt even noticed her!!)

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copied off episode interactive

Depends on what exactly is in your story is my guess. I can’t say for sure because you haven’t explained what your story is about.

Just remember that you can’t copyright ideas.

The trope of having a protagonist that’s the son of an evil deity (read: Satan) and decides to revolt against said parent is pretty common. An example - sort of - would be Netflix’s Lucifer. Or maybe Devil May Cry.

The trope of having a flaming sword or some sort of magical weapon that serves another purpose is also pretty universal. An example would be Bleach.

Having your story take place in an urban fantasy environment is again a universal trope to the point where there’s a genre category for it. Examples would be pretty much every vampire/werewolf novel in existence.

Having the Catholic Church (least I think it’s the Catholic denomination that’s featured in Blue Exorcist can’t remember) be demon hunters who wield guns and all manner of things is a common trope. An example would be the movie Priest.

If you’re protagonist had blue hair, blue eyes, and looked just like Rin from Blue Exorcist then you could run into a copyright issue since you’re stealing his image/likeness. If the events in your story mirror the anime or manga word to word or nearly word to word then you’d run into copyright troubles.

Having the idea of a half breed protagonist who sides with humanity against evil deity parent with their magical sword and is also in high school is an idea and you can’t copyright ideas.

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This isn’t about taking inspiration from plots of other works, but I’m interested in trying to get mine and @generalsquishy’s first game Baguette Quest hosted and I’m wondering if I need to change a couple of things due to copyright rules that I’m ignorant about.

In our game there’s a very minor character named Smeegle who is a strange doppelganger of one of the kings in the story, behaves somewhat like Smeagol from LOTR and at one point says “stupid hobbitses”, though that’s really the extent of the similarities. Also, the castle of that king is basically IKEA but repurposed as a castle, blue building with a giant yellow IKEA sign and all, full of Swedish furniture and with a layout based on the general IKEA layout. It’s a pretty lighthearted game, if you can’t tell already :sweat_smile:.

I’m wondering if either of these would pose an issue with trying to get the game hosted? I really don’t know anything about this sort of thing and don’t want to run into any issues.

@AngelNerd I can’t speak to how it will affect your game being published by Hosted Games—an email to the staff would be the only answer there—but I do want to let you know that parody is protected under copyright law in the US. :slight_smile: So if your character is named Smeegle to lampshade the “real” Sméagol (which the stupid hobbitses comment supports) I think you are good!

Also, are you using the name “IKEA” in your game? If not, I think you’re okay on that front as well!

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There’s a Veggie Tales parody of LTOR, so I’m pretty sure that one character making references is fine.

I’m not a lawyer tho, please don’t take my word as fact and then get sued

We actually do refer to the castle as the “IKEA castle” several times in the game, so I’m thinking we might need to rename it to something similar, like in the Smeegle example. I’m also from Canada, if that makes any difference. I might email the staff just to be sure. If we have to change the name then it wouldn’t make a big difference on the game anyway. Thanks for your reply!

I personally never name real-life entities in my works if I can help it, just because I find the potential legal complications of dealing with them to be too much of a headache to be worth it. I think changing it slightly would be your best bet: there’s a horror book that’s set in an IKEA and told in the form of an IKEA catalog, but it uses “ORSK” instead of IKEA, even though the branding and similarities are extremely obvious! I’d recommend doing something similar, but of course, it’s up to you!

It does make a bit of a difference, as in Canada, there are several provisions to whether parody is classified as “fair use”: the parody must not have the intent to punish, defame, or criticize, and must be distinct enough from the original thing that no one could confuse the parody for a depiction of the real-life thing, etc. etc. (For example, a cartoonist who used UNTIE(.)COM to parody the United(.)com airlines, and with a similar font and logo to United, lost a lawsuit because his spoof was considered too confusing/similar to the original, even though it was intended to be parody.)

But I don’t know how Canadian copyright law would also interact with COG/HG publishing, as it’s a US-based company. So, uh, anyway, copyright stuff is tricky, and I tend not to mess around with it if at all possible! Hope that helps!

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