Plagiarism vs. Inspiration

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Plagiarism vs. Inspiration

Postby jellydonut25 » Wed May 11, 2011 5:02 pm

Between recently discussing The Dark Tower series, wherein Stephen King uses elements from other fiction (light sabres, sneetches, doctor doom) to entirely different purposes and my recent reading of Eaters of the Dead which Michael Crichton has specifically stated is meant to be the 'true story' behind Beowulf, I've been thinking a bit about plagiarism and inspiration lately.

Where do you draw the line?

At what point do you say, "Alright, being inspired is one thing, but this guy is just stealing!"?

We see unoriginal, re-used concepts and ideas all the time in film and television. How many Jaws or Alien clones have we had over the years? How many times have we seen movies like Volcano/Dante's Peak or Armageddon/Deep Impact or Battle LA/Skyline that take essential premises and try to "beat each other to the punch"?

When does something step out of the realm of "this was a neat aspect of so and so's story that I liked and incorporated into mine for different purposes" and into the realm of "i'm totally just gonna use that"?

It's a tricky line to define and in my humble opinion, EVERYONE who's involved in the creative industry has (either knowingly or not) committed plagiarism at some point...
Gills.

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Postby Tom R VanSlambrouck » Wed May 11, 2011 5:56 pm

The member formerly known as gvamp
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