Plagiarism

It was a very very long time ago but I can remember the whole issue vividly, because when I really sat down and gave it some deep thought...I was kind of conflicted about the idea. And maybe I still I am to a degree where it's still pretty hard to decide whether or not I'd be willing to say 'never say never'. And that had to do with a few Diet Coke commercials on TV and a rapidly growing technology that was suddenly brought to a screeching stop just as it was becoming something unheard of up to that point.

But...before we even get started on all that, I'm going to make the vague assumption that we all know that plagiarism is is just...wrong. And I'm talking about direct, deliberate, theft of someone's creative output for your own gain. I mean, can we agree on that? I've only had it happen to me two or three times since I started the Shack, and I can honestly say that it was a serious WTF moment, every time. I think the worst one was having someone take my entire story, change the names of my characters, and then just post it on Nifty under his own email...giving me no credit at all. That wasn't an accident. That story was re-edited and re-posted for the distinct purpose of making it seem like my story never existed at all. Luckily, I had already posted that story on Nifty, and could easily write to them with a link and a timestamp, that proved my case, and the other story was removed immediately. There's no hard feelings about it, really...but what would even make somebody think it would be ok to even attempt to do something like that? That's just baffling to me.

I have had some of my ideas stolen, posted on other websites without my consent, and even downloaded and sold on a disc for their own profit and the praise of their paying 'customers'. Oh, it does happen, believe me. My one saving grace has always been that I give, like, 95% of everything I've written over the past 20+ years away for free. And everybody knows that. If anything, anybody that has read my stuff (even in different languages) will not only report back to me about it right away, but they will tell everybody who read that story where to find more of my stuff for free, and let them know who the real author was all along. So it's basically free advertisement for me and my website, basically. But people still suck for doing it.

How hard is it to come up with your OWN ideas and characters? It doesn't cost you anything but a little bit of time and effort. So why not make it on your own instead of leeching off of someone else's brainchild? Just...TRY, you know? Sit down, put your fingers on your own keyboard, and stare at that blank screen until you come up with something original to say. Don't tell me that it can't be done, because I surpassed the six MILLION word count mark a long long time ago! So don't tell me those folks can't come up with one or two stories of their own every few months. That's ridiculous. They just need to stop cheating all the time, that's all. Show your heart. You've got a personal story to tell of your very own. No need to snatch one away from somebody else. It's insulting.

That being said...that isn't quite what this article is about...

I know that sounds strange, considering that I just made this big case about how awful and wrong plagiarism is. How can Comsie possible be conflicted about this? And that takes us back to the Diet Coke commercials that I spoke about earlier.

In the early 90's, technology was doing some amazing things with computers and film composites on screen. Naturally, we had things like Mary Poppins, Mr. Limpett, and Roger Rabbit...but that was always combining live action with animation. Movies like the original Tron, upped the ante a bit more in the late 80's, and so on. But...believe it or not, the tech existed to start putting actual celebrity performances into commercials and combining the in a way that was almost flawless in its delivery. I can remember being so AMAZED at what I was looking at when these commercials first started coming out! Especially since I had such an affection of the old black and white movies growing up, even though I was still in early high school at the time. I had just never seen anything like that before.

The old time silver screen movie stars had been colorized and were brought into modern day to interact with real life people like they were actually there. Hehehe, Paula Abdul and Elton John??? Really? I just thought it was all so cool!

Give these a look...and keep in mind, these were made thirty YEARS ago before the...ummm...backlash...

 

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You may have enjoyed those, and you should! They were awesome! Hehehe!

But the question is...and I'd really love your feedback on this...is it ok to do this sort of thing? Like ever?

This was in the 90's, so I'm pretty sure that all of these stars had passed away before these commercials were made. It's not like they gave consent to have their likeness used to sell Coca Cola products. This was an era where CGI was advancing at an alarming rate in terms of what it could do on screen, and there was an uproar over the idea of using some of these cinematic heroes to dance and smile and hock snake oil for whatever corporation that was rich enough to buy the rights to them. "You want Forrest Gump to meet JFK? Sure...we can do that! Just sign the check!" And once I really thought about the concept of it all...I began to wonder where the line was drawn between paying a fun 'homage' to something that you love and appreciate, and 'abusing' it for your own purposes and personal grab for attention. I think things got blurred back then for a moment back then, and questions of morality and ethics came into play.

That's what I'd like to talk about this time around, because I'd love to hear your take on it. I've got more questions than answers on this one. I still find it hard to find a place where one stops and the other begins. Because I highly doubt that those commercials were done with any level of malice, nor were the people who invented the technology to make it happen. So where do you guys stand on this?

Me, personally...I've always been honored, flattered, and overjoyed, to have another writer want to use one of my characters or write a spinoff to one of my own stories. That has always been a thrill for me. It brings out my ego and gives a few gentle strokes. Hehehe! I only ask that they ask me for permission, and list me as an inspiration for the original story. Like I said, almost everything that I do is for free. I'm not looking to get rich off of this I just want to make a difference. And as long as someone doesn't copy me, word for word, and pass it off as their own work...I'm cool with it. Even if they decide to publish it and make a fortune, it's like, "Don't forget me when you reach the top!" Right? Just give me a little credit, and I'm fine with that. But if someone is just going to straight up steal my idea and make it their own? I mean, I've got thousands of witnesses who will say it's not your story. And now you've got problems.

But, again...I wonder where the creative license lie? Stephanie Meyers wrote the "Twilight" series as a collection of novels, and then turned it into a series of movies. Good for her. But the whole "50 Shades Of Gray" novel series, and subsequent movies, originally started out as "Twilight" fanfiction. And whether you liked those novels or movies at all...they both made heaps of money off of what was essentially the exact same idea, just with a bunch of the details changed. So is that allowed? Again, there's no animosity or malice involved...but does that actually count as plagiarism? Is that theft? Or an homage? And can it be an homage without direct permission from the original artist? Its not like it doesn't happen all the time.

One of the main quotes that I always bring up from my writing teacher in college was, "There are no NEW stories since the Romans." Every aspect of life, love, betrayal, conflict, horror, comedy, war, revenge, and suffering, has been tackled before. "The Most Dangerous Game" has man hunting man. But so does Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Predator". Can you say that was a rip off? Batman is one of my favorite heroes of all time...but I know that the creators based him on Zorro mixed with The Shadow. Superman was a baby that had to be put in a capsule and sent away to be found by another pair of loving parents who would raise him and help him free the people of Earth. That's the story of Moses. The baby sent down the river to escape destruction and raised to free the slaves. And let's not even think about how many times "Romeo And Juliet" has been told, time and time again. It's practically woven into every romantic comedy you've ever seen at one point or another. Certainly in my own stories like "A Class By Himself", "On The Outside", "My Only Escape", "Gone From Daylight"...stories about love between two people who want to be together but outside circumstances won't allow them to be. And things reach levels of desperation where thy have to choose between staying together or staying apart, no matter what their differences may be. But is it plagiarism every time I write a tragic romance story?

I mean, if I write a story called "Rodney and Julia", with a similar idea...does that come off as a shameless copy? Even if I drastically change the details? Maybe it's the intent, and not the story itself that makes all the difference. Because there ARE people out there who really do try to beg, borrow, and steal, from everybody around them in order to make themselves look good...simply because they have nothing of their own to say. Wolves among sheep. With no shame at all.

And yet, I'm still on the ropes about the issue. Hell, even I would love to make "Waiting Outside The Lines" an ebook after all of the hard work that I put in to bring it to life. But that started off as a fanfic too! Between a teen Greyson Chance, Asa Butterfield, and Chandler Riggs. I even made an announcement for it last year to let people know that I was changing up a ton of the details to make it my own. But the original fanfic takes place on the acting set of "The Walking Dead", which was one of my favorite zombie TV shows ever at the time! But I had also written a zombie story of my own called, "Shelter" before even starting the fanfic, and it's drastically different. So, how hard would it be to take those characters over to a new story, change their names, tweak a few details here and there...and bring them all into a fictional "Shelter" TV series instead? With fictional actors (The main character is already fictional anyway), and a fictional boy pop star? Is that cheating? Is that...plagiarism?

 

Or is it still my own creation, being melded together with another one of my own creations? See? This is where I get stuck in a gray area. And I need a few differences of opinion to maybe give me direction to lean in, one or the other. Because I cant say that I'm really sure.

Even when I use pics for my stories on here on the site, it's never a case of me trying to rip somebody off or steal something from them. They just fit the character description that I was imagining at the time. You want credit for it? You got it. Talk to me. Give me a link if you have a site. I'm not getting paid for ANY of this. I'm broke all the time! LOL! But if you can get paid for your work, go for it. When have I ever refused to promote someone's work? It's never happened. I LOVE promoting other people's work! I do it on the site, I thank them on the mailing list, I do it in Imagine Magazine...everywhere. Every single week on the Shack, I promote movies that people may not have seen, music they may not have heard, stories they may not have read. Talk to me. You can get all the free advertisement you want. The only reason that I don't ask for permission ahead of time is because I don't know who to ask.

As popular as my huge variety of "Gone From Daylight" vampire spinoffs are in the "GFD: Worlds", there are many MANY more in the 'Vampire Scriptures' section of the "GFD: Blood Bank" website, written by a TON of different writers who just liked the series and wanted to write stories of their own! And there's also the 'Vampire Sightings' section that is full of photoshopped interpreted pics of the main characters and some really talented artwork from artists all over the world! I love it! TAKE it! You know? Give me and the main story a footnote, and then go wild.

People will tell you...anytime they ask me for permission to write something going on with my story, it's very RARE that I don't immediately say yes! I say go for it, and let me know where you are so I can guide people your way! The only time I might say no, is if it's a really big and important story to me personally (Like "GFD", "My Only Escape", "Jesse-101", etc)...and I kinda worked my ass off to make that my own thing, and to draw people into my site...not somebody else's. That's just a thing for me. The big stories are the gemstones in my Thanos Gauntlet! Hehehe! Those aren't for you! Write your own! But if you're writing your own story, and any of my characters happen to show up, or it's hooked into a certain mythology that I created for that story...than you're more than welcome to it. TAKE IT!!! Hehehe!

I've got a lot of love to share in this life, and I don't have any plans to be buried with any of it left when it's my time to go. Not ever.

So, this is the part where you guys tell me what you feel about plagiarism and paying homage to an author you like or maybe even writing a story that may be linked to his or hers out of sheer love for they're doing, and maybe seeing if you can improve on it in the long run.

The last thing that I would ever want to do is plagiarize someone else's work. I think that's despicable in a bunch of different ways. But I've seen people take pictures of the MOON...and try to 'privatize' it and own it and cover it with watermarks, and it's like, "Come on, dude. Really? You own the MOON now?" I mean, spending an hour on your own personal artwork with pencils and ink and paint...I get it. That makes total sense to me. But, like...'click'...here's a picture of a tree. Five hundred dollars, please! Get out of here! I don't know...there's got to be a line somewhere where people can see a cute pic of a squirrel and use it for one thousand memes on Google, and you calling it your own specific hard work just because you grabbed it from somwhere else first. Let's be honest. You'd be a millionaire if it weren't for someone borrowing a phase from Shakespeare? Or quoting a Prince song from the eighties?

What are your ethics on this? I'd love to know. Because the line gets blurred more and more every day. Hehehe, thinking back on those Diet Coke commercials seems like an eternity ago now! Imagine if the tech had kept evolving nonstop from way back then? I mean Marvel can take Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, and Michael Douglas...and de-age them a full 30 or 40 years now, with ease! We can bring actors back from the dead for movies and video games! And we can have full blown 3-D holograms of 2Pac perform live on sage in front of a crowd of thousands at Coachella! (Seriously...look it up on Youtbe! WTF???) At what point does morality get thrown out the window for the sake of something awesome here? Or is it just...something to be pissed about?

Look at this! Hehehe, Sylvester Stallone as Macauley Culkin in "Home Alone"? The Avengers in the Wizard Of Oz"? (Actually...hehehe Tom Holland makes a pretty hot, 'Dorothy'! Just sayin'!) But none of these people gave any consent for this. So...is it a joke? A copyright violation? I reason to get pissed? A reason to feel used? I don't know.

 

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And now we have THIS happening! Where you can barely tell what's real and what's digital! This is an actual video game right now! But the real actors are involved. And yet, if they hadn't been...would that be a violation of some kind in your mind?

 

Maybe you'd be honored by it. May you wouldn't think it was no big deal. Or maybe it would be offensive. What would you think if somebody used your likeness and your voice to sell Ramen noodles, or Jack Daniel's whiskey, or the new ad for investing in Bitcoin, without your consent?

I'm just curious. I'd like to think that I wouldn't care, personally. But after being taken advantage of in the past, I wonder if I would still feel the same way.

Any thoughts?