Degrees of plagiarism: where do we draw the line?

[trinityofone]

I really don’t want to make this post. I’m not a big fan of fandom politics, mostly because fandom is my escape from real-life politics—both the big D.C. headache and the everyday social kind. But as I am oddly in a position where a lot of people read this journal and (I assume?) care about what I have to say, I feel it’s my…responsibility, I guess, to say something about this. Everyone’s favorite topic: plagiarism.

I’ll admit, I’ve been reading the latest incarnation of the Cassandra Claire plagiarism debacle over at bad_penny. Like the whole Ms. Scribe saga, I find it fascinating the way I find most human drama fascinating. However, there are some issues related to the various plagiarism charges that make me uneasy, and that’s what I want to talk about.

From the account, I think it’s clear that Cassandra Claire plagiarized Pamela Dean, and I think that’s pretty inexcusable, and made worse by how badly she handled it. My opinion on this is meaningless; I’m not even in Harry Potter fandom. But it’s the issue of the other quotes she used that has me worried.

My previous experience with the Draco Trilogy was that a few years ago (2002, I think) I read “Draco Dormiens” and enjoyed it, and started “Draco Sinister” and got bored pretty quickly and didn’t finish it. By the time I started reading it, the disclaimers regarding the Buffy quotes, etc., were already in place—which was good, because I recognized a lot of them (the Red Dwarf stuff too—yay Red Dwarf!). I had mixed feelings about them being there: some of them were fun, even—or especially—when I recognized them; others seemed out of place. Whatever. To each his own.

What’s bothering me now, however, is how angry people are getting about the “plagiarism” of those quotes. I’m sure in some sense it’s a matter of degree: Cassie Claire clearly plagiarized a ton from Pamela Dean, and on top of that, each of those borrowed Buffy quotes must seem like a slap in the face. Especially if her fics are praised for their witty dialogue and none of what’s being quoted is hers—the semi-recent incident with the American President fic in SGA fandom springs to mind. Anyway. I want to make it clear that I am not defending Cassie Claire.

But. I have now started seeing people leveling accusations of plagiarism against her specifically for her use of phrases like “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake” or “Daylight’s burning”—attributing those quotes to Chuck Palahniuk and Veronica Mars, even though neither of those lines is unique to those sources (I can still very clearly hear AD Skinner saying “Daylight’s burning, agents” to Mulder and Scully). And even if they were, I would argue that some level of quotation has to be allowable without obsessive, scary attribution. I mean, “real” authors do this all the time—for them it’s called allusion. But where is the line? When does something stop being allusion or fun, in-jokey reference—and become plagiarism?

I think this is an important issue for fandom to address. I think this is an important issue for me to address, because I am an author who loves allusions. My fics are full of them. And just like the American President mini-scandal, which broke right before my reel_sga fic was “released,” made me nervous, this makes me nervous, too. Am I doing something wrong?

I want to clear the air about the references I have made in my fics. Call it a preemptive strike—hopefully a completely unnecessary one, but I want to give us a springboard to discuss this. I also want to be honest. And if I am doing something wrong, I want to know.

The following list is from memory, so please feel free to point out anything I have missed. It is also not meant to be completely comprehensive; if I included every “And here I alluded to T.S. Eliot”-type reference, we’d be here all week. These are just the ones I feel might be potentially controversial. Again, if I’m missing something really obvious or bothersome to you, please tell me.

•The U.S.S. Indianapolis contains dialogue (and singing!) direct from the movie Jaws. This may be inappropriately attributed. My only author’s note is “Jaws is one of my all-time favorite movies, so: a little tribute. *g*” The characters in the story also make references to the book and the movie, although they don’t specifically mention the title. When they speak the borrowed lines of dialogue, they could be construed to be quoting.

•Little Things was thought, by many people, to have been inspired by episodes of both The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, neither of which I have seen. It was actually inspired by a short story by Aimee Bender in her collection Willful Creatures. Looking back, I see that I did not mention this; I probably forgot. The inspiration didn’t extend any farther than the idea of tiny people being held prisoner by big people, which was also apparently utilized by the TV episodes. Nothing was quoted, but Bender still possibly deserved a mention—if for no other reason that she’s an awesome author, and you should read her book.

•Dissonance contains an unattributed line from the movie The Goonies; Rodney says Chunk’s line about pushing his sister down the stairs and blaming it on the dog. I left this unreferenced on purpose; I wanted it to be a fun in-joke for other fans of that movie. At the time, I thought that was no different from having John say, “The truth is out there!” and freaking Caldwell out in Coming Soon to a Galaxy Near You! Now I’m not so sure.

•Human Vacillation marks the only time anyone has actually raised the plagiarism question to me. A reader, who I won’t name unless she wants me to, asked me why I hadn’t cited Neil Gaiman’s story “Changes” for the concept of “Reboot,” which in that story is a drug that alters your sex. Gaiman’s story is without a doubt an inspiration for “Human Vacillation,” as Gaiman himself is an inspiration for much of my work. However, it had been a long time since I’d read “Changes” (I last read it in 1998, the year Smoke and Mirrors came out—and frustratingly haven’t read it since, as I can’t find my damn copy!); I didn’t consciously use the reboot metaphor previously used by Gaiman, but the fact remains that I did use it. I quickly added an author’s note citing Gaiman as inspiration (as well as Virginia Woolf, because it never hurts to be thorough). I don’t see any problems with “Human Vacillation” now (except that the middle sags a bit and I can’t finish the damn sequel!) but in the interest of fairness and completeness, I thought I should mention this.

•Blow the House Down is, as I say in the author’s notes, “heavily inspired” by David Rakoff’s book of essays, Don’t Get Too Comfortable. Here is my note in full: “This is heavily inspired by David Rakoff’s book Don’t Get Too Comfortable, especially the essays “Beat Me, Daddy” and “Love It or Leave It.” Some of the things Julian says in this story were quoted or paraphrased from the actual Log Cabin Republicans Rakoff spoke to.” I am now not sure that this disclaimer is complete enough. I mean, I don’t specifically cite the whole “I can change him” idea, which comes direct from Rakoff—or is that covered by “inspired”? I don’t know.

•A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours is my reel_sga fic, based on The Searchers. By their very nature, reel_sga stories were meant to be inspired by films. So much (if not all) of the plot of this story is taken from The Searchers; I borrowed quite a bit of dialogue, too—certainly the classic lines, like “That’ll be the day!” and the “Don’t ever ask me!” speech, are not mine. But a person unfamiliar with the film (and many of my readers said that they hadn’t seen it) might not realize that. This was my note on the subject: “A heavy, heavy debt is of course owed to the film The Searchers—director John Ford, who made the west glorious and gave us one of the most iconic opening and closing shots; writer Frank S. Nugent, who wrote dialogue equally iconic (some of which I borrowed—the really good stuff, probably *g*); and John Wayne, who gives an absolutely incredible performance. The film just came out in a beautiful new special edition DVD—at the very least, you should all rent it!” Short of attributing every line of dialogue that I used (which still leaves the paraphrased bits—and the plot?) I’m not sure what else I could do. Yet this still feels uncomfortable close to the American President situation.

Is the answer, then, that this sort of fic shouldn’t be written? Or that allusions to other works shouldn’t be used at all? Or that even the slightest reference or quote should have to be cited? I hope not, but having some flexibility unfortunately makes large-scale and much clearer cases of plagiarism easier to ignore, or excuse—maybe even easier to exist. I’m not going to psychoanalyze Cassie Clare, but I do think that the person who wrote the American President fic, for example, honestly did not realize that she was doing something wrong. But she was.

So how is what I am doing different? Is it different? Please feel free to tackle any of the examples listed above, or any examples from other fic of mine, or (making an effort to please be polite, please) other fic. Where do we—as a fandom, as Fandom—draw the line? No one is going to make up rules for us. What are our own?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I kept deleting and rewriting this, mostly since it never concerned my personally. You know that I never finished my reel_sga fic because I took such cares to subvert the film and skew it all only to have someone say it was just like the film *shrugs* and after After You (http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/443805.html) someone asked me how many times I'd watched Cube - and I'd never seen it at all, nor knew the plot. I don't work this way.
Your specifics I'd have to discuss that in chat with you. I sometimes notice literary influences in your writing, but not anything specific, just an awareness that you are widely read or studying English Lit.
Some people cite way too much for my taste (I get too distracted by all unnecessary notes); some don't do it at all and yet I see their whole fic as a riff on any Whedon show.
So bottom-line: if someone lauds you for a specific line, you tell them it's not yours, or you're a thief. That's the only test for me, whether the author does or not.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

1. I'm still sad you didn't finish your reel_sga fic. It was definitely its own unique thing, and it was great.

2. Maybe this weekend I can get on chat. Right now I'm at work. *sigh*

3. I can't escape literary references completely; they are a huge part of my life. But I am concerned with the question of what is acceptable and what isn't. It's a really tough question, and one I doubt I will even begin to be able to answer in any satisfying way.

4. So bottom-line: if someone lauds you for a specific line, you tell them it's not yours, or you're a thief. That's the only test for me, whether the author does or not.

Okay, well at least I've never done THAT. But there's still a little bit of worrisome ambiguity: I'm bad at responding to feedback; if I miss a piece feedback praising something not entirely mine, is that sin by omission? How paranoid should I be? *g*

[amireal.livejournal.com]

The difference that I see is in the ratios for one thing.

And for another, when you *do* use large chunks, the other source is at least MENTIONED. And personally, one line isn't cause for concern.

The big thing I see is that her entire work was made of other's works, and she is claiming it as her very own and then when caught, claiming she possibly has permission.

The other thing that bothers me is that, personally, hers was very badly done, but that's neither here nor there.

It's the Tom Stoppard argument for most things though. RnG is not plagiarism but fanfic.

You are upfront about what you do on purpose if it deals with a large part of another source, or are honestly influenced by another source. Personally, influence is a tricky thing, I mean, when do I have to start attributing using wormholes in original fic? (which I have and will be doing again)

[boochicken.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you saw this too... I'm a bit afraid to comment, given that I've only skirted the periphery of most fandoms I've followed (X-Files, Buffy, HP, and now SGA). But you've discussed the issues very thoughtfully, so here are my two cents.

In my opinion, it's one thing to write a story like those from reel_sga, in which the reader knows up front that the basic plot, certain aspects of characterization, and even some dialogue were created by someone other than the reel_sga author. I'm not going to read The Sound of Music a la reel_sga expecting something original; I'll read it to see Rodney McKay in a nun's habit, and John Sheppard as emotionally constipated Captain von Trapp. (Which isn't much of a stretch from canon, but anyway). To me that isn't plagiarism because anyone who hasn't lived in a cave for the past 50 years knows The Sound of Music, and only the person in the cave next door would be stupid enough to claim authorial credit for it.

The bad_penny saga strikes me somewhat differently, in that a.) I don't recall that the Pamela Dean scenes in the Draco trilogy were attributed, as homage or otherwise, and b.) at the time, Pamela Dean's books were out of print, so it seems unlikely that the audience would be familiar with the quoted material. I think it's inevitable that people are going to remember choice bits from television, movies, what have you, and that those bits will inevitably make their way into their work. (As an example, and also for transparency's sake, I realized mid-way through my indulgent SGA vampire AU that I'd lifted an idea from ltlj. I deleted the reference and credited it to her in my next post.) But to see whole scenes copied in a story deemed original, with sentences lifted verbatim without attribution -- that leaves a much different, and bitter, taste in my mouth.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

Delurking to comment, but: as someone who was in the HP fandom and as someone who was once friends with Cassie Claire, I think the issue is that she's always credited for her "witty" dialogue. When people talk about her fanfic, they always use quotes she took from other sources. The few parts of her stories she didn't take from other sources and came up with herself are pretty much never praised. So when you're in fandom with someone who is considered the funniest and wittiest and bestest ever, and yet pretty much all her dialogue comes from other sources... well, it's annoying as hell. People say, "You're so funny, Cassie!" and then they list a bunch of Buffy quotes, and Cassie goes, "Gee, thanks!"

(I have my own issues with her borrowing from other sources in that as a humour writer, I work hard to come up with my own witty dialogue, and then Cassie Claire just steals from tv shows and everyone thinks she's sooo funny. Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

[kudra2324.livejournal.com]

i don't think you've done anything wrong, although i'm too sleep-deprived at the moment to articulate where the distinctions are. intent is always a dangerous thing to base an argument on, of course, because some person, somewhere, will always have "not intended" a consequence that the rest of us would have seen coming as though hailed by a welcoming flock of pink flamingoes, or something, but i think that there is a very big difference between purposefully alluding to something and trying to pass it off as your own. there's a very big difference between borrowing wholesale chunks of text vs. snippets of dialogue - and i'd go further to say that it makes a difference if the character uttering the dialogue might reasonably be making a reference on purpose, or not. if rodney mckay makes an off-handed remark about flying being simply throwing yourself at the ground and missing, i'm going to be amused by the reference, not under the impression that the writer is trying to take credit for the line. if rodney gives a 3 minutes speech lifted directly from macbeth, i'm going to be extremely puzzled and fairly certain that the author should have acknowledged the source unless the title of the fic is "atlantis puts on a production of the scottish play." although i suppose even there there is some gray area - a muttered moment of "out out damn spot," depending on context, would probably seem totally fine to me.

the thing is, much of literature is an allusion, one way or another, to something that came before, and we'd have to throw out an awful lot of really good and really famous writing in order to exorcise every un-cited allusion. an allusion, when well done, works less well if it is cited, i think. and so much of literature plays on the reader's expectations of what is "real" and what is "borrowed" - look at eliot's "notes" on the wasteland, for example, which are largely just an exercise in fucking with the reader's mind even further than the wasteland might have already done (not that there's anything wrong with that - i love the wasteland).

i'm rambling, but those are my two, not very articulate, cents.

[kudra2324.livejournal.com]

It's the Tom Stoppard argument for most things though. RnG is not plagiarism but fanfic.

what an excellent way of putting it.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the ratios thing, the only problem being that that's a VERY hard thing to define. Stuff like, "15% is okay—16% is over the line!" Or whatever.

Personally, influence is a tricky thing

Exactly. And it's the sort of thing where I'm wondering why "Something Wicked" I feel perfectly fine about, while "Burn the House Down" makes me nervous. Maybe that's a good arbiter—if you feel at all nervous about it, make some changes. (Of course, I feel nervous about everything—separate issue.)

when do I have to start attributing using wormholes in original fic?

Well, I think it depends on how you use the wormholes. *g* The Stargate 'verse, for example, uses wormholes in a completely different way than the Vorkosigan 'verse. Each interpretation is the authors' or author's own. So unless your wormholes are exactly like the Stargate wormholes, I think you're fine.

Of course...who gets to decide whether they're different enough? Argh!

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

So bottom-line: if someone lauds you for a specific line, you tell them it's not yours, or you're a thief. That's the only test for me, whether the author does or not.

That's exactly what I was going to say. If someone says, "Oh, what a great turn of phrase: 'did you look behind the couch-- IN HELL! You're hilarious!" and you say "Thanks!" instead of "Yes, it's from Buffy!" then you're taking credit for someone else's work, and that's wrong.

The problem with Cassie wasn't that she *used* other sources-- we all draw on sources and inspirations when we write-- but that she used specific scenarios, whole action sequences and very specific bits of plot, and also included specific bits of description and dialogue from those sources, and then only cited *some* of them in very brief incomplete ways (using a dozen lines of Buffy dialogue and only citing one short phrase as being non-original, saying "I was inspired by Pamela Dean" when she actually took much more than inspiration from her work, etc.)

[amireal.livejournal.com]

I thought so too, and it illustrates the whole thing wonderfully.

And now I admit that I'm pretty sure I didn't come up with this first. I mean, I know I thought about it but I can't remember if I read someone else's LJ first. Yay for sucky attribution!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

1. I'll try; but so far the gall/bile? has risen each time I looked at it. If I do, I'll send you the next draft.

2. Hey, work. Money. Fame. And when it's over, freedom is the sweeter *tries to cheer you*

3. Exactly, that's what was noticable; I had to change my tack re. "if the fandom is so ill-educated and little-read, it's their own fault" when I saw the extent of the CC theft, but I still think some people overdo the citing.

And others have no clue but hey. Yes, this won't ever be answered.

4. I can see your problem clearer now. Would it help if you trained yourself to make notes digitally or in hardcopy when writing, not afterwards, whenever you notice you consciously quote something? Esp. if it's a bit rarer (not like the snowflake or Starwars, let's say)?

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

You plagiarizer! *g*

Oh, sorry. I mean: I CRY PLAYJURISIM!

[amireal.livejournal.com]

There is no hard and fast line. Seriously.

Rule of thumb? When in doubt, cite.

When someone pokes you at it, and you possibly did without realizing, say so.

But influence is influence and all of literature is one influence on another. You're worrying too much.

The reel_sga challenge presented stories and TOLD the readers where the other plot/influence came from. Right FROM THE START. Right there it's a completely different story.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

But it was a tribute! HONEST!

I had permission! Or maybe I'm getting permission?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

*nods* and until I saw that side by side, I certainly had been (mistakenly) on her side, knowing only a few of her shorter original texts. Hey, all the Whedon-staff ALWAYS said their best lines were his, there is no shame in that, only in deceipt.

[(Anonymous)]

the act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one's own creation.
ucblibraries.colorado.edu/about/glossary.htm

Now words or phrases that have fallen into common usage are not plaigerism at all. But I think its important that people realize that even ideas are considered the author's intellectual property. You do not only need to quote directly from an author to steal from them. I realize how tricky this is in fandom, where we are using the ideas the authors give us to create our fanfiction. So if another writer in fandom uses another fandom writers ideas or similar plot or characters, how are we suppose to respond to that...I think we should be polite and use disclaimers like we do when we say that the author's characters or plot is not our own...The line we draw, I think, is out of respect for the person we are drawing ideas from when we write...

-- anashi

[neery.livejournal.com]

I'm bad at responding to feedback; if I miss a piece feedback praising something not entirely mine, is that sin by omission?

Actually, in my opinion, that would definitely be claiming the praise by omission. Like I said before, I'm fine with authors not responding to feedback if they make it clear upfront that they won't, but in that case, I really think you need to make an exception. I mean, I'm assuming you read your feedback, so you'd notice if something like that happened?

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

What I think is a big problem with all the accusations people make against authors of fanfiction is the automatic belief that "you _stole_ this from so and so author or such and such movie." As limitless as the English language may seem, there are billions of people who speak it and millions of writers who use it. There is a limit to how many different ways words can be combined.
Now, dialogue is something that is hard to randomly copy, but ideas are not. There is such a concept as "simultaneous development," the incidence of two isolated populations developing the same piece of technology, sometimes at the same time. It is entirely possible for two people to envision the same story concept, but maybe only one of them goes on to make a Hollywood movie and the other applies it to their Harry Potter au.
For example: When I was 8, there was a movie about a "witches academy," about a rather inept witch learning about spells and potions. This was before Harry Potter and wasn't very widely dispersed. But I'm willing to wager that if that same movie were produced today, critics would label it as "hanging on the coat-tails of Harry Potter" and "derivative." The point is that J.K. Rowling couldn't have seen this movie when she conceived Harry Potter (in '91, right?) and the movie-makers couldn't have possibly seen her notes before the book was published in '97.
In the end, you can't say "you copied this, you evil plagiarizer" in the case of concepts all of the time. I mean, romance novelists have to have run out at some point, right?
As for dialogue, get your own.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

When we're out here in making-no-profit land (to make it clear: we're not talking about copyright infringement, which in a very oversimplified nutshell is your right to make copies, rather than plagiarism, which is passing off someone's work as not-their-own), the objective rules are incredibly simple, to me.

Was it made clear that someone's hard work was used in the making of this fic?

When we put "by Methefan" anywhere that means we are taking *ownership* of everything that follows. We sat down and wrote something. We did not, perhaps, create the universe we are writing in, and the community standard is that we're not passing it off as our own, because if we were writing a television show, it would be on television. But we are taking ownership of the hard work we put into writing the fic.

It's not enough to brush it off and say it's all subjective. It's just not. The subjective part is really the community standard. Did people recognize Pamela Dean's work? Not everyone. Did a huge chunk of the audience recognize Buffy? Probably. Did the people who read The Waste Land recognize all the allusions at the time? Given the heavier emphasis on the classics at the time and Eliot's audience -- yes, they probably did. It was like quoting Buffy. No one, however, disputed that Eliot a lot of time and agony writing it. It was just that his audience wasn't going to be someone who'd never read Latin.

But the line itself is very simple, and easy to find. Does the audience think this chunk of work was by the author, when in fact it is not? That would be lying. Plagiarism is *misleading* the audience based on the words that are on display. (In other words, everything you put into text is what we have to take at face value; you can't go back and say I didn't *mean* to do it if it's right there in writing and we can line it up like a row of Red Rackham's parchments. That's Tintin by Herge, btw.)

Now there are all kinds of community standards for the use of others' work, from pastiche to parody to allusion to simply quoting it. Lois Bujold quotes Robert Frost, and although I had to look it up the first time, she made it clear in the story that it was a *quote*. Stargate Atlantis uses a manuever that was recognizably a Star Wars trick, and then nudges the audience with "I saw it in a movie." Or Star Wars itself, which includes in its publicity and lore the fact that Lucas was into Campbell and therefore borrowing from a lot of existing mythology. Ideally if everyone attributed (read: RESPECTED) their sources, we could follow that story-line all the way back to dancing bulls of Minoa.

Borrowing only goes without saying when the community standards are set up to recognize the source of the allusion. In other words, writers are obliged to cover their own asses here, because who knows what the community standards are. There are, of course, accidents of the subconscious, and yes, it's possible for a whole lot of readers to draw the line in bold between an accident and deliberately keeping the book open next to you, or quoting from memory. It's subjective, but if it's utterly clear to the audience, then there's very little gray area.

And aren't writers at least trying for clarity when they communicate?

It's kind of like kindergarten. If you use the crayon, put it back in the box.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I was totally afraid to comment over on bad_penny, too. I'm not sure if this post is braver, or just as cowardly.

Your interpretation of reel_sga is exactly what forcryinoutloud, siriaeve, laytoncolt and I intended when we founded that community. HOWEVER—the issue arises as to how that's different from the American President thing. My gut reasoning would be that the American President story failed to do any reinterpretation, but that's a very personal stance, which is what makes this difficult.

The Pamela Dean thing was, OTOH, pretty damn blatant, once it was discovered. But just because the plagiarized work was largely unknown and thus not immediately spotted doesn't make it worse (or better) to rip-off. If I'm in good faith borrowing from something that not too many know, or that I think is well known but turns out not to be (like The Searchers) how responsible am I to make sure people realize that it's NOT MINE? I mean, if I have someone say "May the force be with you!" in a fic, nobody is going to think that I'm trying to pass that off as mine. But the catch phrase "That'll be the day" wasn't nearly as well-known as I thought. Did I then err in quoting it (and other lines) unattributed? What about the famous speech from Jaws? Etc., etc.

[siria]

I think part of it comes down to ratios. It's not an exact thing, no; but there is a certain element of 'I know it when I see it', and when it goes above a certain level of quotation and lifting, then it edges over the line.

Especially when what is being re-used aren't some iconic lines--I mean, you know I haven't seen The Searchers, but even I knew of the 'That'll be the day' line--to make a point or a joke, or to resonate with the audience, but instead narrative or chunks of dialogue because the writer is too lazy/conceited to write them themselves. Terry Pratchett does that kind of thing very well; he satirises or parodises using lines or imagery taking from pop culture sources, but sparingly. He uses when it's needed, but no more.

However, even that's not a sufficient test some of the time. I mean, look at T.S. Eliot. The man wrote some of my favourite poetry of all time, but enormous chunks of what he wrote was taken or paraphrased from earlier sources. Some of the time, it's recognisable to a fairly literature reader. At other times, he's working from sources which even I would consider quite obscure, and the references he uses are incredibly dense. He certainly doesn't disclaimer everything he uses, not by a long shot. But the difference is that he is using those sections to say something about the western canon of literature, and that he is using them to create something new. He's not letting other people's word suffice for him; he's not relying on them; he's taking them and reshaping them and using them to say something unique. That is the difference for me; though of course, ymmv.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I do read it when I get it. My (personal) problem is that I'm now scrambling to remember if anyone said anything that could be construed in an ambiguous manner in the past, that I should have responded to, and didn't. I don't think I have the energy and the patience to go back and check, but I DO promise to be more careful about this in future.

*piggybacks*

[cincodemaygirl.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I wanted to say. A couple lines or a credited inspiration is one thing, and that's very clearly what you do; CC and her compendium of other people's writing with new character names is a whole other thing.

I read it back when, or tried, and even the quoting was too much for me after the first story - I've never read any of the novels mentioned, but I thought the prose was uneven and that CC's style changed radically throughout.

p.s. Liviapenn, your icon cracked me up.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

I think that "Little Things" is an example of using a common sci-fi or fantasy trope-- "big people capturing little people" goes back as far as Gulliver, etc., and the fact that it's common enough to have been featured in both The Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone means I, for one, would not assume you were trying to pass it off as your own super-original idea. A lot of SF, like a lot of fanfic, doesn't depend so much on originality as it does *execution*-- that's one reason why I think people make such a big deal about CC's quotage. Anyone can write "Harry falls in love with Draco because Draco's not so bad after all," and hundreds of people *do*. But it takes talent to write that story and fill it with creative magical creatures and mythologies and hilarious dialogue-- *that's* what makes a story great, the little frills and flair that the individual author brings to her execution of a common idea. So when it turns out that CC steals her McGuffins and action scenes from obscure fantasy novels, and her dialogue from TV, then you're left with really nothing at all to say "but she's really a good writer even without that!"

Your sources are well-enough attributed, I think-- like others have said, the fact that "a rush and a push" *is* a reel_sga fic tells the reader right up front that you're going to be drawing heavily on a particular source. (There were several reel_sga stories, mostly comedies, that I felt didn't attribute dialogue well enough, just because I could *tell* when they were quoting, because John and Rodney's 'voices' suddenly changed.

But using a really generic line like "That'll be the day" isn't comparable to making John say (for example) "The key to faking out Elizabeth is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom. A lot of people will tell you that a phony fever is a dead lock, but if you get a nervous Elizabeth, you could land in Carson's office." That's way too specific and it doesn't even *sound* like John, you know? It sounds like Ferris Bueller.

A couple of people in various fandoms have written really great movie-inspired fics-- there's a Casablanca-inspired Angel fic that's really awesome. But I think obviously the key is to not *just* do a search and replace. John, Rodney and Teyla *wouldn't actually do* everything and *say* everything in exactly the same way that Rick, Ilsa and Victor would. If the characters aren't true to *themselves*, if the plot and dialogue don't reflect that you've changed the characters around, then you're not actually *writing*. You're just playing with paper dolls because you think the characters look really cute in different outfits.

Your other cites seem fine. Maybe the one for "Blow the house down" could be more specific, but I think "*heavily* inspired" gave me enough of a clue at the time. Your Jaws cite-- Jaws is one of my all-time favorite movies, so: a little tribute. *g*-- is totally enough attribution for me, especially considering that the *title* is another Jaws reference (and that your cite is up in the header instead of tucked into a footnote.) And in the scene where they quote the Jaws lines, I think you *do* make it clear that they're quoting: Rodney sees John "covering for other actors" and when John starts singing, "recognizes this cue".

Finally-- honestly, I think saying "no one is going to make up rules for us" is a little misleading. There are plenty of rules and guidelines (complete with gray areas) already out there as far as what counts as inspiration and what's fair use and what's plagiarism. I honestly don't think fanfiction is any different than published fiction (or writing for tv) in this matter. (Except that we don't have to pay when we use song quotes as, what's the word I'm thinking of-- you know, like how Steven King does it, as a header before the sections of his bigger books.) But my point is, I think that we as fandom usually at least *attempt* to draw the line (when it comes to plagiarism) just exactly where everybody else does.

[sage]

What you're doing IS different because you're reworking extant ideas into completely new and inventive shapes -- AND you credit your inspirations.

Damn near everything is derivative in some manner, which is why it's so difficult to be a great writer or artist: we've got millenia of people who've already done it, and likely did it better. But casting an old story in a new light or reframing it in a fresh context is totally valid.

Plagiarism isn't.

However, fusions like reel_sga, that take known source material and turn them on their heads, DON'T strike me as plagiaristic at all. They're fanfic, but they're fundamentally original in their approach to merging disparate universes into a new whole.

As far as where the line should be between crediting general inspiration and crediting outright borrowing...I don't know. Quotes need attribution obviously, but we get inspired by all sorts of things through the course of our lives. There's also a difference between ripping off a cool image and sending a fannish shout-out to a writer we admire. Sometimes credit is necessary, but sometimes it just seems gratuitious. I think the key is tied up in the notion of 'authorial intent', but I don't know if that's something anyone can quantify.