Apparently some people find it easier to copy-paste text from other sources, including Wikipedia or the creator's original site, instead of coming up with their own text.
However, this could get the website in a ton of legal trouble for plagiarism and/or copyright violations. (Not to mention it's lazy writing to boot.) Since stopping that problem is a very high priority, and I've observed multiple cases of this problem as of late, let's give this its own dedicated clean-up thread. If you see any work, character, or recap descriptions that copy another source word-for-word, bring them up here if you're not sure how to immediately fix them.
Moderator notice: If you cannot immediately rewrite plagiarized text, remove it and put in a placeholder note. A sample follows:
[This description was copied in violation of our [[Administrivia/AboutImagesAndCopyright Plagiarism]] policy. Please replace it with original writing.]
Below is a list of currently known pages that suffer from this problem, and the source they copy from. (This list can be updated by mods or by me, Totemic Hero.) The ideal goal is to have these pages fixed within a week or two of finding out about the copy-paste. If we can't manage to come up with a fix in that time frame, then we'll probably have to outright Cut List said pages, because the site can't risk legal issues.
Currently known pages with copied text
Characters.Overwatch - Character descriptions partially copied from Blizzard's official siteRecap.American Horror Story - Recap descriptions mostly copied from the show's wiki
Recap.Charmed - A number of recap descriptions are copied from the show's wiki
Characters.Smite - Character descriptions transcribed from the character videos
Literature.Repairman Jack - Parts of work description copied from Wikipedia
Characters.Infinite Crisis - Parts copied from old version of official website (needs checking to see if still there)
WesternAnimation.Happy Ness The Secret Of The Loch - Description copied from VHS tape box
ComicBook.Alpha Gods - Part of work description copied from official website
Music.Among The Living - Part of description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Kurt Sutter - Part of description copied from Wikipedia
Fanfic.Past Sins - Work description copied from host site
TabletopGame.Beyond The Supernatural - Work description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Van Beuren Studios - Description apparently copied from a blog
Main.Footnote Fever - Text of a number of examples copied from Wikipedia
WesternAnimation.Camberwick Green - Part of description copied from Wikipedia
Series.Weinerville - Part of description copied from official website
Film.Yamashita The Tigers Treasure - Description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.David Lowery - Description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Raphael Bob Waksberg - Description copied from Wikipedia
Creator.Kazuki Takahashi - Majority of description copied from Wikipedia
VideoGame.Action Taimanin - Many examples copied from the AllTheTropes wiki, including on subpages
Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 25th 2023 at 5:26:38 AM
Header post set per request. I'd be inclined to simpy remove any copied text without replacement. Apropos, what about the tropers responsible?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
No longer a forum herald
If you can catch them from the page histories and issue warnings, that's fine by me, but quite a few of the pages go too far back or are victims of namespace moves plus Main/ redirect cuts (The Coldest War being an example - apparently you're the one who moved it to Literature/ a few years back) that basically make it impossible to know whodunnit.
Once we get the situation under control (so that there are relatively few "examples" to copy), then I'd escalate the punishment for doing this a bit.
edited 3rd Dec '16 2:35:53 PM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
No longer a forum herald
Literature.Moab Is My Washpot and Film.LOL are done and off the list.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
No longer a forum herald
Took care of that one. (It needed a description cleanup anyway - looks like whoever wrote it does not have English as their first language.)
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
The work page description for Why Him? is taken from the plot description
on Wikipedia.
No longer a forum herald
Oh goodie, a recent case. I'll leave what to do with the troper who made that page to ~Septimus Heap, and take care of the description tomorrow, when it is well and firmly 2017.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
I've suspended them.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
No longer a forum herald
Aaaaaannnnddddd done.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
The first paragraph in the work page description for Alpha Gods is taken from the comic's official webpage.
The Familiar contained a summary of the book copy-pasted from Amazon.com (after I complained about this on Ask The Tropers, another Troper has already removed this). A replacement, originally-written recap of the book is probably in order. I'd like to do this, but have only just started reading the book, so of course if somebody else would like to, that'd be great too.
Friends forevermore
The header of the Evil Overlord List page is still troubling.
The work itself can be reproduced on the page because it is for all intents and purposes in the public domain.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Pretty sure that by US copyright standards, anything written is automatically copyrighted by its author unless other CC licences are involved. Hence the permalock on our copy if it. As for the "header", do you mean the description, or...? I'm confused.
edited 4th Mar '17 5:26:17 PM by Theatre_Maven_3695
Indeed. The permission to host that text is conditional upon us not changing it. Potholes are fine but everything else ain't.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
No longer a forum herald
FYI I think he got "header" and "footer" confused.
But yeah, that page is staying the way it is, barring major developments.
Also, added Alpha Gods to the list.
edited 5th Mar '17 7:12:38 AM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Walking the Earth
Jaredwarrensince1991 directly copied large amounts of text from Wikipedia to write the description for Music.Among The Living. Checking a random page from his history, I found that he did the same thing with Music.Lita Ford. I didn't check for more, but there are probably more plagiarism cases in there.
edited 6th Mar '17 6:24:21 AM by supergod
For we shall slay evil with logic...
No longer a forum herald
Yeah, that's his MO. I found additional evidence of Wikipedia copy-paste on Creator.Kurt Sutter, Music.Angel Witch, Music.Girlschool...we're going to have to fine-tooth comb his history just to clean up all of it.
~Septimus Heap, mind sending this guy to wiki timeout?
edited 6th Mar '17 7:17:33 AM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Dude's been banned, not by me though (got too late).
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Zzzzzzzzzz
I'm not Septimus,
but I just did that. Thank you.
<looks up, waves "hi">
edited 6th Mar '17 7:36:17 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Grease has the non film exclusive characters' descriptions copypasted from the official character descriptions. Pretty sure this isn't kosher.
Okay... Well, I might be massively guilty of this?
'Cause I take the descriptions of RPG Maker Games from their http://rpgmaker.net/ pages?
And this isn't mine, but Fanfic.Past Sins copies its description from Here.
... Or is that okay, using the author's description / summary for their own work, if it's a fanfic??
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
No longer a forum herald
Barring the fic being from Kindle Worlds (which so far, I'm not aware of us having a page on a fic from that specific channel), it wouldn't get the site in legal trouble (since we are talking fanfic here). However, pretty sure it's still against site policy; plagiarism is still plagiarism.
Thanks for admitting you did this, though. If you could rewrite that description you copied yourself, that would be nice - I've really got to stop putting off cleaning up after the guy who copy-pasted everything and anything he ever did (see above).
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
World's Toughest Milkman
Copyright is implicit under the Berne Convention—fanfic is not an exception. (Even if a fanfic is itself a copyright-violating work, the author still retains a copyright to any original parts.) If you mean that a fic's author is unlikely to sue—that's probably true. But it's still not legal to copy their exact words without permission, even if the legal risk is minimal.
It's also unethical to take someone else's work like that.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Double posting to note that The Butter Battle Book is now on the list of ones that need work.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)