Accidental plagiarism

Do you ever read through a story you've been writing and suddenly realise that you've copied an idea or even a phrase from another author without ever noticing it? I mean a concrete idea or situation, not just the outlook. It just happened to me, and what scares me is the possibility that I've done it before and I've no way of knowing where.

For the longest time, I hadn't noticed that I made my Arc Words "Equivalent Exchange." I then revised it to "Loss for Gain".

I'll often find thematic similarities to whatever I'd been reading at the time as well.

edited 24th Oct '10 2:04:13 PM by Morgulion

Yes. >.>

Fuck you, Gaiman. I know it's impossible for you to have read my outline before the publication of Anansi Boys, but fuck you nonetheless. -_-

Reminds me of the Turnitin report I got on an essay once which said that I had quoted a particular phrase.

I was really mystified by how I could be so careless as to quote word for word without attribution, and then I realized that I had never even been to the website in question.

edited 24th Oct '10 3:09:16 PM by storyyeller

Oh, good heavens, I do this all the time.

Sometimes I accidentally plagiarize things I haven't even read yet. What do you call that? I guess it's not really plagiarism...

I've done this so many times I don't even care anymore and just treat them as Shout Outs.

Turns out what I'm writing is almost exactly like The Codex Alera. I didn't read it until last year, but damn, how did Jim Butcher know that I was writing something in world with a government on the verge of collapse where everyone has Elemental Powers?

I had one that was recursive.

I THOUGHT I ripped something off, and I probably did, until I realized I was actually doing something very similar to something I did a couple years prior.

I remember thinking up a Poison Chalice Switcheroo situation where a Guy A brought wine that was poisoned and drank it from his own glass/the bottle to not be suspicious. Guy B drank the wine from his own glass as well. Then Guy A pulls the antidote out of his pocket and drinks it right then and there. And this was before I ever read The Princess Bride.

Originally Stuck's first episode, "at the Galleria", came off as very Home Alone or Unaccompanied Minors-ish, but then I retooled it ever so slightly for it to become a parody of those movies. The lineage is still there, but not so much as to come off as a ripoff.

Besides, Unaccompanied Minors was a good concept laid to waste. The world needs it done better anyway.

Just had it happen to me(and then made a topic about in the just bugs me forum before finding my way here) and yes its disappointing, but I know I just got similar inspiration from fey myths that the creators of Changeling: The Lost did. So in a way were both plagiarists.

I'm afraid I've done this and that someone else will point it out. >:(

^Well you might take it as a form of stroking your ego. After all if this work you plagiarized is popular you know you had a good idea, you were just a little late.

Whenever this happens I take out the "Accidental" in it by putting it on a list, to create "Homages" instead. Then I keep going. When it gets published the list shall be published on my OFFICIAL WEBSITE with the note:

If you recognize something in my book which is not mentioned above, I have either 1) not encountered the media yet or 2) forgotten to put it on the list. Please post a message in the "Possible Shout-Out!" section as a reminder (to broaden my horizons)!

When I was about 15, I began a story about a girl with a mysterious scar that she'd had since she was a baby. Wasn't until I told my sister about it that she pointed out certain similarities.

I once started planning a story until I realized that it was very similar to Visions And Voices, which I had played some months ago. What scared me was that the start of the opening narration was exactly the same (They said I'd die. They said I'd die and... My version continued following this pattern for a while.)

Though it was unintentional, it most probably wasn't a coincidence.

Yes, I have. In fact, I think nearly every author does that on some level. Writing is based on being inspired by something, and if that something happens to be someone else's work... well, it's gonna come through.

Deliberate plagiarism is where you're knowingly ripping someone else off. And that's terrible. And I've sadly done that, too.

And if you don't know the work existed, it's technically not plagiarism. There's really only so many possible stories in existence; eventually, two people are going to think up mostly the same thing.

Another thing I just realized:

My protagonist is tall, very thin, multi-armed, has a blank face, and can act as a horrific antagonist to enemies.

He is not Slendy.

Coming up with the same basic idea independently is not plagiarism, accidental or otherwise.

Plagiarism:
1. the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
2. something used and represented in this manner.

edited 25th Oct '10 9:31:13 PM by Madrugada

^Well, that didn't add anything to the conversation.

Clarification for all the people claiming that they accidentally plagiarized something because they wrote a piece that bears a superficial resemblance to it.

Musicians have to be really careful about doing this; George Harrison lost a big lawsuit about this, because he was deemed to have subconsciously copied another artist's work.

Fortunately, authors are less likely to copy word-for-word in the first place and the proportion copied is likely to be small enough to be de minimis (too small, in legalese) to sue over.

I get this a lot. One of my projects' backstory turned out to be oddly similar to that of Illuminatus- at least according to something I saw on this wiki, since I haven't read that book yet. However, I have already invested a lot of thought into that particular plot element, so I don't plan on changing it.

Having read the Illuminatus! trilogy, oh, about a bajillion times, I can say that it would be almost impossible to accidentally plagiarize it. It's all over the friggin' place. Even hitting most of the same themes is insanely unlikely. The thing links the assassination of JFK to the Illuminati to the Cthulhu Mythos to Atlantis to Nazis to Boy Bands to.... I'm'a stop now.

Laconic version: I think you're safe.

edited 27th Oct '10 6:14:41 AM by BlackWolfe