It's a fine line sometimes, and sometimes it's hard to tell whether you've become inadvertently influenced by something else you've read, or something seen in a movie etc.

I like to stay open about my influences, and even when dealing with similar themes as my heroes, I strive to do something original.

The recent thread on DVC and HP - the writers of both stories having been subjected to accusations of plagiarism - made me wonder what other WW members views are on this.

JB

I suppose I wonder what is the exact definition of plagiarism in law and in our understanding. Quoting someone directly and not acknowledging that is of course, but in the cases you sited (which I have to admit to knowing little about) aren't they talking about plagiarism of ideas? But surely then Shakespeare would be up on a plagiarism call for his plots? Which is ridiculous. After all there are stereotypes, generic plots and ideas and isn't one of the points of art/literature to give us different viewpoints on the same plots and ideas? In painting, often subject-matter is deliberately copied in order to enhance the difference of approach.

I suppose the grey area is if an author reads up on someone else's theories and uses it in a very substantial manner and does not acknowledge it as the research. Which I don't understand because surely it is simple enough to acknowledge research and merely makes the resultant work appear more learned anyway?

I don't know enough about the cases you cite, though, so I am now just mindlessly generalising and will shut up.

I was looking up stuff about plagiarism and came across this link which I thought interesting http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/?p=164
It points out that the arts have more to lose than to gain by getting too protectionist about ideas.

Did someone say mindless generalising ? Excellent...

Like so many things, the whole issue of plagiarism down into several areas.

There's direct plagiarism of intellectual property, for example if I decided to include James Bond in my next novel.

Then there's similarity of ideas: PG Wodehouse used to complain that after he came up with Jeeves and Wooster, suddenly there were hundreds of intellectual butlers employed by dimwitted upper-class twits everywhere you looked. (OK, the clever servant and stupid master goes back to time immemorial, but it's the degree of similarity that counts.)

Then there's stealing plots, consciously or unconsciously. Someone pointed out to me recently how Terry Nation's original story for Dr.Who And The Daleks was a whopping great steal from H.G.Wells's The Time Machine. I suppose what matters there is that the new work took on a life of its own so that it didn't "feel" like the original.

Finally, there's the one I have found myself guilty of on occasion, which is ripping off other people's style, usually from the most recent book I've read. Often I can go back to something I've written, wince, and say "you'd been reading so-and-so when you wrote that, hadn't you". I also find that funny phrases and smart gags by authors tend to stick in my head for years, and sometimes I'll write a line and include what I think is a good joke (if I'm writing "funny" stuff) and then realise, oh God, that's not your joke after all, it's one you read in Terry Pratchett ten years ago.

But I don't think anyone's going to sue you for nicking a good sentence. (Although Private Eye occasionally points out suspiciously similar paragraphs between published works).

You might, however, get sued for lifting a substantial chunk of someone else's efforts. But there's no way you could do that "by accident", so we're all safe - right ?

How does plagiarism relate to copyright?

I was just thinking about people reading prequels and sequels of other people's works. Something I tend to feel a bit uncomfortable about as a concept, but then there are many really good works that do this for good reason like "Wide Sargasso Sea" and then I can see the point. But I am assuming such works are always using books out of copyright. But where does plagiarism fit in, or doesn't it anyway if the book is acknowledged?

Sorry I meant WRITING prequels/sequels not reading...

There's no copyright in an idea, only it's expression. So in theory you can write prequels and sequels to a novel until you're blue in the face, and the writer of the original can't touch you, as long as you don't use their actual words or main plot structures in any substantial way.

Whether or not you acknowledge something is no defence in a plagiarism suit. Acknowledgements are usually part of the deal when permission is granted to use something - with or without a fee.

The DVC/HBHG case was a big test for this. We just all have to pray that the HBHG authors lose again on appeal.

We also have to pray that Disney doesn't manage to get US copyright extended beyond the current term (50 years over there?) to indefinitely. Shakespeare's descendants could be suing Mel Gibson if they do.

Emma

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Plagiarism is - I suppose - unacknowledged borrowing and copying of work. It'll only get you into legal trouble if a work's in copyright. Anything that's out of copyright is old enough that you'd be unlikely to be dumping it in without working it over, at which point I guess it becomes homage/influence/pastiche/whatever.

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tsk! only in its expression

I suppose I'm getting into this area because my next book uses a character from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment - the detective Porfiry Petrovich. I think I will get a lot of flak from the purists. But I always think of the classical Greek and Roman authors who always used the same mythical characters - Agamemnon, Odysseus, Orestes, etc - for their plays. And Euripides' Agamemnon would be very different from Sophocles' - but of course, the difference is that when using someone else's character, the original can be traced back to an individual author. However, I do think that sometimes these figures, like James Bond and Captain Kirk and Sherlock Holmes, enter our modern equivalent of the mythology. Which is why I think it is fair game for someone like Charlie Higson to write those young James Bond books. I think as a writer you will want to do something different with the character and make it your own in some way.

Other times, I think maybe all I'm doing is writing a glorified version of fan fiction.

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I'm currently reading one of the Harry Potter books to my daughter (on and off - it's taking us ages) and I noticed that on the copyright page, there is some kind of statement saying that the characters of Harry Potter etc are licensed to Warner Brothers or Time Warner or someone. I have to say this appalled me and I wonder that JK Rowling could have allowed it to happen.

I'm sure JKR did allow it to happen, she (or her agent) is very, very sharp indeed about her deals, by all accounts.

The odd thing is, of course, that we love work that uses characters we know, so I think you're onto a winner, Roger, and you certainly mustn't worry. Stuff the purists - being Puritants, they don't have any fun. I'm enjoying Jasper Fforde hugely, whose USP is thrillers in a kind of parallel universe where all crimes are literary. I still giggle whenever I think of the weekly Hate Management meetings for the characters in Wuthering Heights. And books like The Seven Percent Solution, which is a Sherlock Holmes spin-off, are highly successful. Also all the Jane Eyre and Jane Austen stuff, the Rebecca pre- and se-quels...

Emma

Thanks Emma. I'm sure you're right about Rowling, but it just horrified me. I hate the control these film production companies have. And it all comes down to money. They didn't originate the characters, they just bought them. It makes me sick.

As for the purists, well, we shall have to wait and see!

copyright page, there is some kind of statement saying that the characters of Harry Potter etc are licensed to Warner Brothers or Time Warner or someone. I have to say this appalled me and I wonder that JK Rowling could have allowed it to happen.

There is a reason for this which I'm not foolish enough to post here. I'll wwmail you.

Nik.

In the 1960's Robert Bolt took over from a screenwriter called Michael Wilson to write the screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia. Not a word of Wilson's work ended up on the screen but in an arbitration by the Writer's Guild Wilson was awarded full joint credit because Bolt used the same storyline Wilson had developed. Which is interesting.

And quite right too - structure is one of the most crucial aspects of screenwriting, and storyline gets you a good way towards structure.

Jim

When you talk about plots, I take it you mean very detailed plots - I can't think the Miss A meets Mr B, Miss A marries Mr B plot could be owned. Do you mean plot or story. In fact what is the difference? I am now horribly confusing myself...

Griff wrote: "There's direct plagiarism of intellectual property, for example if I decided to include James Bond in my next novel."

Some writers give permission for others to use already established characters - Moorcock and his character Jerry Cornelius spring to mind. And Kingsley Amis was commissioned (volunteered?) to write a James Bond novel - "Colonel Sun".

Then there's fan fiction, which doesn't aspire to more than a sort of samizdat publication (unless I'm mistaken?)

It's 'passing off' that's a problem, but this is a tricky area, and I think there are legitimate artistic reasons for using others' words in short bursts (generally old ones ... hopefully out of copyright). Especially where characters are themselves using famous (or not so famous) words from poetry or other sources. On a train trip from Manchester a while back, I sat down and counted poetic lifts, steals, quotes, allusions, whatever, in High John the Conqueror, and they were legion. (There's plenty prose steals too, mainly the Bible.) But there's a reason why they're there. I ran a few by the publisher - particularly famous phrases/lines of Yeats ('a terrible beauty is born' and others). I was told not to worry. One character in the book uses a line or two from 'Comus' (Milton) without knowing he's doing it. Those words are important to the politics of the book. And so on.

So, Roger, more power to your writing arm, with your respectful use of Porphry, the character first written by Dosto ... that Russian guy I can never spell.

Cheers!

Jim