In a message dated 11/07/2001 12:57:38 PM Central Standard Time, jeankomatsu@hotmail.com writes:
This is definitely plagiarism. I agree with Isobel Hamilton that Pat's "Mixed Doubles" is probably the original and far superior. The plagiarized untitled story is a clumsy attempt to repackage the storyline.
Using this line of reasoning, William Shakespeare would be considered a plagiarist. More likely it's a case of two writers using the same very common premise, one far more effectively than the other. It is possible for different writers to come up with the same idea or for a writer to be unconsciously influenced by others.
Plagiarism is an easy accusation to make, but very difficult to prove. In this case, there just isn't enough evidence to convince me beyond a reasonable amount of doubt.
Tiger M
From: Tigerm1019@aol.com
Using this line of reasoning, William Shakespeare would be considered a plagiarist. More likely it's a case of two writers using the same very common premise, one far more effectively than the other. It is possible
for
different writers to come up with the same idea or for a writer to be unconsciously influenced by others.
Or consciously influenced. Or deliberately imitative for reasons other than plagiarism. There's a whole slew of reasons why two stories might come out the same.
Newbie writers, unsure of themselves, might be particularly susceptible to what they've read in a handful of zines, especially if they are motivated more by a love of B7 than a desire to *write* (as I suspect many are).
Deliberate imitation might be practiced as the sincerest form of flattery. Probably newbies again. And a newbie writer keen to go with the flow might retread worn ground without even considering it.
Still with newbies, have you ever noticed how newcomers to fandom tend to dredge up chestnuts us old hands buried long ago? Was Blake a freedom fighter ... or a terrorist? And what if Avon had found Vila on the Orbit shuttle? Since a fair proportion of fanfic seeks to resolve unanswered questions in the series, two fans asking themselves the same question could well come up with similar answers.
Two writers with access to the same discussion forum might end up with similar ideas for a story, quite independently from each other. Fandom does sometimes feed off itself, after all.
Two writers, again quite independently, but with similar mindset and areas of interest vis a vis the series (let's say, purely for example, Avon getting off with Cally) could end up writing similar stories by sheer coincidence. And the more popular the theme, the more stories written about it, the more likely that that coincidence will eventually occur.
The more in canon, and especially in fanon, the writer tries to be, the greater the likelihood that he or she will accidentally hit on a plot that someone else has already ploughed through. Stories that reiterate series events as they were shown are even more likely to do so (all Rumours Cellar stories have a lot in common from the start, for example, and unless the writer's going off on an AU tangent, they'll have a lot in common by the end too).
Two writers might, again independently, rehash a plot from another series (like Trek), with a pretty obvious likelihood of close similarity in at least some respects. (It happens outside fandom too - take the SF short story classic 'Arena', the ST ep of the same name, and the B7 version, 'Duel'. Now imagine that two fans both sit up late one night watching the same grainy B&W classic from 1931 on TV, and promptly start on a story about a mad scientist cobbling together the Perfect Human Being in his storm-wracked lab and deciding he's just got to have Avon's Brain).
Deliberate imitation might be perpetrated as parody, though IME such stories tend to be blatantly obvious for what they are. Similarly, stories that deliberately invert the standard tropes of fanfic stand out simply because they're going against the grain.
I'm not suggesting that these things happen all the time, because I think we'd have noticed by now if they were. It's because they're unlikely, but nevertheless possible, that we stand to notice them when they do happen and our suspicions get aroused.
Neil
Tiger M said:
Using this line of reasoning, William Shakespeare would be considered a plagiarist.
Well, no--it was neither illegal nor considered inappropriate for early Modern authors to use plot threads, or even entire plots, developed by others.
In C21 US copyright law, there is a defense known as "scene a faire" (obligatory scene)--that is, a theme or series of events that is used so often in a genre that it cannot be considered the property of any particular writer. The fact that two detective stories include a scene in which the detective gathers all the suspects in a room to reveal the solution would be a scene a faire--and so would the ol' reliable Stranded in a Cave. I daresay that, as mentioned, Fertility Festival (with or without Aphrodisiac chaser) qualifies.
-(Y)
Tiger M:
More likely it's a case of two writers using the same very common premise, one far more effectively than the other. It is possible for different writers to come up with the same idea or for a writer to be unconsciously influenced by others.
Alas, 'tis true. Long ago - about five years, maybe more - I had what I *think* was an original idea for a scenario. Certainly,I'd never heard of anyone else doing it. It's only recently that I've worked out what the story in that scenario would be, but I've never gotten around to writing it. And a couple of months ago, I read a book review in SFX of a novel which was based on a very similar concept. It's close enough that I won't be able to write my story now, because the natural assumption would be that I was ripping the idea from that novel.
Mind you, one way out is to research the field more thoroughly, and find several other examples of story that use variations on my "original" idea, and thus prove that it's already an established scenario.
My (still incomplete) story, and the story within that novel, are almost certain to be completely different, btw.
steve
-
Dana Shilling -
Neil Faulkner -
Steve Kilbane -
Tigerm1019＠aol.com