This thread isn’t about calling out authors or anything of the sort, but it seems there is a big issue that needs to discussed and addressed. It literally hurts me how new writers are easily discouraged because they write stories similar to another person’s story. As an author, I do not have an issue with someone writing a story similar to mine. I am not quick to call them a copy cat because I’ve done the same thing when I first started writing stories; I’m pretty all authors have just to jump start their writing life.
If a person straight out copied someone’s story word for word using the same exact title and plot (which is the same exact plot as another person’s story), then that’s when it becomes an issue of copying. Not only does it become copying, but that person is plagiarizing another person’s story. I have an issue with that as an author as well as many other authors. When this happens, the author has to contact that person about what they did, so that person won’t do it again. It’s real simple.
Therefore, there is a difference between a person being inspired by an author and copying an author… I’m afraid people don’t really know the difference between the two. I just feel like this issue should be addressed What do you guys think?
I agree with you. People do not come up with original ideas in general, unless it is based off their personal experiences. Everything is inspired by some thing It’s reality.
I agree. I’ve seen authors jump down people’s throats for creating a story similar to theirs, and it’s sad. Especially if the story does not have the same characters, events, or dialogue… how is it plagiarism just because the main plot is similar?
I love Cinderella and tried to find it on Episode when I first got it and they all have the same plot. It’s always set in high school, sometimes medieval times.
Plagarism is a vade topic, It’s really hard to determine whenether the person is actually copying or not.
There are two types of copying when it comes to writing: copying other’s plots and copying their lines. I’ll talk about the plot first. If your plot reminds the readers of another movie or book, doesn’t mean your copying. Sometimes, we make mistakes and didn’t realise we’re actually copying. You can take a book’s idea, that’s fine, but maybe add your own twist to it and change a bit here and there, after all there are a lot of books out there in the world who would have the same plot as you, it’s just how you express your voice, your own style to it.
If the lines are copied, that’s a complete different story. I feel like a line or two is fine but not the whole paragraphs, ya know? There’s a book I know with plagarised lines from many other books. One of the victims called him/her out but that doesn’t really affect him/her reputation much. His/Her book is still quite famous he/she even wrote a sequel of it, which is still a big hit eventhough she still plagarised.
Usually, copying other people’s ideas won’t ruin your reputation since no one can be sure about it but there are a lot of authors out there who were being sued for plagarising other’s works but their other books became a big hit after a couple of years.
Hmm, Even I think twice and thrice before deciding on a plot because I keep feeling like ooh, this one feels like it’s similar to that movie or that one is similar to this and its really annoying.
But as y’all said, everything is inspired by something and if the general idea is copied, It isn’t as big an issue. The problem with it is that you can’t know if they intentionally copied the idea or if it happened accidentally.
And it might be that the same idea came to two different people. But I have seen sometimes that people are quick to call an author out which discourages them a little.
There is a HUGE difference between inspiration and plagiarism. But there are some authors out there that aren’t aware that a story already exists even though there are authors that do purposely plagiarise someone else’s work and claim it’s theirs.
Something tells me that Episode really likes plagiarism. They don’t even like it when you come up with a story of your own that fits with a certain genre. Trust me, it’s really sad when there’s good authors out there that get reported for “too much gore” I would rather see gore than read about fully detailed sex scenes.
I know I’m a little off topic here but I’ve noticed that. Just like how they plagiarised a story called The Kiss List which was written by Mariam so they decided to steal that story and make it very trashy i.e. glorify irresponsible relationships. Unbelievable!
I think there’s a difference for sure! Copying would lead to copyright infringement which has a legal definition and can be punishable, but being inspired doesn’t!
And personally, one of the worst things about that whole situation with that popular Episode author was it seemed like the poor girl was writing a story for her class or something. It’s not like she messaged her and said, “Hey thanks for the inspiration, I just sold a book/movie deal/Netflix series based on your work!” She was saying how she wrote an essay that no one but her teacher and maybe her class will see?!
Also, the author cut off quickly by saying something like, “How dare you copy my opening scene and therefore entire plot!” before the poor girl could say anything that made her story unique. And she went from 0 to 10000 in no time flat.
Like, give people the benefit of the doubt? This doesn’t impact your Episode income, your reputation, or anything. Let the girl fangirl a bit.
Anyway, to get back on topic I think a copyright infringement case would have to prove legally that there were damages and in this case, there was no harm, so it’s not, in my opinion.
Anyway, I think people upthread elucidated a lot of the differences between being inspired vs. copying, so that’s all I wanted to add!
The Magisterium series is the same thing. Magical students in a magic intution and although it’s been called a Harry Potter knockoff it’s unique and there’s no similarity between the two but that one thing.
Derek Landy, who wrote Skulduggery Pleasant, said that he was heavily inspired by Harry Potter, but his books are about a girl who goes on adventures with a skeleton detective (we never do find out if Skulduggery was his name before he died or not). That is clearly not plagiarism.
That’s why I was so disappointed to see “inspired” issues in the fanfiction thread on the Episode forums. We don’t write in a vacuum. Our work is bound to be inspired by someone else’s even if we don’t know it. And being able to turn an idea (which you cannot own the copyright for) into something that’s distinctively yours is what we do in writing. Nothing is 100% original.
Exactly, that’s the whole point. Apparently this author is so offended over a CLASS. PROJECT. She never said that she published her story on Episode, Wattpad, or any other platform. It was for a school project.
What do you guys think?
