Hello hello chappies. Plagiarism of Tumblr work has recently become a lot more out in the open after countless Wattpad books have directly copied and pasted works over but as well as that; Tumblr writers taking ‘heavy inspiration’ from fellow writers.
Several writers and I have come together to create some general guidelines to outline what’s plagiarism, what is okay to use without credit and when you do and don’t need to give credit. Thank you in particular to @teawiththeweasleys for making my angry rants coherent ❤️
1. The Use of Tropes/Concepts/AUs
❗️THESE DO NOT HAVE TO BE GIVEN CREDIT FOR ❗️
No trope or au or concept is ever really going to be original. There are millions of examples of the same tropes, concepts and alternate universes used in every fandom. I’ve written a couple of ceo/mob au’s and I will never ask anyone to give credit for those nor will I ever have to give credit for the CONCEPT.
No one has copyright or ownership over tropes, concepts or alternate universes and it is unfair to expect others to credit over these.
They are free to use for everyone and merely provide a prompt or a very small outline to create a piece of unique writing around.
❗️THE CONCEPT IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE PLOT ❗️
A concept is a prompt (as stated above, such as a trope, an au or a concept), some examples of this are as follows:
Any type of alternate universe (ex. Coffee shop, college, everyone is friends etc).
Any type of trope (ex. Only one bed, enemies to lovers, fake dating etc)
Any type of concept (ex. Perspective of another character, a story told through different means (ex. Letters, memories etc.))
A plot is personal to the writer and should NOT be copied. This involves things such as the intricacies of a story, some examples of this are as follows:
Key dialog points that are important to the plotline and story.
Key events and specific interactions that happen within the story.
The way the story begins and ends.
Incentives and motivations for characters and events to interact/take place.
Things that specifically happen to the characters.
Events that are involved in the story.
LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CONCEPT AND PLOT LINE.
This depends on how heavily inspired you are by something. Below are some examples on when you need to give credit and what you don’t need to give credit for.
Examples of inspiration that do NOT need to be credited:
Use of an alternate universe
A story set during a specific part of the book/movie timeline
Examples of inspiration that DO need to be credited:
A specific dialog prompt that someone else created and released to be used by other writers
When you have written something loosely based off a blurb/imagine/drabble that someone else wrote
When you have written something that is inspired by someone else’s idea (but is not written the same way)
The one we’ve all been waiting for.
This is when someone has literally COPIED someone else’s work. Which was the case yesterday.
A fully copied piece of work.
Full scenes, sentences, multiple dialog pieces etc have been copied.
The scenes and dialog are not the same but have such a heavy parallel between them that it’s clear it was taken from the original piece of writing.
A copied piece of work that has a changed POV (for example, rewritten in first person).
A piece of work that has been copied either word for word but the characters have been changed (use of different characters in the fandom/use of an original character etc).
A piece of work with a copied plot line (same as above) but the characters have been changed
If you really are unsure about the similarities of your writing next to an existing piece written by someone else, ask a couple of your mutuals to read the original work and compare it to your own.
Most writers will try to sort this out behind the scenes however when someone is unresponsive, unwilling to take responsibility or politely discuss the issue with the original creator, that’s when people will make the issue publicly known.
Tagging some moots below, no pressure to reblog but I thought this might be useful in light of recent events ❤️ any questions, let me know x
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
stormborns
amandla
gamechangershow
romaincrisis
2087
