In light of reports of stolen creations within our fandom, the question of how our community will handle instances of this going forward has become a concern. We operate with a goal to support, encourage, and unite fans and creators. With that in mind, many fandom entities (including this one) have come to the following conclusion: We have a zero tolerance policy on theft of creative works. That includes plagiarism and theft of art and graphic media. We have put together this message to clarify, to the best of our ability, what those things mean, in a hope to educate and prevent creative theft from occurring.
What constitutes theft of creative works?
PLAGIARISM: The simple definition is "the practice of taking someone else's literary work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." That includes stealing the "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work." There are a few clarifications we can give on this.
If you sample a direct passage from another source, word for word, it would need to be quoted and credited correctly (with the exception of things like common colloquialisms, expressions, cliches, and open source works)
Paraphrasing can also be plagiarism. "There is no time in which you should be altering the words of a source in hopes of making them original." [x]
Plagiarism can occur even without copying or paraphrasing of text. Ideas, concepts, and information can be plagiarized as well. If it's not common knowledge or if it's a unique idea, give credit for inspiration - that's all it takes. Fiction finds inspiration all the time, especially in a fandom, that's okay! If you love an idea and what to write your own take on it, all it takes to bypass problems of plagiarism is a simple notation of credit in your notes when you publish.
[Click here for an educational resource on plagiarism]
[Click here for a plagiarism checker, remember that you have to use your best judgement, a score of 0 isn’t expected, see above on commonly used terms etc.]
ART THEFT: Reposting of another person's art, without credit, in many forms is considered theft. Here are some clarifications on this.
If you alter the creator’s art, put it in a graphic, or tag it with your own name (without giving credit to the original artist on your post) that is stealing.
Copying or tracing drawn fanart is stealing. That includes poses, proportions, style, and subject. If you are inspired by another piece and use it to create your own give credit to the original artist for inspiration.
If you find a piece of art on google that you love and you want to put it on your blog, link to the original source if at all possible. If you don't know the origination or who the artist is, you can easily reverse image search through google. On desktop you can right click > search google for image. On mobile you can google "reverse image search" the first link that comes up "https://reverse.photos" allows you to upload a photo and perform the same function. If the art is on tumblr posted by the original artist, REBLOG IT! If it isn't, post the art as a "link" on tumblr instead of uploading it directly (ideally) or post the image, clarify that it is not your work, and link to the original image and give credit to the artist.
If you can't find who originally created the piece of work, or if you don't want to spend time finding them, it is better to appreciate the piece privately and not post it to your blog. If you post it directly to your blog and don't indicate that the art is not yours then it is likely that others will assume that it is.
GRAPHIC MEDIA THEFT: Reposting of another person's graphic edit, manip, gifset, video, etc (without giving credit to the original creator on your post). There are some exceptions.
Everything that applies above about art, is also applicable to graphic media. Graphic media is just digital art in another form - that includes everything listed above. If you find an edit, manip, gifset, video, etc on google, weheartit, pinterest, or the like – try reverse searching them first. Someone took the time to make these things and it’s often a tumblr user.
“I got it from google” or “Credit to original creator” isn’t giving credit.
The statement that taking a piece of created graphic media is justifiable because the original source media doesn’t belong to them isn’t applicable. We are in a fandom, we are all creating from canon source material. Gifs, fan videos edits, and the like, are transformative work.
If you are feeling particularly uncertain as to whether or not you should repost a creative media piece onto your own blog, you can always ask the creator. Fandom creators would be very touched by the respect you are giving their work.
Some clarification on gifs specifically as it has caused a lot of confusion:
If you use a gif as a "reaction gif" to an ask - that is okay. Largely, gifers don't mind if you use a gif as a reaction.
When reposting the gif (without credit) ask yourself "Am I posting this gif to get notes/reblogs?" if you are, it's probably safer to not repost it OR to credit the original gif maker. Gifs take a lot of time to make. More than you would ever expect if you hadn't made them yourself.
Never repost an entire gifset or make a post that is a compilation of other people's gifs solely for the intent of re purposing it as a gifset for your own for notes and definitely don't tag them with #riverdaleedit or any other edit tag. Those tags indicate to source blogs that you have created these gifs.
If you find a gif, upload it to photoshop and add some text or a watermark – you are still stealing. Many gif makers are happy to provide tutorials on how to make gifs! For example: The Bughead Family Discord has a channel which is used to teach and aid others in figuring out how to create! If you want to gif, we are happy to help you do it!
There is a common misconception that if you find a gif on google, it did not come from the ether, 9 times out of 10 it came from a tumblr creator. If you aren’t getting that gif directly from cw or a cast member’s twitter directly and you just found it on google assume it came from a regular person putting their time in for fandom.
All instances of stealing another's work can be avoided by giving credit! Creators of all kind put heart, soul, time, and energy into the work they do. They provide fandom with quality content, free of charge. We love it. It's the blood of fandom. It's the very essence of what fandoms are about and why they even exist. We love something and we create for it, appreciate it, talk about it. Those creators do this for their own joy and share it with us generously. We can give back by doing our best to respect, protect, and encourage that work.