REMINDER: Plagiarism

[Rose Swan]

Does this proper punishment involve accidentally on purpose shoving them off of a cliff?

[Clirkus]

This seriously happened?
*facepalm*

[2]

[VanceXentan]

Freakin' people..

[TatsuaAiisen]

That is uncool on a few, huge levels.

[Eskii]

Eh, the post below this one is more accurate. Fuck me.

[Marrone]

I was going to post an example to help people better understand. . . but the hostility is pretty high and I'd rather not become figuratively lynched. It was a great example too.

http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm is an alright place to understand copyright.

Look at everything regarding fair use as well as when you legally need permission to use a work.

Not sure where Eskii is 'borrowing' that info from, but here's a legit source that I hope isn't outdated (it says 2013 on the bottom, so I assumed they updated everything).

http://plagiarism.org/ask-the-experts/faq

Legal Punishments

Most cases of plagiarism are considered misdemeanors, punishable by fines of anywhere between $100 and $50,000 -- and up to one year in jail.

Plagiarism can also be considered a felony under certain state and federal laws. For example, if a plagiarist copies and earns more than $2,500 from copyrighted material, he or she may face up to $250,000 in fines and up to ten years in jail.

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Additionally, unlike what Eskii said, you have a significantly low chance of actually getting sued (in this instance), especially considering no monetary value is being held in the property being plagiarized, and additionally, the person who plagiarized is not gaining money that the original author would otherwise obtain-- to make it clear the purpose is non-profit, and, assuming the content plagiarized is no longer active, the plagiarizer is a) showing it to a new audience and b) not competing with the original work. The RP in question is probably not published, and if it's old than it's out of print and therfore leans towards fair use. These all give ounces of leeway, but they're OUNCES, and that's with the law of the U.S. not the law of RPG!!

[Ylanne]

I'm the author whose work was plagiarized. I spent much of last night having a massive anxiety attack, because I frequently draw some of my character concepts for roleplays from my novels. (I am working on my seventh at the moment.) It is not acceptable to cause someone that much anxiety and distress simply because you believe that it is acceptable to copy-paste someone else's work, whether or not you also include minor alterations in various places, and essentially imply to the public that it is your own, without even passively crediting the original author. That's the bare minimum standard for basic human decency. Better is to actually ask the original author for permission to use the same concept for another site, because some might actually grant permission if asked. I once had someone (a different person, naturally) request permission to do that, and while I declined, I appreciated that this person actually bothered to ask rather than breaking out the old copy-paste.

I am profoundly disturbed and disappointed that fellow creatives -- or supposed creatives -- would be doing this so rampantly, and that it took my random decision to Google some of my characters' names out of curiosity to uncover this flagrant infringement of my intellectual property and painful violation of my emotional state. Using others' work with permission or when permission has been granted is one thing; using it without that permission and particularly while essentially claiming that it is your own (whether explicitly or implicitly claimed via lack of credit to the original author) is an egregious violation of what ought to be basic standards of literary and creative decency. Unfortunately, this is apparently not the case, and I've now spent the latter part of yesterday and today in a state of extreme emotional distress and anxiety over these invasions of my creative work.

I'm thankful to the administration on this site for their swift and responsive action, and I hope that this series of incidents represent an outlier and not a pattern. (For the record, I am strongly opposed to such de facto censorship measures as SOPA and PIPA, and believe there is no conflict in firm support of protection of intellectual property and in vehement defense of freedom of expression.)

[SmallKnight]

Well as you can see from the reactions we don't approve of this ether. It was your work and it should stay that way.

[gamer5]

I would definitely feel hurt is someone used any part of my work without asking me first or at least crediting me with the making of it.

[Hellis]

This is a dreadfull when it happens. I have seen people use my stuff on sites, and I have had my artwork copied to other peoples accounts where they claimed it (Wich in a way baffles me. I am not that good). So the fact that this happens here aswell really, really pisses me off.