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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 5:29:58 GMT
Post by roverpup on Jan 27, 2018 5:29:58 GMT
As someone whose family income partly depends on royalties from writing I think it is important that intellectual and creative properties are protected. Sure there is such a thing as “inspiration” from other works, but that is not the same as outright copying identifiable elements from a specific work that makes it uniquely what it is.
That is why there are copyright laws and plagiarism can be prosecuted in a court of law.
Adaptations have to acknowledge the source material and although I haven’t read a lot about this TSOW issue, at least from that one article it does seem there is at least a case for investigating the points that have been made of too many specific similarities between the two works.
It seems a shame that it could have been avoided with just the proper acknowledgement on the directors part (and any proper fees paid to the author’s estate) of Zindel’s work and placing the screenplay in the adapted works category.
Zindel is not an unknown entity (his books are widely read and have been famous for many, many years) so the fact that this hasn’t been taken up legally is a bit puzzling to me.
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 13:32:35 GMT
Post by MagdaFR on Jan 27, 2018 13:32:35 GMT
I didn't read the play but I watched the tv movie from 1969 (more or less because it was very poorly made, the creature was a blue plastic dolphin), it is on youtube. The characters were very different, it had just vague points in common with TSOW. The short movie has some similarities. I agree with your comments, dreamsincolour . My biggest problem with TSOW is if the creature is an Amazonian river god why does he need salty water to survive?
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Post by ellie on Jan 27, 2018 14:30:59 GMT
I think direct and detailed copying is an issue and there have been some famous cases where that has been proven.
But generally I agree with Dreamsincolour, creativity is essentially a progression, consolidation and enhancement of ideas that have gone before. Indeed the basic framework of most fiction - “The Heroic Journey” - is derived from the poet Homer whose stories depict a protaganist encountering various obstacles and struggles on a journey to resolution or enlightenment. And Homer probably got his ideas from the Oral tradition of storytelling which existed for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years before anything was ever written down.
JK Rowling is often accused of plagarising Tolkein and CS Lewis and there is no doubt that her work does draw on their ideas. But then they themselves drew on other literary ideas such as the Arthurian Legends and Aesop’s Fables to create their fictional worlds. What differentiates influence from plagarism is if the writer manages to build on rather than just reiterate the ideas of a previous work.
I haven’t seen TSOW, and won’t because it’s not my kind of thing, so I have to say I have no idea what category it fits into.
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 14:43:23 GMT
Post by sgev1977 on Jan 27, 2018 14:43:23 GMT
My biggest problem with TSOW is if the creature is an Amazonian river god why does he need salty water to survive? There is this silly meme here in Mexico using an image of Guillermo Del Toro answering the question of why he seems very nice but is obsessed with all those monsters and horror, after he won a Golden Globe, with a “Because I’m Mexican!” People writes what they consider silly national habits and ask why? with Del Toro proudly saying because he is Mexican! Well, I saw someone asking your question and apparently the answer is indeed that he do it “because he is Mexican”! 😉
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 15:49:30 GMT
Post by MagdaFR on Jan 27, 2018 15:49:30 GMT
He needed drama. Fake drama. I was so disappointed with this movie.
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 16:18:45 GMT
Post by roverpup on Jan 27, 2018 16:18:45 GMT
But we aren't talking about the creative process here, the issue is taking credit for someone else's work without due acknowledgement of where it came from. The accusations against this director are about specific and identifiable ideas that make it unique. Of course in general wide sweeping terms " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” but if that article is correct then the points that are highlighted in it, indicate that more than just an inspiration, drawn from a creative backdrop, was what happened and no credit to the original work is forthcoming. That would fall perilously close to the definition of copyright infringement in my mind. At least close enough that it should not be just assumed that it was just part of the creative process. We aren't talking about Homer or oral myths or something that is in the "public domain". We are talking about a 20th century author and a modern piece of material that is protected under copyright laws.
I do agree with "dreams" that there is a lot of misunderstanding of the creative process, but I think this very much also includes some ideas that authors don't need or deserve protection for intellectual and creative property. Homages are one thing, inspirations are are also one thing, but so is stealing and not crediting writers and it is something that should be addressed and watched out for at every turn. Good writers are usually meticulous about attributing credit where it is due and making sure those who have done the work before them are acknowledged. So if someone isn't playing by those rules they should be questioned and investigated vigorously IMO.
Sorry if I sound hyper about this. I just feel very emotional about this topic. Dan has had to get after people to acknowledge his work in the past (or his publisher has had to) and it isn't always about money either - more often than not it is just getting people to give credit to a writer who spent a lot of time and energy finding (or writing or thinking of) material that makes their work uniquely what it is. I have a feeling that this whole thing with TSOW wouldn't even exist if the director had just acknowledged Zindel from the start and admitted his film was based on (or adapted from) Zindel's work. And if at first he didn't realise it then at least now he could correct his mistake and make thing right.
:-))
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 17:49:29 GMT
Post by mllemass on Jan 27, 2018 17:49:29 GMT
Here's a cautionary tale about plagiarism:
When I was studying art in university, I had a close friend who was very talented in many areas, but she wasn't a good writer. I think she only got decent marks on written assignments because her father was a professor at the university, and all the profs knew each other. In our last year, we had to write an essay on Architecture for one of our art history classes. My friend came to me crying, saying that our professor had accused her of plagiarism. This could lead to a zero in the course or even to her being expelled from the university. The procedure for handling plagiarism at the time was for her to appear before a jury-type panel and convince them that she hadn't plagiarized.
While she was telling me about it, I remembered all those times we were working in the library and she would ask me things like "What's another word for 'arched'?". I would answer "Why not just use the word 'arched'?"And she would reply "Oh, no! I have to change it, otherwise it'll be plagiarism". She thought that changing a few words meant she wasn't plagiarizing.
So my friend appeared before the panel. Our professor had gone through her entire paper and underlined every passage that was plagiarized, and he wrote down the actual source for those passages - the book, author, page number. And because he was a world expert in that topic, he was familiar with everything that had ever been written about it. In fact, he had written much of it himself.
In the end, she managed to convince them that she actually thought she was doing it properly when she changed words here and there in her essay. She had worked hard and never intended to steal or copy. They concluded that she was more of an idiot than a thief. (Ok, I added that part!) So she was allowed to remain at school. She received a zero on her essay, and a note of the plagiarism was added to her transcript - her "permanent record". She felt like she had brought shame to her family, with her father being a professor there. It was awful, but throughout all of this, I kept wondering why it had taken so long for someone to speak up about the way she wrote her essays!
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 17:51:40 GMT
Post by igs on Jan 27, 2018 17:51:40 GMT
I think one issue is that it's entirely possible for different people to have similar ideas, for them to make a similar product with no knowledge of the one that came before. I mentioned in the thread on Black Mirror that one of its episodes reminded me a whole lot of one Community episode but apparently it wasn't a case of plagiarism but just the BM people utilizing the same idea - to be fair it's about social media and "ranking" others so it's not like it's that far-fetched. The Hunger Games and Battle Royale are another example of an extremely similar idea supposedly being developed without knowledge of the other (though I'm still not convinced that the author of THG didn't know or that at least someone from her publisher wouldn't have clued her in.) For a BC related example, How To Stop Time sounds a lot like Age of Adaline but like the other works I've mentioned, it's generic enough that it's entirely possible for two people to come up with it.
I haven't seen The Shape of Water (it has yet to premiere in Finland) or the previous film, so can't really comment on that. The premise sounds pretty unique though...but I'm deliberately not educating myself on this right now cause I want to see the film without knowing too much about it.
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 17:57:38 GMT
Post by roverpup on Jan 27, 2018 17:57:38 GMT
I'll tell from personal experience that Dan has written 9 books and hundreds of features and articles and he knows EVERY WORD he has written! Authors sweat so much about the words they write they recognise their phrasing instinctively - in fact it wouldn't surprise me if he even remembered every comma! LOL!
And the first thing he does when he picks up a book to look at it (if it is on a topic he has written about) is to go to the acknowledgements and the index and see if he is mentioned and then reads the passages.
:-))
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Oscars
Jan 27, 2018 18:08:58 GMT
Post by roverpup on Jan 27, 2018 18:08:58 GMT
I think one issue is that it's entirely possible for different people to have similar ideas, for them to make a similar product with no knowledge of the one that came before. I mentioned in the thread on Black Mirror that one of its episodes reminded me a whole lot of one Community episode but apparently it wasn't a case of plagiarism but just the BM people utilizing the same idea - to be fair it's about social media and "ranking" others so it's not like it's that far-fetched. The Hunger Games and Battle Royale are another example of an extremely similar idea supposedly being developed without knowledge of the other (though I'm still not convinced that the author of THG didn't know or that at least someone from her publisher wouldn't have clued her in.) For a BC related example, How To Stop Time sounds a lot like Age of Adaline but like the other works I've mentioned, it's generic enough that it's entirely possible for two people to come up with it. I haven't seen The Shape of Water (it has yet to premiere in Finland) or the previous film, so can't really comment on that. The premise sounds pretty unique though...but I'm deliberately not educating myself on this right now cause I want to see the film without knowing too much about it. Well after reading the synopsis for Age of Adaline and listening to the condensed version of the audio book of How to Stop Time I would have to say that while the general idea of someone living longer than normal and having relationships throughout time are the same the plot of those two pieces don't seem particularly the same - not in the same way that the complaints about TSOW are. Similar premises are one thing but to copy exact plot points and characters (but just changing their names and sex) is an entirely different matter. TSOW isn't exactly my cup of tea to watch but I think I may have to watch it now (and see the other film too) just to see if the article and complaints have any merit. Just piqued my curiosity! :-))
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