(no subject)
This was bothering me and figured I'd see what you guys think. There's a lot of rambling and examples so bare with me, lol.
Alrighty, a while back I was on fp and decided to look through the manga section when I came across a story called Robot boyfriend or Perfect Boyfriend or something with Boyfriend in the title, lol. Reading the summary it seemed similar but I couldn't place it. So I decided to read on, halfway through the first chapter I realised where I recognized it from; it was an exact rip off of the manga 'Absolute Boyfriend'.
I went through the reviews and saw that a few, very few, reviewers had commented on the similarities but there was no mention of it in the story so I messaged her to ask and her reply was something along the lines of 'I was reading it when I got inspired for the story'. Her reasoning seemed to be that since she had added/changed certain things, she hadn't stolen the idea. I figure that if while reading it I was seeing exact scenes from the books, you stole it. Of course, I only read up to the second chapter and that was mainly to see if it was still similar.
On the other hand, there's a fairly popular author who had a story that was being compared to Hana Kimi, at the time, I hadn't read that manga so I wasn't sure how close it was but I do know the author became very upset by the comparisons because she wasn't even familiar with the series. After reading Hana Kimi, I have to agree that there were some similarities but that's mainly a result of the plot idea [girl in an all boys school]. There is only so much you can do to get that sort of romance across without making the love interest gay.
There is one, extremely popular, romance author on fp who gets 'inspired' by famous jdramas and the like, and I had to stop reading her because it wasn't as if she took the core idea and made it her own, which I could forgive, she lifted scenes etc. and didn't credit it at all and that is plagarism in my mind. On the other hand, people who say 'I was inspired by Hana Yori Dango/B.O.D.Y/whatever' get a pass from me although I probably won't read it anyway.
Now for the reason behind this post, lol, have you ever come across a story that was so similar to one that's been published it seemed impossible that the author hadn't 'borrowed' a few ideas? And if so, would you let the whole inspiration excuse slide?
Alrighty, a while back I was on fp and decided to look through the manga section when I came across a story called Robot boyfriend or Perfect Boyfriend or something with Boyfriend in the title, lol. Reading the summary it seemed similar but I couldn't place it. So I decided to read on, halfway through the first chapter I realised where I recognized it from; it was an exact rip off of the manga 'Absolute Boyfriend'.
I went through the reviews and saw that a few, very few, reviewers had commented on the similarities but there was no mention of it in the story so I messaged her to ask and her reply was something along the lines of 'I was reading it when I got inspired for the story'. Her reasoning seemed to be that since she had added/changed certain things, she hadn't stolen the idea. I figure that if while reading it I was seeing exact scenes from the books, you stole it. Of course, I only read up to the second chapter and that was mainly to see if it was still similar.
On the other hand, there's a fairly popular author who had a story that was being compared to Hana Kimi, at the time, I hadn't read that manga so I wasn't sure how close it was but I do know the author became very upset by the comparisons because she wasn't even familiar with the series. After reading Hana Kimi, I have to agree that there were some similarities but that's mainly a result of the plot idea [girl in an all boys school]. There is only so much you can do to get that sort of romance across without making the love interest gay.
There is one, extremely popular, romance author on fp who gets 'inspired' by famous jdramas and the like, and I had to stop reading her because it wasn't as if she took the core idea and made it her own, which I could forgive, she lifted scenes etc. and didn't credit it at all and that is plagarism in my mind. On the other hand, people who say 'I was inspired by Hana Yori Dango/B.O.D.Y/whatever' get a pass from me although I probably won't read it anyway.
Now for the reason behind this post, lol, have you ever come across a story that was so similar to one that's been published it seemed impossible that the author hadn't 'borrowed' a few ideas? And if so, would you let the whole inspiration excuse slide?