Yes. There is a story somewhere on FP called In His Shadows or something which is an almost word-for-word copy of L.J. Smith's Forbidden Game series. And, as you said, a lot of the manga stories on here have clearly taken "inspiration" from other stories. Especially Twilight.
Changing the names does NOT help. This isn't the witness protection program, after all. It's FP, and most of us READ just as much as we WRITE. If you honestly believe that I never would have guessed you'd gotten Fredward Cullmason after reading Twilight, you are seriously deluding yourself. Especially when he immediately falls for the frumptagonist, Smella, after, like, one paragraph.
Even published authors seem to have this problem. Twilight is dangerously similar to Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries and guess which one was published first? (Hint: It wasn't Twilight).
I think that it's all about the degree. I'll use myself as an example so I don't offend anyone more than I already have. I'm writing a fantasy story which is partly inspired by ideas I gleaned from reading Animorphs as a kid. The main character shifts into other animals and is persecuted by slayers who believe that all non-human creatures are an inferior race and should be eliminated.
Now, the kids in Animorphs were given their powers by an alien who wanted to save them from other aliens that wanted to take over the world and make humans their cattle slaves. Morphing was actually a very advanced piece of technology contained in a cube. They had to touch animals in order to be able to "morph" into them and could communicate by thoughtspeak. If I started writing a story about some otherworldly being who was carrying some magic, jewel-encrusted cube pyramid that contained magic that would give her--and her friends--the power to morph shift, and had them fighting a bunch of aliens monsters with Dracon beams dragon beams, I'd be pretty close to that fine line, wouldn't I?
I used to get up early in the morning to watch Animorphs, loved that series [books and TV show].
See, I agree about the whole degree aspect, inspiration I can get. You take a very basic idea and transform it into something unique and your own, I'll stick with you through it, if it's not crap. It's when you go to copying the author's storyline, characters, and even voice where it's blatant plagerism and you need to get called out on it.
Although, sometimes even taking the basic idea can be a problem if it's something that's honestly truly unique/you take the author's voice with it, as much as I liked animorphs, main idea was humans given powers to fight evil. Sorta like power rangers. There's the whole persecution etc. theme so once you make it your own the idea will probably be vastly different depending on how you write it.
I *hate* when someone steals an idea and respond with the 'there's no such thing as an original idea' concept. And especially when they steal an idea from a FP story [There's a story on FP based off of 'Sabine Woman' by Mozella, as in, exact same thing with God interjected in it] and then have the nerve to fight you over the copyright, or claim copying is a form of flattery.
I agree. But I can see the rationalization behind it. I've been accused of stealing from other stories myself, and nobody likes being derivative. The thing is, most of the people who accuse me publish twialikes. Maybe the big problem is that we're so biased about our own work that it takes a second party to fairly judge just how similar two works really are.
Going back to what you said about the Power Rangers, I think there are also times where certain themes are popular. Right now it's all about the vamps; Harry Potter spawned loads of fantasy bastards; and in the 90s it was all about the young super heroes (Power Rangers, Beetle Borgs, Animorphs, etc.)
And Animorphs WAS an awesome series. The character development was remarkable for a YA series. Sometimes, I forgot I was reading about a bunch of middle schoolers. And going on another Smeyer tangent, did anyone else see a total connection between The Host and the Animorphs series? Because man, oh man, I did.
I didn't even bother with 'The Host', I couldn't even make it through Twilight, I don't think I want to go through her second foray although I thought it seemed more like that series by Scott Westerfield about people getting infected with 'vampirism' to fight something else that would infect humanity and take over. Don't quite remember the specifics.
Yeah, I agree about being biased about our own work, especially when you wait a few years and look back at it then you see the similarities in style to your favourite author at the time, but I think everyone grows out of it once they acknowledge it. It's people who refuse to acknowledge that they're being more than just inspired that are an issue.
Interesting... but it has occurred to me that almost everything on fp and ffnet is "borrowed" or "inspired" by other stories on the net, manga, drama and etc.
I know you hate the whole "zero original concept" but like the person above me said, this issue deals with bias as well.
Nothing is original to me now. They are all similar, perhaps, it's because people are running out of ideas or are just plain sad. Either way, human beings strive to look good (while taking stuff from good stuff and ending up, looking like crap).
I've been accused of stealing as well, but like xcandidx said, the accusers end up doing the same.
Changing the names does NOT help. This isn't the witness protection program, after all. It's FP, and most of us READ just as much as we WRITE. If you honestly believe that I never would have guessed you'd gotten Fredward Cullmason after reading Twilight, you are seriously deluding yourself. Especially when he immediately falls for the frumptagonist, Smella, after, like, one paragraph.
Even published authors seem to have this problem. Twilight is dangerously similar to Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries and guess which one was published first? (Hint: It wasn't Twilight).
I think that it's all about the degree. I'll use myself as an example so I don't offend anyone more than I already have. I'm writing a fantasy story which is partly inspired by ideas I gleaned from reading Animorphs as a kid. The main character shifts into other animals and is persecuted by slayers who believe that all non-human creatures are an inferior race and should be eliminated.
Now, the kids in Animorphs were given their powers by an alien who wanted to save them from other aliens that wanted to take over the world and make humans their cattle slaves. Morphing was actually a very advanced piece of technology contained in a cube. They had to touch animals in order to be able to "morph" into them and could communicate by thoughtspeak. If I started writing a story about some otherworldly being who was carrying some magic, jewel-encrusted cube pyramid that contained magic that would give her--and her friends--the power to morph shift, and had them fighting a bunch of aliens monsters with Dracon beams dragon beams, I'd be pretty close to that fine line, wouldn't I?
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and Fredward Cullmason is a fine name... I SEE NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. hahaha.
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See, I agree about the whole degree aspect, inspiration I can get. You take a very basic idea and transform it into something unique and your own, I'll stick with you through it, if it's not crap. It's when you go to copying the author's storyline, characters, and even voice where it's blatant plagerism and you need to get called out on it.
Although, sometimes even taking the basic idea can be a problem if it's something that's honestly truly unique/you take the author's voice with it, as much as I liked animorphs, main idea was humans given powers to fight evil. Sorta like power rangers. There's the whole persecution etc. theme so once you make it your own the idea will probably be vastly different depending on how you write it.
I *hate* when someone steals an idea and respond with the 'there's no such thing as an original idea' concept. And especially when they steal an idea from a FP story [There's a story on FP based off of 'Sabine Woman' by Mozella, as in, exact same thing with God interjected in it] and then have the nerve to fight you over the copyright, or claim copying is a form of flattery.
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Going back to what you said about the Power Rangers, I think there are also times where certain themes are popular. Right now it's all about the vamps; Harry Potter spawned loads of fantasy bastards; and in the 90s it was all about the young super heroes (Power Rangers, Beetle Borgs, Animorphs, etc.)
And Animorphs WAS an awesome series. The character development was remarkable for a YA series. Sometimes, I forgot I was reading about a bunch of middle schoolers. And going on another Smeyer tangent, did anyone else see a total connection between The Host and the Animorphs series? Because man, oh man, I did.
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Yeah, I agree about being biased about our own work, especially when you wait a few years and look back at it then you see the similarities in style to your favourite author at the time, but I think everyone grows out of it once they acknowledge it. It's people who refuse to acknowledge that they're being more than just inspired that are an issue.
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I know you hate the whole "zero original concept" but like the person above me said, this issue deals with bias as well.
Nothing is original to me now. They are all similar, perhaps, it's because people are running out of ideas or are just plain sad. Either way, human beings strive to look good (while taking stuff from good stuff and ending up, looking like crap).
I've been accused of stealing as well, but like xcandidx said, the accusers end up doing the same.
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