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Jun 10

I have doubts about what plagiarism can be.
If I take a story and use it as a base or inspiration, create my setting and characters, and give my own twist would that be plagiarism?

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TomSka made an interesting video on this! check it out here if you'd like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qoOYrTzOfM1

And on your specific point no. it could be fanfic if you're overt about it. but people steal shit from others all the time, its more how you present your ideas rather than the ideas themselves. If you take someone's ideas and how they present those ideas, (format, wording) and claim it as your own then its plagiarism.

Fanfic is fine, like LostKelp is saying! Gotta be transparent about it, though.

What you're saying can be applied in a couple ways...

Retelling a fable or folklore or fairytale is totally fine! Especially since they're stories that are very old. If you retell Alice in Wonderland, it will be clear that it is a retelling of it because of the well known premise, themes, and character's purposes. Putting a twist on ye olden tales is fun. :smiley: You could even push it so far and it becomes less of what the original tale was, but remember that there are some people very into literary analysis and may even pick up your initial inspirations and link it back to stories they know that make good comparisons with yours.

Now... putting a twist on something like a show/movie/cartoon/book that is modern or current, this starts getting into blurry territory. Going this route, I'd highly encourage the deconstruction of the story that is inspiring you to make your own version of it--and I mean really break it down, make it better, add and subtract things. It becomes it's own thing, but not without an identifiable inspiration like I mentioned above.

Plagiarism would be copying an entire premise, character arc, copying lines and scenes, and keeping them all intact but just slapping different names/visuals on it. Pretty lame, even for fanfic. xD
Like, don't take a page from The Hobbit word-for-word and paste it into your story.
When you sell something like that, it's illegal and you can face repercussions.

Then there's the whole "parody" thing. lol

If you're online posting work to share for free with people, it doesn't really matter what you take story-wise from things (current or old), because you aren't trying to make a profit off of it. But your audience may have something to say about it, if you're trying to claim it as your own ideas.

That´s what I´m thinking about breaki it and make my own story from that source

Alcalá University:

“Plagiarism is an infringement of copyright on a work of any kind, which occurs by copying it, without the authorization of the person who created it or who owns or owns the rights to said work, and its presentation as an original work.
Plagiarism ranges from the simple fraudulent imitation of the work of another, to the mere total or partial reproduction of said work, usurping the status or name of the author”

What you're describing is being inspired by a work, but you're not replicating it, you're not going for the same structure, twists, wording, characters, narrative structure, and more.

Depending on how you structure the story, or how you present it, it can simply be considered an homage or fanfiction to the source/inspiration.

Plagiarism would be you making a comic called Buzz Saw Man about a sexually abused teen with a buzz saw for a face who fights demons.

Assuming you mean fanfic, that'd be copyright and trademark violation.

There are a couple of reasons why fanfic is doable. First is that you're simply not worth the cost of a lawyer and taking you to court wont pay out. Secondly, creators can't acknowledge fanfic just in case they write something similar to your fanfic and you decide they're worth the cost of a lawyer. Thirdly, it's free advertising.

A Mary Sue who shows up Goku is safe... Until you start making a shit tonne of money from it.

Inspiration is, "I like dumb shonen fight comics! I shall make a dumb shonen fight comic!" You will probably wind up reusing all of the story beats and concepts from Dragonball Z because that's all dumb shonen fight comics have been doing for the past 35 years.

But you won't get a call from the Toriyama Estate's lawyers. A dumb fight comic is still safe.