Plagiarism of content Part II The original thread has been closed but we've got permission to continue the discussion as long as everyone keeps it civil. The analogies you cite do not illustrate the issue of plagiarism we are discussing. Both highlight demanding a tribute for ones actions not an act of plagiarism. I'm argueing that work can be plagiarized (again, check the dictionary definition of this - the one you previous agreed with) whether it is copyright or public domain - legality, intellectual property and ELA's have nothing to do with this. We are talking about the act itself. To re-use your analogies to correctly state what I mean, it would be like you donating your time to church and then at the end of the day someone else walks in off the street and claims to your congregation that they have done the work you are responsible for, or if you donated a car to charity and then someone else goes around claiming it was once their car and they had made the donation. In both cases (as with skins being re-posted by people claiming to have made them when they have not) the fact there is nothing you can legally do about it or whether you'd want to be credited for your work or not is completely immaterial, it is the act of someone claiming credit for something they are not responsible for. This is plagiarism as defined by the dictionary. This is what I'm trying to get at. I'm not talking about 'legal ownership', 'legal rights', 'intellectual property', 'ELA's' or 'copyright material', things you seem to think are intrinsically linked to plagiarism. Like I said in a previous post, the act of plagiarism existed long before copyright laws were invented to make it illegal.
So ultimately, there's nobody who will really disagree that plagiarism is a bad thing. I mean, so far, there's really no pro-plagiarism argument: It's simply wrong to go and take somebody else's work and then claim you made it verbatim, although I do believe there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking somebody's work they posted publicly, making a Sim out of it, and then uploading said Sim to the exchange, provided no claim is made that the user created the content in question. Credit need not necessarily be explicitly and directly given, as given the way TS2 stores stuff, once something is installed, there's really no way of remembering who made this anymore. However, while we all agree plagiarism is dirty and bad thing to do, ultimately, there's nothing you can do about it if it happens to you, besides complain loudly in an attempt to expose a specific instance of it.
To sum it up, at the current point in time, it's only a moral issue. Whether its legal or not is a different question.
As a moral issue, I think we all agree that it's wrong. As a practical matter, there is nothing the victim can really do about it. If it happens to you, you just have to suck it up, cuz it's not like you have a real choice here besides to moan about it, which will not really help your case that much. Well, the only way for its legality to EVER be called into question is for it to go to trial. That is something for the courts to decide. Of course, there's the obvious difficulty in finding the offender to sue. So realistically, well, if it happens to you, sucks to be you. Me, I'm an practical man. Moral issues mean absolutely nothing to me, right or wrong, unless the question, "So what are you gonna do about it?" has a workable answer. Of course, "disembowel the offender with a spoon" is always an appealing response, but then this brings up the moral issue of whether disembowelment with spoons is morally right or wrong. Thus I try not to concern myself with "right" and "wrong", but more "can I get away with this", and "Is this actually going to help me any".
Yep, I think we're all in agreement that taking the work of another and claiming credit for it is immoral and in the case of skins released into the public domain absolutely nothing the original designer can do about it as they have no legal ownership, but the discussion between myself and Poobaloo had centred on the definition of this act. I maintain that plagiarism is claiming credit for the work of another (this applies to work under copyright and in the public domain or whether it is moral or immoral); if I understand correctly, Poobaloo is argueing that plagiarism can only occur if the work in question is under copyright by the original owner. If so, I'd like to know how Poobaloo defines this act if it isn't plagiarism. Sorry to be so pedantic, I will shut up soon.
At this point...it just looks like you're trying to prove this person wrong. I thought the decision was made that we aren't the ones who can safely say whether it's plagiarism or not? o.O
Well, on a purely pedantic point, plagiarism is defined as the taking of work or ideas of somebody else, and then claiming them to be your own: Nowhere in the actual definition does it require that the work be copyrighted. In fact, copyright is entirely unrelated to plagiarism. If I copy something, I may have violated a copyright, but if I do not claim that *I* created this work, then I have not plagiarized anything. On the other hand, committing plagiarism does not require I copy anything! If I take your original manuscript, erase your name, and write in my own, I have plagiarized your work, but I haven't really copied it. The two are essentially unrelated. In the case of a Sim skin, by releasing something into public domain, you essentially have given up any implied copyright you may or may not have had. Somebody else is free to use, copy, and distribute your skin as much as he wants to. However, once he starts claiming that *HE* made the skin, this becomes plagiarism. The actual legality of the act is somewhat more fuzzy, since plagiarism is not explicitly illegal in all cases, nor can it always be definitely proven. Furthermore, the odds of you identifying the actual culprit can be considered poor to nonexistent, making any kind of legal action very difficult to attempt even if you had legal grounds on which to do so.
Nanshi's first post in the original thread talked about about people plagiarizing work (she never mentioned anything about legal ownership or copyright). Poobaloo entered into the debate and stated it wasn't plagiarism as the work was not under copyright as it was in the public domain. I disagreed with this statement and that's why I started posting - to discuss this one point. I believe we can make a decision on people taking skins by another person and claiming credit for them though: is it moral? No (it's not nice claiming credit for someone else's work), is it legal? Yes (it's in the public domain so the original owner has no legal right to complain), is it plagiarism? Yes (claiming credit for the work of another is plagiarism whether to work is copyrighted or in public domain). I promise I'm not trying to be awkward, I'm just trying to understand Poobaloo's definition of this act if it isn't plagiarism.
Not true "In the case of a Sim skin, by releasing something into public domain, you essentially have given up any implied copyright you may or may not have had." Not true. "Any impied copyright" is exactly what an artist maintains when he puts things up on the internet. The item is still his or her intellectual property and he maintains all rights to distribute, redistribute, and end distribution of said item. As for taking someone else's design, altering it, and calling it your own, the law is fairly clear on how much needs to be changed for the work to be called yours. Does it still look like theirs with minor changes, or is the original design still evident (this goes out especially to those that add a new color layer and want to be credited with a whole new item)? Sorry, it is still the original author's intellectual property. If it is altered so that the original design is gone or no lonmger evident, congratulations, it is now your intellectual property. Saying "It was out there for downloadf so it felt like I could do what I wanted with it!" doesn't change the reality of the situation. Taking it and redistributing it without permission is theft, stealing the author's right to decide when and where his product is displayed. Even worse are the people that take away the author's credits stealing his rep for themselves. If you did that on the city streets, claiming someone else's art for your own you could end up in court, jail, or worse. Just because it is online doesn't make the potential dis any less.
Ok, if you all dont mind, I would like to add my 2 cents here. Although I dont design content/skins/stuff for the Sims, I do write code (scripts) occasionally for another game (name witheld for forum purposes). Just like there is a large Sim community, so is there a large community for this other game. There is a very large problem with this other community with plagarism as well. To the point that most code-writers no longer will publish thier works, and will only release them to other people that they know and trust. Unfortunately even then many times these scripts end up out there, with someone else claiming to have created them. I myself have come across this many many times, where code that I have written shows up on the same site that I originally posted it, and is claimed as someone elses work.. most times this code is changed with minor differences, such that there is no question where the code came from.. other times I have seen where parts and peices of my work were taken and another script entirely was created.. the second of those doesnt bother me, because someone is actually thinking for themselves, and just using my ideas and procedures for thier own purposes. The first part though, that is plagarism. Fortunately, because of the nature of the community, when someone is dumb enough to plagarize someones work, their account and IP are banned from the forum, so they can't even look at them any more. Still even this does not stop those who are blatantly stealing other peoples works and calling it thier own, because they just find other places where code is posted and use it. The internet creates an environment of anonimity that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. People sit behind thier keyboards, and feel they have the right to do whatever, say whatever, or act however they want towards others. Wether this is something as childish as name-calling and making absurd and unsubstantiated threats, to cheating at games, to stealing other peoples hard work and efforts, it matters little to those who would do them. They feel no moral obligations for thier actions, because to them, all they are not hurting anything, its just a cold hard screen and a keyboard and mouse, and they dont consider the feelings and efforts of the person on the other end. After all, its the internet, just a bunch of hardware and wires connecting computers together. I see it all the time and it really disheartens me to witness how morally corrupt people are getting because they feel there is no consequence for thier actions. Can anything be done? Unfortunately, I dont think anything can be done. The internet itself IS anonimity, if you know what your doing, most everything you do on the net is untraceable. So we are stuck having to be careful with what we do, what we post, and who can see what we post. My only suggestion is that if you do fall victim to plagarism (which is truly in your eyes, rather than public opinion, because if you FEEL you were plagarized, then you were, simple as that) then simply stop putting your work up for others to see, and potentially steal. Only when all content dissapears, will any of these people stop doing what they do, and perhaps if it all does dissapear, there will finally be a large enough outcry that someone will actually try to do something to stop those who cause the problem. Ok, I have spoken my peice, which is rather opinionated, I admit. Hopefully I did not offend anyone, or say anything too far out of place, but it is fact as "I" see it. Ok, i shush now.
I agree. But in this case, you are not "taking the work or ideas of somebody else" because all the things being taken or copied don't belong to the somebody elses in the first place. That right belongs to me, a paying customer of Maxis, to download, copy, edit, and repost. It's what I bought. I bought that right to explore the game, and all custom content. You all agreed that it's no longer YOUR work or ideas once you post them. If I claimed I made them "originally", I might be lying, but lying isn't illegal. It's morally wrong at worst. Not plagirism, since the words & ideas arent yours. If this were a discussion about how it is morally wrong to copy skins and repost them as your own, I'd be 100% in support! But it's not. It's a thread about plagirism. About plagirising something that isn't even yours. Sheesh. Alaska, ANY of the skins that you made, and I have downloaded, are now MINE. They ARE! I'm not plagirising you at all. I'd be lying if I said I made them, but not plagirising you since they're not yours any more. They're no longer your words, or your ideas. They're simply bitmaps sitting on my computer, and I'm entitled to do whatever I want w them. We're not talking about "implied copyright's" here. this isn't a discussion about copyrights. It's about playing a game. Unfortunately, the item is NOT still your intellectual property once you post it. Once you post it, and I download it, it is Maxis' property, and my right to use however I want w/in the game, or the Exchange. It's just a bitmap file, that per your ELA, is no longer your idea once you upload it. It becomes the property of Maxis, with my right to use / modify it. It is NO LONGER YOUR WORDS, IDEAS, OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY once you upload it, and therefore is not plagirism. Just because you made it, doesn't make it your intellectual property! You're playing under an ELA which prevents such. Rude, immoral, whatever... not plagirism.
In the sense of IP ownership, yes, the original creator does not really have any rights to it, and is not entitled to anything for his work. Plagiarism, however, is an unrelated issue not related to copyright violation, which does not apply here. While posting a skin or other such thing DOES forfeit any IP rights to the thing in question, it does NOT invalidate authorship, and to subsequently take that work, repost it, and claim YOU were the author of it, is plagiarism. The fact that you have not, in fact, violated any IP rights by doing so is what keeps you out of any legal trouble. It's still plagiarism. That *IS* the definition of plagiarism, poobaloo: To take work created by others, and claim that they were created by you. It is not, however, illegal. IP theft, popularly referred to as "piracy", is irrelevant to this: If you copy IP, but never claim that you actually made it, you're still not committing plagiarism. Yes, yes, you are. It is, however, STILL plagiarism to claim YOU made them. You aren't violating anyone's copyright by distributing them, giving them to all your friends, or using them yourself, but it's still plagiarism, which is not presently a legal offense, to do so. No, the issue at hand is plagiarism. Not copyrights, not playing the game. Intellectual property is an unrelated issue to plagiarism. That's right: You do have the right to use and modify it. However, to post it unaltered, claiming that you made it, is plagiarism. To modify it, then post it, is a more borderline case: While you obviously did have a part in the creation of the work, it is slightly misleading at best to claim that you made it entirely yourself, particularly if the alterations are minimal. However, plagiarism in any form does not presently represent a legal offense. This doesn't matter. To plagiarize does not require that you have any knowledge of who made it, nor does it involve intellectual property rights in the first place. It merely requires that you claim authorship of a work that you are not, in fact, the author of. It can, in fact, be legal to do this, but it's still plagiarism. Intellectual property is an unrelated issue from plagiarism: You can still plagiarize a work which is public domain, either because it was simply released into public domain, or because any copyright on that work has long since expired: Take, for example, Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal". The man is long dead, and any copyright on it has long since expired: You're free to copy it and use it as you please. Try to turn that in as a proposal and claim YOU wrote it, though, and you will likely be busted for plagiarism. While this isn't a legal offense per-se, you can still be kicked out of schools for it. So it's rude, it's immoral, *AND* it's plagarism...but it does not represent an IP violation.
