When is it ok to 'steal' an idea?

[Hawkzombie]

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is lnvaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from-it's where you take them to."

-Jim Jarmusch

So, with that said, when do you think it's ok to borrow and 'steal' from existing ideas to come up with new ones? I ask because I've been watching a defunct show from the late 90s called Seven Days...it was cheesy as hell (and very 90s) but I enjoy it a bit, and think it would be an awesome sort of idea to re-create. In comic or story form or whatever.

Of course I'd change things enough to be original in my own right, but is it ok? What do you all think?

[Whunpo]

I think as long as you give credit to whatever/whomever you stole from, it should be fine. If someone were to 'steal' my art, I would take it as a compliment that someone liked it enough that they wanted to create new art from it. And as long as I was properly thanked, any money they made off of me may trickle down to me (as fans of them discover my art).

[boratika]

Hey guys, you should totally buy my new album:

http://www.flexamail.com/GetImage.ashx?id=3781

(It's okay, there was soul speaking)

[Hawkzombie]

Hey guys, you should totally buy my new album:

http://www.flexamail.com/GetImage.ashx?id=3781

(It's okay, there was soul speaking)

It is far too late at night for me to be laughing this hard.

[nnanji]

There’s an interesting article in the NYTimes about a 17 year-old, Helene Hegemann, who has published a novel, Axolotl Roadkill. The novel is about a 16 year-old’s experience in the drug and club world of Berlin. The book has risen fast in word of mouth buzz, high acclaim, favorable reviews, and sales, and it is a finalist for a Leipzig Book prize.

However it’s been discovered after publication that many lines, phrases, passages and even entire pages have been lifted from the novel Strobo, by Airen, published in August of 2009, as well as passages from his blog.

The book is still up for the award and still well received. Heggeman defends herself by saying that she represents a generation that freely takes from all media and creates something new, and that: “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.”

Creative people have always been inspired by, and even stolen from, all that is in the world, but I’d say lifting an entire page from another novel is plagiarism. But that’s me.

Remember the Harvard student who plagiarized Meg Cabot (was it Meg Cabot? I know it was someone famous…) and the book never came out and the student is now hiding under shame and lawsuits? I can’t help but wonder since Heggemann has plagiarized a less-than famous work if that is why no one seems to care. In fact, some blogs out there say she has done that author a favor by upping his sales! Or maybe everything is changing and we now live in a world where nothing belongs to anyone anymore.

[nnanji]

That entire previous post was 'stolen.' I didn't need to tell you, and I don't need to defend myself.

[Generation ABXY]

Damn it, nnanji, that wasn't plagiarism... it was "intertextual mixing"!

Anyway, that story (about Axolotl Roadkill) really irked me (http://colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=15733), but it seems to be more and more common. I can probably think of a half dozen books in just as many years that exemplify the cut-and-paste generation.

...
As to re-working old idea, Hawk, I suppose it depends on how you do it. As you've said, there's nothing new under the sun... it's all in how you cast your shadow. Taking that show and writing new stories with the same characters and setting would, yes, probably be considered theft (at the very least, I doubt you could profit off it), but keeping themes from it? Well, then the nature of the beast becomes a little different. I mean, Twilight (the much maligned book du jour) has strong connections with Romeo and Juliet... but, then, so do half the love stories told since (and probably well before) ol' Billy Shakes walked the earth.

[Thanasimos]

Steal an idea! Please, do it! But don't steal the work. Of course, people these days only think to steal the work; they say, "That's a great idea, but I'm short on time and my actual execution probably won't be so solid. I think I'm allowed to steal the work too, though. It's artistic."

[Exodus]

Personally, I take a look at what I know. Video games, movies, music and books. And what I have learned from experiencing so many of them I consider inspiration. Is that stealing?

Taking someone's work and copy and paste is terrible, but recreating what they did and making it your own and making it more, that's something else. When you break every idea down it was inspired or spring boarded from another idea. Many great ideas or works of art started out as looking like any other until something was done to make it what it is.

[Khrymsyn]

There's a difference between stealing an idea, and stealing the work.

Writing a book about a nuclear submarine with a new "silent" propulsion system being hunted down by everyone as renegades, is likely defensible.
Wiritng a book and copying and pasting large chunks of "The Hunt for Red October" is not.

[frederec]

There's a saying in academia: Copy from one person, and it's plagiarism. Copy from many, and it's research.

I think this is true in general with creativity. If you're copying or basing a majority of your work on a single other work or person, and you're not doing a (well-cited) research paper, then it's plagiarism. But if you take ideas and themes from many people and works, then you are amalgamating them and making them your own.

There's also an anecdote I saw recently. In general, English writing is diverse enough that phrases more than four or five words long are fairly unique. You won't find much repetition of phrases and sentences from one person to the next, or even for the same person in different works. This is how these automated cheating detectors work.

Remix culture doesn't really bother me. It does bother me when people lift things and present them as though they are their original ideas, and not taken from others.

[biosc1]

The book is still up for the award and still well received. Heggeman defends herself by saying that she represents a generation that freely takes from all media and creates something new, and that: “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.”

Now, we just need to wait and see how she reacts a few years down the road when someone copies her work. Past experience has shown that people like her get very cranky as they get older and more experienced.

[muddi900]

The idea that there are no new stories to tell is bullshit! Do you know my story? It might not be an interesting story, but its new and I haven't told it to anyone!

Ideas come from the collective. The human experience(or whatever). Expression does not. It is unique to people. "Fuck you" and "You, sir, are a brute." mean the same in context, but the choice of expression says a lot about you!

All joking aside though, there are indeed many stories untold; they just haven't happened yet.

[CappinCanuck]

There's a difference between stealing an idea, and stealing the work.

Writing a book about a nuclear submarine with a new "silent" propulsion system being hunted down by everyone as renegades, is likely defensible.
Wiritng a book and copying and pasting large chunks of "The Hunt for Red October" is not.

That's the main academic thought behind plagiarism as I understand it. It's a question of proximity to the original work. Overall, it has to be pretty much exact to be considered plagiarism. I don't think copying an idea, in the way you are describing, would be stealing. Criminally, an idea from literature cannot be "stolen." It's considered "stolen" when you actually copy text. So, it's the writing, not the idea that's legally guarded. Stealing an idea from a book might be a public or literary faux pas, but not legally.

[Hotcod]

Ya there's a difference between stealing an idea and stealing work but more importantly there is a difference between stealing that idea and being inspired to do something by it. By which I mean if you just lift an ideal wholesale it's not illegal but it's also not very creative or indeed very useful in creating interesting "original" work. What happens and how most people work is they will see an idea and it will spark something off in there head and as it's thought about and applied the end result is an idea with the same very broad shape but adapted to the work it's a part of so that it does something new.

So in terms of what hawk is talking about I have to say it sounds like it would be a case of at lest crediting the original idea with the option of asking for promotion to do so. The point being that hawk is trying to bring back the same idea to do the same thing but in an updated context, his not intending to use the idea as a base for something different enough that there's not a lot of stepping on toes.

Like Canuck said it's best sumed up by proximity. Copying the work outright puts you on top of them, copying the idea outright has you stepping on toes but using the idea as part of the fabric of something new leaves you simply standing next to a bunch of people.

I've been running over a new idea for a fantasy novel in my head. There are at lest 4 major sources that help supply the core ideas, each of which has been in other ideas of mine and which I'm reworking and recombining again to do the same thing. While I'm doing that I'm very aware of trying not to simply take ideas whole sale from any one with out at lest putting my own spin on them first. It get's even more complex given one of my major sources is one that is an interpretation of the King Arthur legends. Which is to say that one of the core ideas of this new story is that it's an interpretation of those legends in the same high fantasy vain as the source... that's the broad idea i'm using... but i'm doing it in a very different way.

[Hawkzombie]

Yeah, I mean...there might be slight nods to the original in what I rework, but the idea has intrigued me ever since I saw the show brand new years ago.

The basic premise is the government has developed time travel technology that allows them to undo events up to seven days in the past. So far only one guy has been able to survive the trip, and wacky adventures happen from there. EVERY character is stereotypical (as was a sign of the time of the 90s :p) but it was still a fun show.

I am against plagiarism. Outright stealing word for word things, or even concepts (I have this other idea where a guy gets bitten by this sort of SUPER spider, and develops their powers as THE ARACHNID!) that are almost identical to the source. I know people would recognize the themes of the show, but I want to deviate a good deal from it and try and make it less '90s Sci-Fi' and more updated and interesting beyond 'Somehow avoidable natural disaster/Terrorist Attack/Assassination of the week' formula the show used. The most interesting episodes were ones where they explored other sorts of consequences of time travel that were more star trek that anything else (A 'Mirror' universe...quite literally. Every character was the exact opposite of themselves and all the writing was backwards :p)

But yeah, I'm more inspired by the show, than a desire to take the characters and continue on their story. And since it's a defunct show from over 10 years ago, I'm kinda feeling it might be ok to do something from it a bit. There really are no really and truly 'new' stories, just imaginative ways of telling the same stories.

And I never agreed with that one novel that 'borrowed' from all those other sources and cited it as 'freedom of expression' or whatever bullshit it was. As has been said, there's a fine line between shameless plagiarism, and actual creativity.

I'm gonna go for it. But it's interesting to see everyone (so far) is in more of an agreement than anything else: Don't steal words and ideas outright, but make them your own.

And I'm STILL laughing at that damn pic.

[Generation ABXY]

Well, yeah, if you're going to do a time travel story, you'd probably be alright. It's the specifics that could get you; if fuel restrictions only allow your Roswell-ian tech to send them back a week, as well, I would think you might be stepping on some toes...

[Hawkzombie]

Hm, good point.

Two weeks!

[Generation ABXY]

Now you're on to something, Chris!

[Spectre-7]

Tuesday. It's okay to steal ideas on Tuesday.

[frederec]

Tuesday. It's okay to steal ideas on Tuesday.

Well, duh. Tuesday is Soylent Green Day.