Some time ago I've written two rather big fanfics in the Russian HP fandom, where a lot of extracts from my favorite books, famous Russian movies dialogues and significant phrases were presented. And nobody accused me in plagiarism. Of course, I informed my readers beforehand about this and we all together had been playing this literary quest...
Well, again, personally I don't care very much about plagiarism if there isn't any profit involved, except in extreme cases where someone puts their own name onto an entire story/artwork created by someone else and "loses" the original creator's name. And with excerpts from classic literature and famous movies, generally you expect other people to already recognize where those lines came from in the first place, instead of thinking that you're a genius for "inventing" lines that were written by Shakespeare. Most classic literature is now public-domain and free from vicious copyright lawyers. It also helps if you clearly tell your readers to look for the quotes sprinkled all over the place.
IIRC the objections to CC's "Draco" work, at least as originally posted, were that she *didn't* warn people that she was borrowing lines from various sources. Not only that, but many of the sources were still recent enough to be clearly under copyright, without being famous enough for her readers to recognize them anyway. So a lot of people would've simply assumed *she* had written every word of the funny dialogue, poignant emotions, vivid descriptions, or whatever else she'd borrowed from someone else.
When I read whatever part of "Draco" that I did, I didn't notice anything particularly strange about the long sections that were supposedly borrowed from Pamela Dean (whom I heard of, but whose books I've never read) or Joss Whedon (I hadn't watched any of "Buffy" yet, but might recognize those lines now) or any number of other sources.
This is the one clear example that I *do* remember recognizing. I think CC adapted it for Hermione, hiding with a boy in a wardrobe (don't remember if it was Harry or Draco?). The original line was written by a British author named Tanith Lee, for a story called "Magritte's Secret Agent" that was first published in 1981:
"The skin of his face had the sort of marvellous pale texture most men shave off when they rip the first razor blade through their stubble and the second upper dermis goes with it forever."
AFAIK Tanith Lee has never been a best-selling author, though she's one of my longtime favorites. There are a lot of classic works where people recognize common quotes even if they've never seen/read the entire thing. This is not one of them. Most of CC's readers had probably never heard Tanith Lee's name before, and simply admired CC for coming up with this delicately geeky observation for Hermione to say.
It would've been nice if she'd given some credit to the original source, indirectly encouraging her readers to go buy some of Tanith Lee's or Pamela Dean's or whoever else's books. But it's not as if she was actively taking money away from Lee or Dean either, just bits and pieces of intellectual credit. And the whole Heirs of Slytherin/Gryffindor/Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw thing was kind of neat, and how much absolute creativity can you really expect in something that's fanfic to start with anyway?
:b
(I have a feeling that I'm confusing my own argument. Whatever it is. Oh well.)
no subject
Well, again, personally I don't care very much about plagiarism if there isn't any profit involved, except in extreme cases where someone puts their own name onto an entire story/artwork created by someone else and "loses" the original creator's name. And with excerpts from classic literature and famous movies, generally you expect other people to already recognize where those lines came from in the first place, instead of thinking that you're a genius for "inventing" lines that were written by Shakespeare. Most classic literature is now public-domain and free from vicious copyright lawyers. It also helps if you clearly tell your readers to look for the quotes sprinkled all over the place.
IIRC the objections to CC's "Draco" work, at least as originally posted, were that she *didn't* warn people that she was borrowing lines from various sources. Not only that, but many of the sources were still recent enough to be clearly under copyright, without being famous enough for her readers to recognize them anyway. So a lot of people would've simply assumed *she* had written every word of the funny dialogue, poignant emotions, vivid descriptions, or whatever else she'd borrowed from someone else.
When I read whatever part of "Draco" that I did, I didn't notice anything particularly strange about the long sections that were supposedly borrowed from Pamela Dean (whom I heard of, but whose books I've never read) or Joss Whedon (I hadn't watched any of "Buffy" yet, but might recognize those lines now) or any number of other sources.
This is the one clear example that I *do* remember recognizing. I think CC adapted it for Hermione, hiding with a boy in a wardrobe (don't remember if it was Harry or Draco?). The original line was written by a British author named Tanith Lee, for a story called "Magritte's Secret Agent" that was first published in 1981:
"The skin of his face had the sort of marvellous pale texture most men shave off when they rip the first razor blade through their stubble and the second upper dermis goes with it forever."
AFAIK Tanith Lee has never been a best-selling author, though she's one of my longtime favorites. There are a lot of classic works where people recognize common quotes even if they've never seen/read the entire thing. This is not one of them. Most of CC's readers had probably never heard Tanith Lee's name before, and simply admired CC for coming up with this delicately geeky observation for Hermione to say.
It would've been nice if she'd given some credit to the original source, indirectly encouraging her readers to go buy some of Tanith Lee's or Pamela Dean's or whoever else's books. But it's not as if she was actively taking money away from Lee or Dean either, just bits and pieces of intellectual credit. And the whole Heirs of Slytherin/Gryffindor/Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw thing was kind of neat, and how much absolute creativity can you really expect in something that's fanfic to start with anyway?
:b
(I have a feeling that I'm confusing my own argument. Whatever it is. Oh well.)