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Sometimes you can watch a show and not think much of it, then a year later, or a month later you will be writing a story or editing a plugin and you will come up with an idea. A month after that you'll watch that show again and see the idea was really in it first... Now, did you just come up with the idea, or did you subconciously record it so it would spring up later on apearing as an original idea.
Do you then have to give credit to the author about it?
I think it is a very good idea to include in the credits section, or on a readme file all the sources that you have drawn from, as you can't take credit for to much stuff that isn't your own - now that is plagiarism.
It is always import, and just plain good fun, both for the player and the designer to inclue homages in your stories and plugs - say you've got a few ships apearing that take their names from great sci-fi films, or like you were saying before - the odd planet named after something from another source. I count that definatly as plagiarism as long as the source is well known enough (like "beam me up, scotty) for people to recognise it as someone elses not your own.
Copyright experts: can you just put a Š on something and write "copyright (owner) 1999) on something you've created (like a web page or game, or plug) and that is enough to make it your own (in legal terms) or do you have to go out and get patent pending and register the darn thing (for money)?
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Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: How can all ships in Star Trek travel faster than the speed of light when we know that it's impossible to accelerate to that speed?
Well, actually, the warp drive involves folding spacetime, not accelerating to the speed of light, and, another wild theory here (also just the basis of it), if you have no point of reference, and nobody sees you/knows that you did it, then you can travel faster than the speed of light. Of course, you have to essentially delete inertia so you don't feel it...but the warning label still reads "HUGELY ENTIRELY UNPROVEN IDEAS INSIDE. DO NOT SPOONFEED." Oops.
------------------ There are no true experts, only fools who believe they know everything. Believe me, I'm an expert on this.
Originally posted by Scalebone: Well, actually, the warp drive involves folding spacetime, not accelerating to the speed of light, and, another wild theory here (also just the basis of it), if you have no point of reference, and nobody sees you/knows that you did it, then you can travel faster than the speed of light. Of course, you have to essentially delete inertia so you don't feel it...but the warning label still reads "HUGELY ENTIRELY UNPROVEN IDEAS INSIDE. DO NOT SPOONFEED." Oops.
Heh. The fact that nobody else notices doesn't make it possible. No matter what, YOU notice. So appeals to Schrodenger fall flat, unfortunately (hey, it would be cool if that worked!). Using a warp drive is more like stepping over a hall rug rolled into a tube than like running the length of the rug. So saying that you are going at 15c is kinda irrelevant.
-Vaumnou
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This reminds me of a story my uncle told me once. In 1996 he had done some fancy CG for Popular Mechanics or Scientific American or something. The article was about aliens and how, once discovered, could be hostile. He made a ship, the City-Killer, and it was massive and dome shaped.
Guess where the City-Killers in Independence Day came from.
------------------ There are doors I haven't opened, Windows I've yet to look through. Going forward may not be the answer. Mabye I should go back.
Originally posted by thedecline: Copyright experts: can you just put a Š on something and write "copyright (owner) 1999) on something you've created (like a web page or game, or plug) and that is enough to make it your own (in legal terms) or do you have to go out and get patent pending and register the darn thing (for money)?
Registration helps you prove you own the copyright if it ends up in court, but it's not mandatory. In fact, you don't even need to have a copyright notice; in most civilised countries (read: ones that have signed the Berne Convention), merely creating something is enough to give you the copyright over it, and it doesn't go away unless you specifically sell it, declare it to be "public domain," or have been dead for fifty years (more in some countries). Needless to say, it still helps to put a copyright notice, as that gives people much less latitude to argue that they didn't realise your work was protected by copyright.
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: The quote "Beam me up, Scotty" is not plagerism for several reasons. First, it has been used so frequently that it has become a part of the (American) vernacular (sp?). Second, that quote was never actually used in the show anyway. I think the closest that they ever got was "Scotty, beam me up" (Star Trek IV).
Actually, it's not plagiarism for a much simpler reason: you're making a reference to Star Trek , not copying it. If your story actually had a character named Scotty who the speaker was asking to beam him up, then you would be copying it.
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Originally posted by David Arthur: **Actually, it's not plagiarism for a much simpler reason: you're making a reference to Star Trek , not copying it. If your story actually had a character named Scotty who the speaker was asking to beam him up, then you would be copying it.
**
Ah...
Scalebone, I was making a joke.
Matrix
------------------ "Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
Originally posted by Vaumnou: **Heh. The fact that nobody else notices doesn't make it possible. No matter what, YOU notice. So appeals to Schrodenger fall flat, unfortunately (hey, it would be cool if that worked!). Using a warp drive is more like stepping over a hall rug rolled into a tube than like running the length of the rug. So saying that you are going at 15c is kinda irrelevant.
Well, if you "undo" inertia, and make it so that there is no way to see outside, then, even though you know that you are warping, there is no physical evidence.
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: **Scalebone, I was making a joke.
I knew that... Seriously though, I take any chance I can to divulge my enormous "Star Trek" physics knowledge
Originally posted by Scalebone: **I knew that...;) Seriously though, I take any chance I can to divulge my enormous "Star Trek" physics knowledge
Star Trek physics. Now there's an oxymoron. You can take the chance, but you have to ask yourself if what you have to say is on topic. If it isn't then you should probably wait.
And replying to your explanation of how Star Trek's warp speed works, it actually isn't what the producers say it is. The Star Trek Technical Manual states (something to the effect) that warp travel is achieved in on small part to the warp field. As several episodes have stated, warp fields reduce the apparent mass of an object, so as a starship accelerates to light speed, the warp field reduces its mass to almost zero, making it possible to cross the "warp threshold." Thus, Star Trek ships travel faster than the speed of light simply by doing that, not some sort of fancy space warp device that compresses all the points in the universe, or folding space to put two points closer to each other.
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: **if you can prove that you came up with the idea completely independently from the other person, I think you're okay.
You can't copyright an idea. Only artistic creations can be copyrighted.
If you want control over an idea, then you have to patent it - which involves proving that it is not similar to an already existing idea (especially an already patented one).
Whether or not you came up with the idea completely independently is irrelevant - although, if you did, chances are that it would not infringe someone else's patent because although the result might be the same, the process would be different.
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Originally posted by Martin Turner: **You can't copyright an idea. Only artistic creations can be copyrighted. **
I don't think that's what I meant when I wrote it, but it appears that I wasn't totally clear. What I should have said "if you come up with an idea for a project completely independently from another person working on a similar project, and can prove that you didn't use the other project as a basis for your own..." or something to that effect.
at least in the US, copyright protection applies automatically to any expression. a registered copyright is simply a presumption that you created the expression. it's useful when you expect other people to claim they created the same or similar expressions.
in contrast, an idea is subject to patent protection only by going through the formal process of filing a patent. remember, copyrights protect expression, and patents protect ideas.
------------------ The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Originally posted by astro: **
Absolutely. If you wrote it, and can convince the court you wrote it (created it solely by your own efforts) then you own copyright. Assuming, of course, that you did not build upon or borrow material that did not belong to you to create it; aka no court in the land would allow you to copyright a Star Trek fan story.
The patent of ideas, as Martin pointed out, is really a patent for process. You can't patent the idea of a cure for cancer; you can only patent an actual cure (whether it actually works is another matter).
But then there's the lovely subject of "Fair Use," of which the lawyers are fond of saying "There is no bright line." For all practical purposes it is up to the individual court to decide if your derivitive work is legitimate through being a parody, an academic quotation, an original work merely resembling the registered property, etc, etc.
For instance, there is the case of Star Wars vs. Battlestar Galactica. They lost in court when it was convincingly proven that both had drawn from older sources; the science fiction of the 30's, 40's and 50's.
For another instance, commercial radio stations go by a 4-bar rule where they assume they can play up to (but not exceeding) 4 bars of any music without aquiring rights thereof. This doesn't stand on any actual legal ground but it seems to be accepted by both industry and court. On the other hand, every time you sing "Happy Birthday" you technically owe Michael Jackson a nickel. As far as I know he has never made an effort to collect, however...
So. In an SF novel I wrote a few years back I made mention of a Moravec in orbit. This lovely concept was described by Hans Moravec and should be properly credited to him, but me placing one as a minor element in a story is quite certainly fair use. Had I made the Moravec the center of the story, as Niven did with Ringworld, I might be in trouble. In rather the same theme, Star Trek Next Generation named ships Yamato, Kei and Yuri, and even put "Marty Fly" on a gravestone in one episode.
I also gave some of the characters (all who have Japanese surnames) strangely-colored hair. I certainly don't expect 40,000 manga artists and animators, led by the ghost of Osamu Tezuka, to descend on me claiming the "anime" look is protected copyright. This is the "Galactica" defence, or more properly the "Puff-n-Stuff" defence (they failed in court, but argued well). It is the defence by which every minor SF epic can have people teleporting in and out of ships as long as they never call it a "Transporter" and take care to make sure it looks different from the Star Trek model (and, no, no-one worries about Niven's "Stepping Disks" or Bester's "Jaunting" or the "Portal System" from Schmidtz...) It is the defence that, basically, space ships and beam weapons and the whole basic apparatus of cheap SF goes back well before Gernsback and can't be the protected property of any recent user.
Lastly, I still intend to go forward (some day) with my own mac vs. PC plug. Why? Because the idea in an of iteself is hardly original. I could point to quite a few games, comics, stories, humorous pieces, essays by Umberto Ecco, ad nas. on the same theme. What will make an EV plug with this idea fail or succeed, meet the test of originality or fail, is whether I have anything truly new to say on the subject.
My, what a wander this post is. I'm starting to take after ellrx. Well, let me close with the simple and effective rule of thumb; "If you feel like you are stealing....don't."
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Originally posted by Commander Arashi: **In rather the same theme, Star Trek Next Generation named ships Yamato, Kei and Yuri, and even put "Marty Fly" on a gravestone in one episode. **
I don't see what "Yamato," "Kei," and "Yuri" have to do with anything. Yamato was the name of a Japanese World War II battleship (as well as the name of a battleship on Space Battleship Yamato). I have a friend named Kei, and my grandmother's name is Yuri. It probably only would come close to copyright enfringement if you used the names in the same context. Like if you had a character named "Luke" and he's the heir to a long dead warrior tradition and his father's a dark lord of the "Pith". Ever heard of that old game "Rescue!" No? That's because Paramount sued it out of existance because they took names and scenarios too similar to those in Star Trek (Kigons, Cardians, Rulans, Fengi, etc).
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: Ever heard of that old game "Rescue!" No? That's because Paramount sued it out of existance because they took names and scenarios too similar to those in Star Trek (Kigons, Cardians, Rulans, Fengi, etc).
Two things:
I don't think they ever actually sued, just sent cease-and-desist letters ("nastygrams").
Rescue! originally started out with Federation, Romulans, etc. - the whole 'Kigon' and 'Rulan' thing was a response to Paramount's first batch of nastygrams, but it wasn't enough to satisfy them.
Originally posted by David Arthur: **Two things:
really? Didn't know that. It was a pretty neat game anyway. It was fun to rescue all the colonist, fight off hoards of enemy ships and then annoy Q to fight the "cube ship" that mysteriously looks like the Borg Cube and uses Borg sound caps from the series.
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: **I don't see what "Yamato," "Kei," and "Yuri" have to do with anything. Yamato was the name of a Japanese World War II battleship (as well as the name of a battleship on Space Battleship Yamato). I have a friend named Kei, and my grandmother's name is Yuri. It probably only would come close to copyright enfringement if you used the names in the same context. Like if you had a character named "Luke" and he's the heir to a long dead warrior tradition and his father's a dark lord of the "Pith". Ever heard of that old game "Rescue!" No? That's because Paramount sued it out of existance because they took names and scenarios too similar to those in Star Trek (Kigons, Cardians, Rulans, Fengi, etc).
You've said better, or at least underlined, what I tried to say. The biblically-named Luke and his Hero's Journey comes through Campbell from a three thousand-year tradition of sagas and ragas and lays and epic poems. Put them together and put the story in space and you will get a raised eyebrow and a quiet "Perhaps you might want to change a few things" from your editor. Give him a glowing energy sword and the letters will be from Lucas, inc., and although still polite also very, very terse. There is no "bright line"," but if it makes you wince, it is also likely to make the lawyers pick up their pens.
The search for a bright line seems too much like a search for the edge of "how much can I get away with" and I for one feel slimy if I simply stole or copied to avoid the effort of creating my own.
But what does any of this -- facinating as it may be -- have to do with writing EV plug-ins?
I believe there is a question that comes before all the others. If you find yourself reaching for Klingons and Lightsabres, Desert Planets and Rebellions, it is because you have not thought long or deeply enough about what you are doing. You are regurgitating the obvious and puerile, the ideas and images that have long become tawdry and faded through over-exposure.
And you know what? It takes a hell of an effort to say something new about a lightsabre.
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: **And you know what? It takes a hell of an effort to say something new about a lightsabre. **
Or Klingons, for that matter. Believe me.
(Though I'd hardly call my particular effort puerile, I know whereof you speak and agree completely.)
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Originally posted by UncleTwitchy: **Or Klingons, for that matter. Believe me.
You don't even want to know what I've done in the fanfic line. And a lot of days, it feels like more work to use another's characters, not less.
Back on the subject.... if we are going to steal, why oh why does it have to be from Star Wars? Where are Doctors Conway and Prilicla, Worsel and the other Grey Lensemen, Giles Habibula and the Legion of Space? Where are Treecats and Puppeteers and The Race, Cities in Flight and the Space Battleship Yamato, the Lovely Angels and the Wearer of the Diadem, Blind Spots, Godspeed Drives and the Chronosynplastic Infidibulum? Where can I be an Okie, a Hole-hunter, a listener at the Ophiuchi Hotline, a searcher for the Demon Princes, a scientist on the Space Beagle?