It's not technically possible to steal an idea.

Subject: It's not technically possible to steal an idea.
Author: IndeMaat
Posted on: 2008-12-29 10:32:00 UTC

Stealing means taking something so that someone else can't use it anymore. If you take an idea, even one that someone else had before, they can still use that idea. Therefore using someone else's idea is not stealing.

Then there is the issue of whether you should ask them whether they are okay with it that you use the idea they had first. That depends. It's not unheard of that two people independently come up with the same idea. I've had an idea in my head for a Torchwood fic for the past two years, and I'm surprised no one else has used that idea in a fic yet.

Ideas themselves are not copyrightable unless they are very, very specific. This means that it's also not really possible to claim ownership over ideas. Indeed, some authors do, but most of them barely know the basic rules of punctuation so I kind of doubt they know the little details of copyright and ownership laws.

So, technically, you do not have to ask permission to use ideas. Perhaps you feel you have to morally, but that's a different matter. The problem with that is, the author could deny you permission even though it is morally questionable that they do: they are using copyrighted work without permission themselves.

If the idea is specific (to the point where other readers are likely to point you out to an author that wrote this story first) you should give credit where you got the idea. But that does not require permission. If the badfic author think it does, just point out that they are being a hypocrite.

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Good idea, bad fic by Five_redclawed on 2008-12-29 04:48:00 UTC Reply

I have come into a bit of a dilemma recently, which I was hoping y'all could help me with. Short version: I have run across a fic I'd love to spork or see sporked. I also want to grab the idea behind the fic and run away with it, cackling madly.

See, I happened to run across this fic called A Different World, by Lady Clark-Weasley of Books. If that name sounds familiar, it's because one of her other fics was nominated for sporking a while back. Looking at her fics generally provoke feelings of RAGE within me. This one was not much different, having the usual bad spelling, tense jumps, bad grammar, and awful characterization. However, I found the concept behind the story quite interesting: in the Season Two finale of the new Doctor Who, the Doctor is the one who ends up in the alternate dimension. With him gone, the TARDIS somehow transforms Rose into a Time Lady, and she goes on to take his place in the canon scale of events.

Yes, I know it's a weird, even silly-sounding idea. Only the more I thought about it, the cooler it seemed. Just for starters, there'd be the mental, physical, and emotional shock of suddenly becoming a very different creature. Presumably over the chapters you could follow the slow readjustment to her new identity and responsibilities. Then there's the fact that Rose is very much NOT the Doctor--she'd react to things differently from him, and other people (the Master springs to mind in particular) would react differently to her. So over time the story slowly deviates from canon, and the reader gets the pleasure of watching what Stays and what Doesn't. I've got even more ideas, even scenes sketched out in my mind, but I'm probably boring your socks off as is.

The question is, do I have the right to take this idea and make my own story out of it? It's not as if I'm picking up on a common AU idea; this is the first time I've ever encountered "Rose as Time Lord," frankly speaking. I don't want to come off as an idea-thief, but that's exactly what I'd be doing. Then there's the fact that I would gleefully spork pretty much all of Lady Clark-Wesley's fics given the opportunity. Talk about adding insult to injury! While I believe that people who write badfic deserve the riffs they get, I don't believe in being unnecessarily cruel. Posting her fics for retribution and then running off with her ideas...well, that's kind of pushing it.

And then, on the other hand, I genuinely believe that her version is a waste of a good idea and I want to give that idea the story it deserves.

Okay, so maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. But I'd still appreciate hearing your input on the subject all the same. And if you have anything to say about the idea itself, feel free to post it--I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Actually... by Tasari on 2008-12-31 04:46:00 UTC Reply

I could swear I've seen that basic outline (Rose -> Timelady) before. I don't honestly think it's intellectual property thieving.
it'll need a lot of thought (spoilers for Nu-Who S4) by Pads on 2008-12-29 19:32:00 UTC Reply

Have you worked out the details of how the TARDIS can somehow turn Rose into a Time Lady? Given that whole thing where, y'know, Time Lords are the ones that have graduated from the academy on Gallifrey and all that. To be a Time Lady she'd have to have all the knowledge a Time Lord would pick up at the academy, and that seems remarkably similar, to me, to the season four finale, and the thing where you can't have a Time Lord consciousness in a human brain. So you'd be having to change her biology to make her into a Gallifreyan, and, alright, the chameleon arch can be used to do the process the other way around, but then you'd need a specific reason why chameleon arches or something like them to turn non-Gallifreyans into Gallifreyans would have been invented and installed in TARDISes.

Short version: how on earth is this going to work? What are your ideas so far?
I've done it by IndeMaat on 2008-12-29 10:15:00 UTC Reply

Sporked a story and then wrote my version of it. I did give credit where the idea came from. The only people who didn't like what I had done (or at least the only people to tell me so) were the original authors. Other people have complimented me on a well written story.

Anyway, authors can't actually claim ownership to ideas. Except if the idea is very, very specific. Which may or may not be the case here. I haven't read Lady Clark's fic (not do I tend to; she leaves raving reviews for fics I intend to spork), but I have come across several fics that had elements of the plot she used way back in that short period of time that I still read Whofics.

I've seen a few where the Doctor gets stuck in the other dimension leaving Rose with the TARDIS (heck, one of those even inspired me to write a short fic about Rose trying to get out of the building before it colapsed). There are many other fics where Rose in one way or another becomes a Time Lady (if not the mother of one). And of course there are many, many fics that do a character replacement for series three, though usually of Martha.

But I like your approach to it: Rose will react to changing into a different creature; she will respond differently to things that the Doctor would. I'd say go for it. Good plot ideas deserve good stories.

If you're going to post the spork and your version of the story in different locations very few people are going to notice and/or take offense that you have done both.
That happened to me once. by Oozaru Angel on 2008-12-29 08:10:00 UTC Reply

It wasn't a badfic, persay, but it definently wasn't good. I could think of a thousand things I would have done differently and made it better. But like Sedri said, you can't just steal someone's idea.

The best thing to do, would be to as Lady Clark-Weasely if you can write your own version of her idea, making sure to say you're doing it differently, and if she gives you permission you can run with it. The downside to this is that you really really shouldn't spork any of her work afterwards. That's just rude.
Ooo, what a toughie. I've had similar situations... by Sedri on 2008-12-29 05:57:00 UTC Reply

...and they all boil down the point that deliberately taking someone else's idea without their permission leaves me so sick with guilt that I couldn't do it. It's not right. Just because it's fanfic doesn't mean we shouldn't respect someone's idea. I would be deeply wounded if someone pinched my 'original' (as much as fanfic can be) plotline - that is, after all, why some disclaimers include things like "but so-and-so IS mine".

That said, I know how you feel. There are some stories - fanfic and published - that I look at with longing, going, "I could do SO MUCH better! I could FIX that!" But I can't, and it's frustrating.

All this applies doubly if the rest is spork-worthy. It's painful, but that's life. The only chance I think you'd have of getting to write that story is if the author gives up, stops writing, and you ask if you can use the idea. But that's not likely.

Sorry. :(

It's not technically possible to steal an idea. by IndeMaat on 2008-12-29 10:32:00 UTC Reply

Stealing means taking something so that someone else can't use it anymore. If you take an idea, even one that someone else had before, they can still use that idea. Therefore using someone else's idea is not stealing.

Then there is the issue of whether you should ask them whether they are okay with it that you use the idea they had first. That depends. It's not unheard of that two people independently come up with the same idea. I've had an idea in my head for a Torchwood fic for the past two years, and I'm surprised no one else has used that idea in a fic yet.

Ideas themselves are not copyrightable unless they are very, very specific. This means that it's also not really possible to claim ownership over ideas. Indeed, some authors do, but most of them barely know the basic rules of punctuation so I kind of doubt they know the little details of copyright and ownership laws.

So, technically, you do not have to ask permission to use ideas. Perhaps you feel you have to morally, but that's a different matter. The problem with that is, the author could deny you permission even though it is morally questionable that they do: they are using copyrighted work without permission themselves.

If the idea is specific (to the point where other readers are likely to point you out to an author that wrote this story first) you should give credit where you got the idea. But that does not require permission. If the badfic author think it does, just point out that they are being a hypocrite.

All right, semantics. Not "steal". Same connotation. by Sedri on 2008-12-29 21:40:00 UTC Reply

And I was talking morally. But I disagree with your last two paragraphs because there is no dividing line between where an idea becomes specific. If I wrote a story about a coven of vegetarian vampires, even if I use nothing else even vaguely similar to Twilight, I would instantly get shouted down for plagerism. Whether or not that's right is debateably, but I know I wouldn't be able to do it morally because the idea did NOT occur to me until I'd seen the film.

There's no way to prove whether a second author came up with the idea independantly, but if you know you didn't, then I still say it's wrong.

hmm by IndeMaat on 2008-12-30 11:46:00 UTC Reply

there are other stories where vegetarian vampires make an appearance. Not a whole lot of them, but Angel from Buffy stayed away from human blood.

True, there is not an exact defining line where an idea becomes specific. But writing a story about teenagers in a boarding school learing witchcraft does not make a story plagery for Harry Potter. People may shout that, but they would be wrong. If anything, it would be plagery for the Worst Witch, because that is older.

I just read what Twilight is about: Meyer says that the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. The dream was about a human girl, and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her blood.

That's funny, I have a book that was first published in 2001 that can be summarised like that. Stephenie Meyer is plagerizing Charlotte Harris!

Seriously, ideas have to be way more specific than that. If two stories would get the same (detailed) outline, then perhaps they would be too similar. But if there are just some elements the same (Doctor in parallel universe, Rose not. Rose becomes Time Lady) you are not using the same ideas as someone else. Particularly not if you're going to explore what it means to Rose to become a Time Lady rather than right away plunking her into the Christmas special.

Ugh, it's like telling a fanficcer: you can't write that missing scene plot idea because you got it from watching that episode.

Ideas have to come from some place. And other fanfics are as likely a place as any. You're doing yourself a disservice if you dismiss an idea because you can point out a source to it.

Legally they do have to be more specific, but... by Sedri on 2008-12-30 20:54:00 UTC Reply

I was talking socially. Whether it's right or wrong, if you write an idea and someone (however immature) recognises it from elsewhere, they might start throwing around accusations of plagerism, and I don't think anyone wants to deal with that sort of mess.

That said, I probably came across as too definite, and I apologise. I'm just saying that it's hard, and that I, personally, would feel too guilty to do it.

I see by IndeMaat on 2009-01-02 12:37:00 UTC Reply

Accusations of plagery are a bother. But as said, I've used ideas I got from other people's fics, I've given credit where I got the idea, and no one has said anything about plagery. I guess the given credit played an important part in that.

If you feel uncomfortable using an idea you got from another fanfic you shouldn't use it. You should always like to write the stories you are writing.

Agreed. :) (nm) by Sedri on 2009-01-03 21:18:00 UTC Reply

By the way by Five_redclawed on 2008-12-29 04:49:00 UTC Reply

Meant to include this in the original post but forgot. In case you're wondering what A Different World (the fic in question) is like, here's a link:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4543231/1/ADifferentWorld