plagiarism Tank theft. generally performed by the laxy, unimaginative ones of us. use your own brain, it's beautiful too... 000825 ... fran Too easy to do by accident. 001218 ... j_blue pointless 010124 ... birdmad i almost quit writing my novel when i was a teenager and only now a decade later have i resurrected the project... all because someone said it looked like i had plaigiarized less_than_zero only problem with that was that i had neither seen the movie or read the book until after the remark was made, upon which i sealed the manuscript in a box in disgust at the sheer coincidence of it all. i was seventeen then 010124 ... j_blue see: cosmic_regularity 010124 ... chanaka in theory, isn't everything plagerized in some form? someone said that there are a finite number of plots in the world, and we can do nothing but expand on these, make them our own. but are they really our idea from the start? i would like to think that someone somewhere has come up with a completely new, fresh idea. are we plagerizing our lives? there are 6 billion (or so) people living in the world, and chances are good that someone somewhere is living a life similar to yours....but it's not exactly the same. at least you can say that you can identify with someone else. i think that comforts me. from my perspective, plagerism might not be that bad of a thing..... 010124 ... Thyartshallshant Fun stuff. 010124 ... birdmad i think i said it to brad when he was bemoaning the dire lack of orignality in some aspect of pop culture or other as he is/was prone to doing i remember a remark i read once somewhere that there are really only about sixty-three original ideas in the universe and everything else is just a variation_on_a_theme from there that one opened a small can of worms to be sure 010124 ... chanaka damn straight! it the truth. and i like worms 010125 ... j_blue see: mainstream 010125 ... deb the reason people keep putting that damned copyright symbol on their blathes. yes, it's a valid fear. it's happened to some of my best stuff. but i know that i can produce more, whereas the fink who stole my thoughts cannot. so HA! i win. :OP . 010126 ... Sintina English teachers hate it, but the victims whose very thoughts were strangely manipulated into someone else's hate it more. 010126 ... sabbie i had a copy of one of my photos on the wall of my room and an aquaintance came over one day and, on seeing it, exclaimed "oh, you have that picture too?" i found out that some girl at her school had found the image in my website printed it out waved it around to all and sundry, and then handed it in as her own. i felt really vunerable almost violated naked, under lights. that night, i took down my site. 010225 ... Aimee If you take something from one work, it's plagiarism, if you take many somethings from many works, it's research. 010225 ... oh pee um and if you take all the things and claim them as your own, and don't share and keep them for yourself, or charge an exhorbitant amount for the acquisition, it's called capitalism. 010516 ... mmm gettin cought is a bitch 010516 ... Effingham Fish Eighth grade. I had once again found myself in ISS for excessive tardiness (Time Is Not My Friend). I had put off actually writing a creative writing assignment for Mr. Coleman's English class until the last minute, which happened to be right then. I had sat at one of the four computers provided for detained students for almost two hours trying to write something, but as I have found, I cannot be so rushed into action, and hadn't typed a word. Mr. Hobbs, the school's wheelchair-bound warden, was probably beginning to get suspicious. Just as panic began to set in, my memory offered up a really good short story I had read from a science-fiction anthology in the school's library, concerning a world-famous inventor who confesses to his favorite bartender that he hadn't invented any of the things he was known for, and I seized it. Gaining Mr. Hobbs permission for a quick trip to the library, I returned with the book and set it, opened to the intended story, next to the keyboard; un/fortunately, Mr. Hobbs had no idea what my assignment at the computer was, and so didn't think anything of it. The best I can say in my defense is that I didn't copy the story verbatim, but spun it into an episode of the old Twilight Zone, complete with Rod Serling intoducing the story and then taking the "viewer" out to a shot of a starry sky; this was, however, the only part I actually wrote in my own words. I thought it was perfect: the chances of Mr. Coleman having read one story in one forgotten old book in an entire, if small, library were slim to none, and nobody else would ever read it, so who's to know? The story was returned with an A+ and glowing praise on the entire affair, down to how "Serling-esque" I made Serling sound. Much relieved, and even proud of myself in some way, I considered the case closed. But, as it turned out, he'd shown a copy of the story to my parents, the other two English teachers, the principal (all of whom wanted to personally compliment me, of course) and even the drama teacher, who wanted my permission to have his class perform the piece at the next school assembly. So, rather than admit to what I'd done, I spent the next week or so smiling politely, feigning humility and generally feeling like shit inside. Moral: it ain't worth it. 011216 ... cube if it is true that "there is nothing new under the sun", then we must all be guilty ... 011217 ... sprhrgrl doesn't reading make you want to? people with amazing thoughts that you just so wish were your own? 030127 what's it to you? who go blather from