Someone slammed my novel Watcher's Web, because it has "people ripped straight from Avatar".

Uhm, yes.

Except I completed this novel in 2007. Avatar was 2009. Not only is there no doubt in my mind that this is sheer coincidence, also, the only thing my people have in common with the na'vi is that they have tails. Almost everything else is different.

*shrugs*

It happens all the time. Just ignore it.

 

Whenever I get irate about something, I try to step back and give the person the benefit of the doubt.

I'm sure heaps of authors will be able to tell of occasions where they came up with a story idea that was almost identical to something else already published... except they'd never even read the book before.
It's one of the downsides of "there's no such thing as an original story". Even when you go against a common trope, there's bound to be someone else who goes against that trope too.

Not saying that your problem has no grounds, just that it's less stressful if you give folks the benefit of the doubt.

 

Someone slammed my novel Watcher's Web, because it has "people ripped straight from Avatar".

Doesn't matter, because everyone knows Avatar is really Fern Gully.

And that The Walking Dead is really Toy Story. http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/undeniable-proof-that-the-walking-dead-and-toy-story-have-th

 

Doesn't matter, because everyone knows Avatar is really Fern Gully.

And that The Walking Dead is really Toy Story. http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/undeniable-proof-that-the-walking-dead-and-toy-story-have-th

MWAHAHAHAHA!!

I thought Avatar was Pocahontas, actually

 

Avatar is definitely Ferngully (I've watched that movie too many times as a kid >.>)

 

Original poster,

None of what I'm about to say is legal advice. I do advice you to talk to a lawyer if after reading the responses you think you have a legitimate complaint.
Ideas are not copyrightable. You might want to invest in the Copyright handbook. It gives you a clear idea on what grounds you may have. Write down all the similarities between your story and this one. Did you copyright it? If not, you won't be able to collect damages (is my understanding). If you can prove someone from the publisher urged a writer to write a story based on your short, maybe a lawyer will think you have a case.

Lisa, I edited your post as the post you quoted was removed. --Betsy

 

I thought Avatar was Pocahontas, actually

I grumbled this to my husband all the way through the movie.

Jonathan, I think what everyone's trying to say is that sometimes things happen in the social subconscious, whether sparked by the media, technology, or real life events, that cause seemingly unlikely ideas to come to the front of a lot of minds at once. I forget the word for this phenomenon (if there is a word) but I've seen it a lot among writers. I've also seen literary agents and contest judges blog about the sameness of the submissions they get, story ideas that must have seemed unique to the writers who thought they were inventing them. Case in point, I can't count how many writers I've known who were writing the Hunger Games before Suzanne Collins ever thought of it. Is it possible your situation is like this? Often the ideas that feel one-of-a-kind to us as writers are all too familiar to people who've been reading in our genre for a long time.

 

I just had an author I've never heard of's "fan" (unverified review, of course) accuse me of plagiarism because this author, whose books sell, well, not many, used similar concepts in his book, which was written two years ago. Because it's really just impossible that I could read the same web he does and come up with a similar scenario. You know. With a million or so books being published every year now. It just HAD to be that I read his, and went, Gadzooks, I must "borrow" that story line. You know, because I haven't come up with enough after 22 novels. I was running low on juice, located his obscure tome, read it, then decided to copy the key elements.

People are very strange. All you can do is move on. The more popular you are, the more of these you'll get. It's just life in the fast lane.

 

Have a glass of your favorite medicinal beverage and move on.  There's nothing you can do, even if they did "steal" it.  Just like anyone can turn Romeo and Juliet into West Side Story, they can take the same idea and write something else.  As long as they didn't use your exact words to do it, you're out of gas.

 

What is it with you and a few others being totally mean when someone has a legitimate concern?

Legitimate concern?

 

Nathan....be nice.

EDIT:  Folks, while it's legitimate to point out that similar plots do not necessarily constitute plagiarism (there are whole sites dedicated to listing all the sources Avatar is said to be derived from), it's the KBoards way to do it with respect for your fellow members. I've removed a post that I thought went over the line.

Tone, people, tone.

Thanks!

Betsy
KBoards Moderator

 

Legitimate concern?

To him, it is.

Edited.

Spoiler

Lisa, I can see past the spoiler block.

--Betsy

 

Nathan....be nice.

sorry.

 

To him, it is.

Edited.

Spoiler

Lisa, I can see past the spoiler block.

--Betsy

Betsy-

Spoiler

Please don't bring out your diamond emerald encrusted cattle prod to use on me!

 

The worst is when they steal it from your brain before you can write it.*

*This has never happened to me.

 

The worst is when they steal it from your brain before you can write it.*

*This has never happened to me.

Hrmm idea snatchers. Someone should write a book about that, and then flip the theory and insert ideas into people's brains. Oh...wait.

 

I wish I could tell you how many blurbs I've looked at that tell me I've stumbled on one more iteration of an overused plot. After a while, if you're a serious reader looking for something truly new, you start wondering if everybody is just doing variations on the same dozen or so plots. I'm sure it's frustrating for you, but most of us aren't nearly as original as we think we are.

 

By the same token, people say they want something new, but what they really want is more of the same.

Also, to be honest, there are people who have become so jaded that they see rehashes in everything and complain loudly of not being able to find "anything" to read. These people complain of never finishing most books and finding everything dull and unoriginal. They have clearly lost the magic of reading.

 

Thank you all for the reality check. I just needed to hear it from some people I trusted. I appreciate the insights.

I can see there was some skepticism about my reaction, and I sympathize that that probably resulted from the fact that I don't want to list the specific plot device in question. But keep in mind that the whole reason I did so is that I really do want to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, and will be choosing to do so.

To give you some idea of how close the two plots are...imagine this is my tale:

Satan-worshiping anthropomorphic pigs are rampaging around the mid-west on a campaign of theft and murder. Pork has been outlawed by a vast, all-seeing government.

This would be the (equivalent) of what I saw:

For years, the Hog Wilds have torn around the southwestern United States, burning up churches and raising havok--all this to wreak revenge on the country that spawned them. A tyrannical government has outlawed pork, and sent the secret agency called the Red Agents after our porcine assailants. But will it be enough?

In other words, it wasn't a case of seeing a tale about sexy vampires in NYC (had I written such a thing) and wondering if a mass-market book had ripped me off. It was much, much more unique.

 

Nothing new under the sun any way.

OT: +1 for quoting Solomon

 

My OED defines plagiarize as to "take (the work or an idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own." - so the definition does allow for the taking of an original idea as well as the copying of prose.

I've discussed the matter of the boundaries between coincidence/inspiration/plagiarism with people recently. These were our thoughts:

Where a very formulaic plot is reused, this is fair game and inevitable.

Where a specific idea is used as inspiration, but made the author's own by original treatment, this is fair game (so we can all do Lord of the Rings inspired books if we want.)

Where there are a number of similarities between plots/concepts - this could be the coincidence of ideas reaching a similar point in people's consciousness at the same time due to outside influences, news stories, developments in science etc.

Where chunks of text are lifted out of one work into another, this is plagiarism.

Where a unique and original plot/set of characters are copied with uncanny accuracy in a way that cannot possibly be coincidental - this is plagiarism, but it may be hard to prove.

Any author who thinks their work has been plagiarized is best advised to speak to a lawyer.

 

I grumbled this to my husband all the way through the movie.

Jonathan, I think what everyone's trying to say is that sometimes things happen in the social subconscious, whether sparked by the media, technology, or real life events, that cause seemingly unlikely ideas to come to the front of a lot of minds at once. I forget the word for this phenomenon (if there is a word) but I've seen it a lot among writers. I've also seen literary agents and contest judges blog about the sameness of the submissions they get, story ideas that must have seemed unique to the writers who thought they were inventing them. Case in point, I can't count how many writers I've known who were writing the Hunger Games before Suzanne Collins ever thought of it. Is it possible your situation is like this? Often the ideas that feel one-of-a-kind to us as writers are all too familiar to people who've been reading in our genre for a long time.

This is a really good point. Around the same time as I published my book, a lot of similar books sprung up in the YA section. Often with the same themes of genetics and eugenics. We didn't rip each other off, we were just inspired by the world around us.

Give yourself time to cool down and then try to look at it objectively. Or better yet, have someone else read the stories and ask them what they think.

 

Avatar is so Old Man's War by John Scalzi, except OMW was much better.

And see, I thought it was Midworld by Alan Dean Foster....

Betsy

 

MWAHAHAHAHA!!

I thought Avatar was Pocahontas, actually

I thought it was Dances with Wolves.

 

I thought it was Dances with Wolves.

http://io9.com/5460954/the-complete-list-of-sources-avatars-accused-of-ripping-off