It’s such an interesting change of pace here at Smart Bitches: for once, Sarah is the one getting all cussy and indignant, and I’m the one who’s feeling more mellow and contemplative.
One of the more irritating yet predictable reactions I’ve seen after the whole Cassie Edwards kerfuffle has been the idea that because it concerned romance novels, the issues surrounding unattributed usage don’t matter because, hey, romance novels are recycled drivel to begin with. They’re all the same, anyway, the argument goes; How can you even tell one of them has copied another book? None of them express a single original thought.
I saw this in an extended slapfight in one of the many, many comment threads when the Edwards story first broke (I can’t, alas, remember which thread it was), in which some clueless twat attempted to claim that all romance novels plagiarized to one extent or another (OH EM GEE THE UNORIGINALITY IT BURNSES US PRECIOUSSSSS). And I saw it again when I read Jane Henderson’s comment (“In the romance genre, it’s sometimes hard to tell one author from the next”) on Urban Fantasy Land.
There seems to be some confusion regarding the status of ideas in copyright law. You can’t copyright a plot or an idea. You can only copyright the specific expression of that plot or idea as recorded in some sort of tangible form. Think about the nightmare of attempting to nail down and legislate a plot or idea for a story. How specific would you have to be before you could declare something unique enough to copyright?
“An angst-ridden story about a vampire falling in love with a human.”
Dude, if you can copyright that and collect a small fee every time somebody published that story, you could have your own giant pool of gold coins to swim in, Scrooge McDuck-stylee. (Side note: doesn’t that sound like a painful idea to you? Because it always has to me.)
“An angst-ridden story in a contemporary setting about a vampire warrior falling in love with a human woman.”
OK, that’s a little bit more specific, but c’mon. (Also: goddamn, think of all those germs on all those coins. There is a reason why we call it “filthy rich.”)
“An angst-ridden story in a contemporary setting about a vampire warrior with superfluous Hs in his name falling in love with a human woman who eventually heals his pain.”
You guys know exactly what I’m talking about now, but really, it’s entirely conceivable that somebody, absent any influence from JR Ward, might write a vampire romantic comedy about a vampire named Hhoratio who used to be a warrior but is now a chartered accountant for Dark Yet Comic Reasons falling in love with the babe in IT, who, as it turns out, is a former superhero but turned to systems administration to hide from her Dark Yet Comic past. (I suppose you can circumvent the germ thing if you insist only on newly-minted gold coins. Still sounds horribly painful, though. Gold is heavy, and hard compared to our tender, tender flesh.)
And going back to an old point I’ve made: Yanking plots, plot elements and ideas may not be illegal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ethically in the clear. Novelty of ideas is paramount in academic research, which is why using somebody’s framework or idea without acknowledgment is a form of plagiarism. Fiction, however, has a lot more leeway. Academic research is concerned with exploring a new idea, refuting an old one or expanding on the body of knowledge of an existing one; fiction is more about grabbing an idea, making the idea your little bitch and creating an entertaining story along the way. Not to say there haven’t been books that were rip-offs, but you have to work a lot harder before people legitimately cry foul. So yes, that means plots and premises sometimes become repetitive. It can sometimes mean they share significant elements in common. But fiction is about the individual re-working and expression of those ideas; God is quite literally in the details for this one. Henderson, in my opinion, was over-reaching juuuuuust a tad in her statement that Marr’s work was a knock-off of Hamilton’s
Merry Gentry series; God knows her assertions made the article much more scandalous. I mean, seriously, if we’re going to say “books about human females being tempted by fairies” is an idea unique enough to engender infringement issues, J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate might as well sue every high fantasy novel, ever.
In fact, I came up with a table showing you how repetitious plots and premises can get in fiction. It’s by no means comprehensive—I got tired partway through (and I also didn’t bother covering mysteries, horror or SF)—but I think you get the idea.
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Spike and Brad Pitt as the twins? Really?? I know they don’t really look alike, what with the scars and everything, but in the immortal words of GOB Bluth, “COME ON!!”
Spam word “various92.” Indeed.
I haven’t read the books so have no opinion on which actor fits the role, but I have to say I found Jason Lewis (Rhage in the video) pretty intriguing. Heck, I just found him pretty. He’s the only one…
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This person didn’t read the same books I did. That’s all I have to say.
Hahahahahaha!!!! Smith Jerrod!!
Ah… thanks, I needed that.
