Plagiarism in Fiction: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."''|{{color|white|-}}}}

{{quote|''"Your theory of a donut-shaped universe is intriguing, Homer. I may have to steal it."''|'''Stephen Hawking''', ''[[The Simpsons (Animation)|The Simpsons]]'', "They Saved Lisa's Brain"}}

[[Plagiarism]] is essentially taking the work of others and attempting to pass it off as one's own. There is a lot more to it than that. If you care about that, look it up on [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism |Wikipedia]], WestLaw, or [[Plagiarism|this page]]. Around here, we're more concerned with plagiarism showing up as the topic of a story. The more complicated plots may involve [[Time Travel]], with somebody discovering that [[Shakespeare]] has been earning acclaim for years [[Stable Time Loop|for the play he accidentally left in the past]]. A more common plot involves a [[Ridiculous Procrastinator]] trying to pass off a straight-A older sibling's report or assignment as their own, eventually getting busted because the teacher recognizes it.

* An episode of ''[[Pokémon (Animeanime)|Pokémon]]'' is about someone who needs actors for a play. When asked what it's about, the playwright pretty much sums up ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. After listening, Brock asks, "Hasn't this already been done?'

* In [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s short story, "[[EPICAC]]", [[No Name Given|the narrator]] steals poems written by the computer EPICAC and passes them off as his own, in order to get Pat Kilgallen to marry him.

* [[Stephen Fry]]'s ''[[The Liar Novel (Literature)|The Liar Novel]]'' contains the oft-quoted line, "An original idea? That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

* ''[[Animal Farm (Literature)|Animal Farm]]''. Snowball --– [[Blatant Lies|by which I mean Napoleon]] --– comes up with the idea to build a windmill.

* ''[[The West Wing (TV)|The West Wing]]'', "20 Hours in America, Part 2":

{{quote| '''Sam Seaborn:''' Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.}}

* In the ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000 (TV)|Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' episode ''[[Wild World of Batwoman]]'', Joel and the bots watch a short educational film simply entitled "Cheating". They have a field day with it.

{{quote| '''Crow:''' A Centron production. Although we got the idea from a different company. 'Cuz we're ''cheating''.}}

* Similarly, when Erica Strange had to hurry to write a poem for an English composition class in ''[[Being Erica (TV)|Being Erica]]'', she plagiarizes "Hit me baby one more time" by [[Britney Spears (Music)|Britney Spears]]. It was a big hit and as she was time travelling (long story) at the time, no one caught it.

* ''[[Lou Grant (TV)|Lou Grant]]'': One of the episodes, season 3's "Lou," dealt with a young reporter plagiarizing from a college newspaper; predictably, Lou finds out and it isn't long before the reporter is searching for another job.

== [[Music]] ==

* [[Tom Lehrer (Music)|Tom Lehrer]]'s ''"Lobachevsky''":

{{quote| ''I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.<br />''

''In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:<br />''

''Plagiarize! ''}}

* "My Iron Lung" by Radiohead. "This/this is our new song/[[Self -Plagiarism|just like the last one]]". It isn't literally a retread of any Radiohead song before or since.

* A sample character in the ''[[New World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|New World of Darkness]]'' book ''Asylum'' is "The Fraud", a member of the mental hospital's facility who made his career by stealing a colleague's work. Now he's screwed, because in order to keep his reputation, he has to keep stealing from the other researchers. Sometimes he wonders whether to kill himself or commit [[Suicide Byby Cop]] when they finally catch him -- hehim—he can't imagine surviving the scandal.

* In ''[[Hotel Dusk: Room 215]]'', one of the supporting characters is {{spoiler|a novelist named Martin Summer, who is unable to write another successful novel, despite having a strong debut work. It turns out his first novel was actually plagiarized from a former friend's manuscript}}.

* In ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'''s episode "Anthology of Interest I", Fry discovers the "Fry Hole":

{{quote| '''Fry:''' So what do you nerds want?<br />

'''Nichelle Nichols:''' It's about that rip in space-time that you saw.<br />

'''Stephen Hawking:''' I call it a "Hawking Hole".<br />

'''Fry:''' No fair! I saw it first!<br />

* ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]''

{{quote| Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing ''[[The Honeymooners]]'', we wouldn't have ''[[The Flintstones]]''. If someone hadn't ripped off ''[[The Phil Silvers Show|Sergeant Bilko]]'', there'd be no ''[[Top Cat]]''. <br />

Huckleberry Hound, [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|Chief Wiggum]], [[Yogi Bear (Animation)|Yogi Bear]]? <br />

* In ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Cloud Fathers]]'', Xanatos captures Coyote the Native American [[Trickster Archetype]] with [[One Steve Limit|Coyote]], a robot minion that [[Once an Episode|gets destroyed every episode he appears in]]. Coyote says that he should sue Xanatos "for trademark infringement." Subverted in that Xanatos himself considers the robot a tribute.