Plagiarism, credit etc.

[wantsunicorns.livejournal.com]

I've asked if it's okay to post this and got the okay, so here goes:

I know we all get inspired by the things we read or watch or listen to, be it books, films or songs. How do you deal with that, if you get inspired by other people's fic?

As an author:

• Do you think it's alright if other people reuse an idea you had?
  (like a spell, a gadget, a magical ability, magical theory etc.)
• Do you think it's necessary to be credited in the author's notes, if they used your idea?
  (as in, the part where "..." got inspired by "so and so")
• Would you like to be asked, before someone uses something of yours?
  (like, send a pm, or email asking whether it's alright, e.g. detailing what want to use it for)

What are your thoughts on this?

I personally am a bit undecided. I would love it, if people asked me permission, simply because I think it would be lovely to know that someone else got inspired by something I created. I would however not hold people to this. What I think would be common curtesy though would be to credit the creator of a work in the author's notes with something like "the idea for "..." comes from "author's name"" or something similar, if one was so inclined one could also link to the fic the idea was inspired/taken from.

I'm fairly new to stuff like this, so I don't know what's considered the right approach to this, so I figured I might as well ask my go-to-people in such matters, i.e. ALL OF YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE! ♥

PS: I'm sorry mods, I don't know how to tag this.

ETA: Thank you so much for everyone who has shared their opinion on this with me. I've definitely received some food for thought. ♥

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I like your logic! Works for me.

[celestlyn.livejournal.com]

My very first written fanfic was a little Harry/Ginny that I wrote back in the day when I was starting out. It was inspired from a scene in another fanfic. The author of the story would never recognize it the way I wrote it. I took a wee idea and made it my own. The general theme is probably cliche and if someone else wrote one like it I would never think it was plagiarism. I would likely be flattered if someone used a spell or potion I created.

As for icons, I try to either make my own or use ones found on free icon sites that don't ask to be credited.

[wantsunicorns.livejournal.com]

The thing that made me ask this question was a bit more vague and it would still be reconisable.

I ended up asking the author and she was okay with it, so all is fine now.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!

[wantsunicorns.livejournal.com]

Of course I do think that if the idea is specific, you should always ask the author, otherwise it's just rude.

That's what I was thinking. I credited authors for specific ideas in the past, but in this case it was a sort of vague idea, but I didn't want it to seem like I ripped off their story, so I went ahead and asked and got permission.

It made me curious what everyone else thought about this and the replies I got so far are all really interesting.