Request for feedback on synopsis

[Bernard Stacey]

I could write a story about an astromage of my own, who utilizes magic of planetary physics and relativity to travel through time, but the second I use the same words in the same order as did Monique, then we've got a problem.

Isn't that just plagiarism? I don't understand where the 'copyright' part fits in.

 

[Emurelda]

Isn't that just plagiarism? I don't understand where the 'copyright' part fits in.

Isn't plagiarism stealing someone's 'copyrighted' work?

 

[Jason Byrne]

Plagiarism = copyright infringement = use of the same prose
Trademark infringement = use of the same catchphrases

For lack of a better term...

 

[Bernard Stacey]

OK, I think I'm getting it...

So if I started a story with 'It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen' then the Orwell estate could nail me to the law courts door.

But if I wrote 'It was thirteen o'clock in the Big Brother house' then I'd be safe?

 

[Monique GOLAY]

Be careful what you say as you are more likely to be sued for such an accusation than JK Rowling.

Aaaaaaargh! Hope some of you will bring me oranges in my prison parlour But I do think inventions are poorly protected. For example, if an engineer working here in Switzerland for an enterprise invents something, all he'll get is the name for his or her invention while the money will go to the enterprise - that was the case of Nespresso, so I know from an engineer-friend.

 

[Jennifer Stone]

OK, I think I'm getting it...

So if I started a story with 'It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen' then the Orwell estate could nail me to the law courts door.

But if I wrote 'It was thirteen o'clock in the Big Brother house' then I'd be safe?

Channel 5 might have something to say about it, they host BB in the U.K. Lol I don't really know i'm just joking

 

[Emurelda]

Aaaaaaargh! Hope some of you will bring me oranges in my prison parlour But I do think inventions are poorly protected. For example, if an engineer working here in Switzerland for an enterprise invents something, all he'll get is the name for his or her invention while the money will go to the enterprise - that was the case of Nespresso, so I know from an engineer-friend.

That's because he signed it away in his employment contract. Same for software developers or anyone who works for an employer with a standard employment contract in place. Teachers who make resources for their pupils don't own the resources if they try to sell them.

Also just to add the invention isn't poorly protected if the company believe it worth the money to stop any form of infringement. They own it after all.

 

[Emurelda]

Channel 5 might have something to say about it, they host BB in the U.K. Lol I don't really know i'm just joking

And an intuitive joke, I might add

 

[Jason Byrne]

OK, I think I'm getting it...

So if I started a story with 'It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen' then the Orwell estate could nail me to the law courts door.

But if I wrote 'It was thirteen o'clock in the Big Brother house' then I'd be safe?

I think the line is something like when it "causes sufficient confusion as to the origin of the authorship, or something like that. You'd probably be safe, and at least in US copyright there is provision for parody (and I'm sure in the UK as well, where parody is so well-entrenched).

 

[Emurelda]

I think the line is something like when it "causes sufficient confusion as to the origin of the authorship, or something like that. You'd probably be safe, and at least in US copyright there is provision for parody (and I'm sure in the UK as well, where parody is so well-entrenched).

I think they call it 'passing off' or is that just company names?

 

[Bernard Stacey]

I think they call it 'passing off'

Yet another example of how a single vowel can make such a difference...

 

[Emurelda]

Yet another example of how a single vowel can make such a difference...

Court cases have been won for less...

The case of the missing Comma.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Court cases have been won for less...

The case of the missing Comma.

That is awesome.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Court cases have been won for less...

The case of the missing Comma.

OMG.

 

[Emurelda]

That is awesome.

I know, right.

 

[Emurelda]

OMG.

It's subtle that's for sure.

 

[Monique GOLAY]

Plagiarism = copyright infringement = use of the same prose
Trademark infringement = use of the same catchphrases

I have a half-sister who owns a very successful bookstore in New York. She wrote a book, a story about kittens leaving the town, and said that "editors have a very polite way of saying no thank you." So she didn't try harder, especially that when writing, she said she couldn't say such and such a thing, because it was already contained in an another author's writing.

 

[Monique GOLAY]

The case of the missing Comma.

Fantastic story, thanks for sharing it! I loved it! I have another one for you that dates back to the 1930's when my not-a-Nobel-Prize-winner-but-Wikepediated physicist father (sorry for this phrase construction, that the Germanistics in me) rebelled against a fine for speeding. I speak about it in the biography I wrote on him (see my lulu.com link in case of further interest). He was blamed by one of the military people, Col. Arthur S. Cowen, who "ruled the Post of Fort Monmouth with an iron hand," to quote Dr Harald Zahl, a physicist friend of my father, who wrote about his souvenirs. My father travelled at the speed of 19 miles per hour where it was limited to 17 miles per hour. The problem was that the sign said "17 miles" while it should have said "17 miles per hour" (I am quoting from physicist Zahl's book « Electrons Away » by Harold A. Zahl, Vantage Press, 1968):


"From his office, centrally located in Russel Hall, he looked out at a measured distance and with a stopwatch personally took great delight in timing individual automobiles; and should they cover the distance in less than the allotted time, a telephone call would be made and immediate chastisement would follow in the colonel’s office.

One morning, a minute or two after 8:00 A.M., the word came to Dr. Golay that the colonel wished to see him immediately in his office. The good doctor responded, and in haste.

‘Doctor Golay,’ said Colonel Cowen, ‘you are a very educated man, and I thought you could read but seemingly you can’t.’

‘Sir, I don’t quite understand,’ Marcel replied, standing erect, as the colonel looked him straight and sternly in the face.

‘I’ll show you what I mean,’ the colonel continued. ‘See that sign on the street . . . what does it say?’

Glancing out of the window, Dr. Golay read, ‘It says “Speed limit 17 miles”.’

‘Isn’t that clear?’ the colonel gruffly retorted. ‘Earlier this morning I clocked you at 19 miles an hour.’

‘But, Colonel Cowen,’ physicist Golay rebutted, ‘that sign doesn’t say that the speed limit is 17 miles an hour, it just says that the speed limit is 17 miles. That is a distance, not a velocity !’

‘Enough,’ barked the colonel, ‘I rule your automobile off the Post for the next thirty days. Thank you, and good morning. Start now by taking your car off the Post, park it on the street outside of the gate, and walk back to the laboratory.”

to be continued . . .

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Yet another example of how a single vowel can make such a difference...

It didn't go over my head lol