AI/LLMs Plagiarism vs. Inspiration

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not quite yet, no. But I think the demand for ethical AI will be strong depending on if that can be achieved and if people do not first see their job being taken by it.

I don’t think so, considering:

1) many AI developing companies are fighting against compensating copyright holders for AI scraping because it “would bankrupt them”, and some have already paid big settlements, I don’t think so (like Anthropic’s $1.5B agreement).

2) many of the highest profile people against compensation of copyright holders are wealthy, powerful people who have already (often repeatedly) demonstrated behaviors that would charitably be called amoral, egocentric and anti-social, especially those subscribing to the “move fast; break stuff” ethos.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think when you go into a discussion of people adapting game mechanics to other uses and start using "plagiarism" you've made a categorical error right out the gate, and it'll lead to nothing but more of the same.

 

[1QD]

It takes very little time to upload a game onto Drivethrurpg or Lulu and post it for sale. Publishing has never been easier.

What you are talking about is marketing. And to market your game and build community you are going to need to share mechanics amd take feedback.

If it matters I have published my own RPG. I did so because I homebrewed the rules

It seems to me by your response that we have very different end goals. I have a fully complete system, hardcover book, nearly 600 pages. I would like to do a kickstarter. As I am new to both forums and marketing I am taking small steps. As I have mentioned I am close to sharing mechanics but I need to finish a few satellite tasks first.

 

[1QD]

I think when you go into a discussion of people adapting game mechanics to other uses and start using "plagiarism" you've made a categorical error right out the gate, and it'll lead to nothing but more of the same.

You may be correct. I am new to forums and this particular scene. The sharing of mechanics is a totally new and somewhat strange practice to me. Though after my research it seems to be normalized. I will point out the technical term for this is derivative works. When concerning subject matters that can be copyrighted, what people are doing, adapting, plagiarism, derivative works....what ever you want to call it would be not be legal when concerning copyrighted material. And while I see the value in this medium not being copyrightable, I still consider the moral aspect of what is being done.

My earlier point when comparing to AI, is that people stand on the moral high ground talking about stealing other people's work. However, talking game mechanics and suddenly that morality disappears, not so much as the action has changed, ( with exceptions of course), but the context of when the " borrowing of ideas" takes place has changed. I am asking for the grounds on people maintain, which appear to be somewhat hypocritical in nature.

My original point cited a person literally quoting another systems work, and how they were going to use it in their own work. There was no permission, nor compensation. Giving another person credit, quite often, does not pay their bills. If people are offended that I might be suggesting that "they" are guilty of such things, it may be best that they ask themselves, am I accusing them, or are they feeling guilty and unnaturally defensive as a result?

One point that was brought up, was whether or not I have dragons, HP and roll dice. I think it fair to add that in order to have a genre, there will be some commonalities. After which there will be personal expressions. Genre is defined as follows, A genre is a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content. So in answer I am part of the genre, so therefore there will be elements that will be familiar, others that break away from even this genre conventional thinking.

My question more over is if we object to AI taking the ideas of others, Why do we not question doing so, so directly in this genre? If morals are our basis, then why abandon them here?

 

[1QD]

I don’t think so, considering:

1) many AI developing companies are fighting against compensating copyright holders for AI scraping because it “would bankrupt them”, and some have already paid big settlements, I don’t think so (like Anthropic’s $1.5B agreement).

2) many of the highest profile people against compensation of copyright holders are wealthy, powerful people who have already (often repeatedly) demonstrated behaviors that would charitably be called amoral, egocentric and anti-social, especially those subscribing to the “move fast; break stuff” ethos.

I agree that now that is the case. So many people are against it though, I am not so sure they can maintain profits with soo many people against the service. Though entertainment and research may not be the only use for ai and it will get implemented regardless

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I agree that now that is the case. So many people are against it though, I am not so sure they can maintain profits with soo many people against the service. Though entertainment and research may not be the only use for ai and it will get implemented regardless

At this point in time, there’s no profits to maintain: most AI is not profitable, and are running billions in the red. And they’re still throwing money & resources at it in ways that are disruptive of other markets for goods (like certain computer components), services (like water & electric utilities), and places & things of cultural importance (ancestral lands, Neolithic art and wild horse herds in Nevada).

Why?

Enough of those powers behind the push for AI have goals that are not necessarily benign or beneficial to any but a few, and believe they have sufficient financial resources to weather current levels of negative press in order to achieve them.

I’m living in Texas, a state infamously so high on its own supply that its power grid is mostly isolated from the rest of the USA. The result of that independence is a terribly unstable power grid, prone to brownouts & blackouts when temps get too high or too low.

We also have a large number of data centers, and state leadership has been courting more with sweetheart deals on land, taxes and other services. One juicy benefit they get is that Texas pays those centers to minimize or cease operations when power demands are at their highest. Tails they win, heads we lose.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Plagiarism as crime is when you try to earn money. If you use AI for some homebrew idea, for example a PC specie inspired some famous IP you can publish it as amateur art or fan-fiction.

When it is showed in the right way it is not plagiarism but homage.

It may be plagiarism when you don't admit the possible external source of inspiration.

 

[VashVet]

It seems to me by your response that we have very different end goals. I have a fully complete system, hardcover book, nearly 600 pages. I would like to do a kickstarter. As I am new to both forums and marketing I am taking small steps. As I have mentioned I am close to sharing mechanics but I need to finish a few satellite tasks first.

Have you done any research around how to build a community or what separates successful launches on crowdfunding sites from unsuccessful ones?

It seems to me like you’re attempting to “wing it” and maybe coming to some unhelpful conclusions about how to do so.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You may be correct. I am new to forums and this particular scene. The sharing of mechanics is a totally new and somewhat strange practice to me. Though after my research it seems to be normalized. I will point out the technical term for this is derivative works. When concerning subject matters that can be copyrighted, what people are doing, adapting, plagiarism, derivative works....what ever you want to call it would be not be legal when concerning copyrighted material. And while I see the value in this medium not being copyrightable, I still consider the moral aspect of what is being done.

Its not just that its the wrong term; its the wrong concept.

Most of game rules are, effectively, engineering principals. Engineering principals propagate. They've done so since the beginning of human culture. Even in the modern period and the existance of patents, all that typically happens is people do (sometimes pretty minor) alterations. And that's if its a really ground-breaking, new idea, which honestly, most such things usually aren't. The same is true of game system elements; even if you're doing it entirely from the ground up (and chances are you aren't; you've had the influence of game resolution from outside the RPG hobby over the years, and that's influenced game mechanics even if its not obvious), the realities of mathematics and interactions mean what you've done is likely not entirely new, even if you weren't influenced by it.

Its just not something you should develop a strong sense of ownership about, because in the end, no one owns processes.

My earlier point when comparing to AI, is that people stand on the moral high ground talking about stealing other people's work. However, talking game mechanics and suddenly that morality disappears, not so much as the action has changed, ( with exceptions of course), but the context of when the " borrowing of ideas" takes place has changed. I am asking for the grounds on people maintain, which appear to be somewhat hypocritical in nature.

Well, I'll be pretty blunt; I don't thnk most creative work isn't influenced by others either. Almost nobody who draws, writes music (in particular) or does any other kind of creative work has had it leap ex nihilio into their mind, and in almost all cases you can see those influences if you know the field. The line between influence and copying is fundamentally arbitrary, and in many cases has as much to do with application as style or technique.

My question more over is if we object to AI taking the ideas of others, Why do we not question doing so, so directly in this genre? If morals are our basis, then why abandon them here?

Well, as you see, my feeling is that if you're objecting to someone using your "ideas" to fuel their own rather than your "execution" you've made a mistake right off the bat, and I'd tell that to anyone else.

When good friends with a man named Steve Perrin, who was probably one of the most well-known game designers in the field once you got outside the D&D sphere, being the primary designer for a little game called RuneQuest. Besides his own involvement in some of them, there are literally dozens of games out there which use a BasicRoleplaying (the core system derived from the RuneQuest mechanics) basis, or variant systems based off that. I only once saw him put out even the faintest criticism for one of these games, and that was because it was overly on the nose (not just the mechanics but a lot of the execution was based on RQ) and even then it was mostly a kind of wry recognition.

Because people do not bother reinventing the wheel in the game industry unless it serves their purposes to do so. Far as I can tell they never have; because even among RPGs, and even among setting-free ones, its implimentation and putting all the pieces together in a particular way everyone is selling (when the mechanics aren't just particular set used for a dedicated setting that they otherwise don't consider relatively unimportant). Almost all mechanical movement is refinement, and no one expects it to be anything else.

 

[Umbran]

You may be correct. I am new to forums and this particular scene. The sharing of mechanics is a totally new and somewhat strange practice to me.

So, this sharing isn't particular to forums. It goes back to the early years of gaming, when there were very few outright publishers, and folks did a lot of their own home-brewed alterations to game systems, which got informally shared around a lot.

Though after my research it seems to be normalized. I will point out the technical term for this is derivative works. When concerning subject matters that can be copyrighted, what people are doing, adapting, plagiarism, derivative works....what ever you want to call it would be not be legal when concerning copyrighted material. And while I see the value in this medium not being copyrightable, I still consider the moral aspect of what is being done.

Okay, so, part of the issue here is language.

Moral, ethical, and legal are three different things. Sometimes laws happen to match the ethics and morals of private individuals, other times not.

But also, if you want to get into publishing, it would serve you well to understand copyright as it applies to your work.

Which is why I bolded a segment above, because it bears discussion.

Copyright protects the particular expression that appears in a published work. It does not protect the underlying mechanics, processes, or systems that published work expresses.

So, if you have published a mechanic about "hit points", someone else cannot legally copy the three paragraphs you use, and paste it directly into their work. It is, however, perfectly legal for someone to rewrite those paragraphs, and re-express it to be about "health level". They have then removed your particular expression.

If your mechanics, processes, or systems are so unique and valuable as to require legal protection, it might be a thing you can protect via a patent. But you don't get a patent just by putting a thing into print - there's a separate application process that most RPGs do not bother to go through. I, personally, cannot think of a single ttrpg that has tried to patent its mechanics.

My earlier point when comparing to AI, is that people stand on the moral high ground talking about stealing other people's work. However, talking game mechanics and suddenly that morality disappears...

See above. The RPG community, broadly, seems to find that copyright protection largely aligns with our ethics around content. We largely agree that violating copyright is unethical.

The process of training LLMs these days is typically based on violating copyright on a truly massive scale, and so some individuals here find it highly unethical.

But, to be brutally honest, we don't find the systems, processes or mechanics of most games to be so terribly ground-breaking that they merit protection. The thought, "Wow! You roll 3d6 instead of one d20! How visionary and creative!" is not something that we take to heart. We usually feel that the meat of creativity is in the particular expression, not in the nuts and bolts underneath.

In addition, the gaming community broadly has not realized much value out of highly protected mechanics. We find it serves the hobby more when publishers make it easier to work with their mechanics by using open licenses like the OGL, Creative Commons, or the like, instead of trying to prevent anyone else from engaging with the mechanics.