reapersaurus
Explorer
drnuncheon - please don't be so inaccurate in your numbers.
I just re-read the suit, point-by-point, and found only 9 out of 61 that could be attributed to vampire/werewolf legends.
All the rest were different from the classic legends. (like WW vamps cast a reflection is DIFFERENT from what one would expect, if they'd only been familiar with the legends.)
But your general question about "at what point does something stop being derivative/plagiarist, and start becoming its own creation/interpretation" is a very tough question, and one I asked over a week ago, but haven't gotten much discussion on.
For my part, I think that if a majority of the theme and implementations of an idea are present in another work, than it is plagiarist.
Underworld qualifies for me as having a majority of what it presents as being from WW source material, EVEN THOUGH it had a minority of aspects that were unique from WW.
Only having a few differences doesn't make something unique, or protected as a work, in my eyes.
Oh! - I've been meaning to post this realization for awhile:
I wrote a back-story for a V:tM character that did homage (i.e. blatantly stole inspiration from) to 2 sources:
Dream Theater's Scenes From a Memory album, and V:tM.
When I read my story, when I use the same criteria for "copying" that many people have done who have bashed WW here, I honestly can't claim that my story is a copy.
If I took out the names for the things I stole, I don't think that anyone could 'prove' my story is plagiarist any more than I can 'prove' Underworld stole from WW.
I just re-read the suit, point-by-point, and found only 9 out of 61 that could be attributed to vampire/werewolf legends.
All the rest were different from the classic legends. (like WW vamps cast a reflection is DIFFERENT from what one would expect, if they'd only been familiar with the legends.)
But your general question about "at what point does something stop being derivative/plagiarist, and start becoming its own creation/interpretation" is a very tough question, and one I asked over a week ago, but haven't gotten much discussion on.
For my part, I think that if a majority of the theme and implementations of an idea are present in another work, than it is plagiarist.
Underworld qualifies for me as having a majority of what it presents as being from WW source material, EVEN THOUGH it had a minority of aspects that were unique from WW.
Only having a few differences doesn't make something unique, or protected as a work, in my eyes.
Oh! - I've been meaning to post this realization for awhile:
I wrote a back-story for a V:tM character that did homage (i.e. blatantly stole inspiration from) to 2 sources:
Dream Theater's Scenes From a Memory album, and V:tM.
When I read my story, when I use the same criteria for "copying" that many people have done who have bashed WW here, I honestly can't claim that my story is a copy.
If I took out the names for the things I stole, I don't think that anyone could 'prove' my story is plagiarist any more than I can 'prove' Underworld stole from WW.
