Alpha Centauri and SARP

[Tom]

Hey guys, I was keeping quiet about this for a while, but can we please make efforts to conceal the blatant Alpha Centauri ripoffs that accompany some of our wiki articles?

"Phillip Jones flew his Phalanx M1 Power Armor into a damaged Mishhuvurthyar battleship and held off three waves of battle pods, buying his respective squadron enough time to safely escape from an interdiction field. We immediately bribed a handful of officials in order to purchase sole rights over his identity manifests. Within a week we had repackaged him into the Phalanx Phillip character with a multi-tiered media campaign: animated episodes, semi-autonomous toys, holographic memorabilia–the works. People need heroes, especially during times of war. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy at the hands of a Mishhu interrogation unit. The real story would just hurt sales and dampen the spirits of our customers.â€

 

[Xerena]

Interesting...
At present, Civ 1 and Civ 2 are as good as in the public domain, and freely available for download at sites like Abandonia that host old (mostly DOS) games with the knowledge of the original publishers of that software. Alpha Centauri isn't available for free download at any "reputable" site (or at least wasn't last I checked, though that was about 2 years ago), but I'm 99.999% sure Sid Meier and Firaxis couldn't care less about stuff like this.

I wouldn't say the same if we were talking about Electronic Arts or Wizards of the Coast or the company that made Shadowrun (for the most part, pen-and-paper RPG copyrights are fairly closely guarded, though not as fanatically as Star Wars (or Star Trek, or StarGate (I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here), or StarCraft, or... or... or Star Army?!?! Uh-oh, maybe I better tell Wes not to get any ideas... but that might just make him start getting ideas...)).

I do, however, think that whoever wrote that article should have at least taken the time to borrow from AC properly rather than just literally copying and pasting and replacing a few names.

Recon Rover = Phalanx M1 Power Armor
Rick (forgot last name) = Phillip Jones
drove = flew
fungal vortex = damaged Mishhuvurthyar battleship
four waves = three waves
Mishhu battlepods = mindworms
entire colony = rest of his squadron
added the words "at thehands of a Mishhu interrogation unit"

It's okay to borrow a little from here and there, and almost unavoidable, given what we're doing on this site, but I shouldn't be able to take one look at the result and make a list like the one I just did, unless CSEIA got the idea ICly via TTD by having someone present at a Morgan Industries conference.

 

[Yangfan]

It's not about Wes getting sued. (Although preventing that is obviously important, too.) It's about the principle of the thing. As writers, we should be against plagiarism in any and all forms.

 

[Strangelove]

I never thought much about it, since people quote other left and right without a thought. I'd always assumed that since people quote other folks, movies and shows without a thought, the same would be allowed for games? Especially since many games use quotes from real people (apparently legally), wouldn't the inverse be allowed? Unless specific words are actually â„¢ed, or there shouldn't be any legal issues regarding the quotations of others, as far as I know. If I were actually taking core content itself (using articles, stories, or art, for example) or claiming it as my personal property, then it would be. But all my art and core articles are 100% original, quotes aside.

Of course, I'm not an expert on copyright law, so it may be safer just stick to using quotes from real people instead if its really bothering others. But the problem occurs; quotes from real people is that the SARP universe supposedly isn't certain if Earth existed or not, I can't exactly have Freespacers running around with the complete works on Aristotle or Plato, for example. Thus the only way I could quote real people from others would be to change names and places (signing them 'anonymous' or some made up character, tweaking them to better fit in SARP like I did with the Centauri-quotes)...which would hit another brick wall of fuzzy legality. Though its not they'd be alive to sue us, there would always be someone, somewhere who would think of it as plagiarism, and we're back to square one.

If this is going to be an issue, perhaps SARP should make a policy of abolishing the use of any sort of real-world quotations?

 

[Wes]

I'm extremely disappointed. Quotes (with credit) are okay, but excerpts from published, copyrighted materials definately not, especially without credit.

Star Army's policy is clear:

StarArmy.com prohibits the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials!

You will not use StarArmy.com or its services to transmit, store, or provide links to any material that infringes copyrighted works or violates intellectual property rights. StarArmy.com will terminate members who infringe or are believed to be infringing the rights of copyright holders.

Any future submissions copy-pasted from another game or site may result in the submitter being banned. This is your ONLY warning.

Related link: https://stararmy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=13742

 

[Doshii Jun]

Leutre, I hate to ask this, but do we need to go through your other submissions to look for quoted material?

 

[Andrew]

Sadly this leads to a serious question in my mind of the validity of content in his prior submissions. As I result I will be reviewing them.

To reinforce what Wes said; the use of copyrighted material on Star Army is not only a legal issue. Either for Star Army to be recognized as a respectable Roleplaying community, it has to be unique, completely and wholly original. I share Wes's disappointment in this.

Do not post the material again, not only for your sake, but for the sake of Star Army as a community.

 

[Strangelove]

My intent was never one of depravity. I am no English major, but I was never taught that it was wrong to quote other people. After all, people quote one another in politics, movies, or other media without a second thought, and without permission. I didn't think one could plagarize quotes unless they were actually trademarked (Energy Soda: The Thirst Energizer!â„¢) like so. But I guessed wrong, it seems. Yes Doshii, most of my quotes aren't mine; They're a mix of major philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Neiztsche, Kant, Hume, etc) and Centauri-based quotations.

It was a mistake of ignorance, but there's not much I can do about that now. Though please keep in mind, if it were my intent to plagarize and decvieve I wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of writing up original, multi-paged articles, or doing the art to go with it. However, I'm uncertain whether you'd believe me now that I have been branded a plagarist. Feel free to google various lines of the articles themselves if you're still in doubt on their originality; I assure you they're mine.

I'll 'purge' the articles of unoriginal quotes tonight when I get home, and perhaps delete them completely depending on the community's collective soncensus, simply because it seems so deeply upset by this development. Luckily the Freespacers have yet to make first contact with anyone, so the plot hole left by them will be non-existent (though I have to apologize to the two or three plotships GMs that wanted to initiate contact with them). Again, they are original works in themselves, along with my art. But with the negative perception now associated with myself and my creations, I have doubts on whether anyone would be willing to roleplay with them out of fear they may be deleted due to suspicions of further plagarism.

 

[Fred]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa...

Leutre, look, you're getting a slap on the hand. If you tell us most of the stuff you did was original, then we believe you. Just as long as you know were we stand on this and act accordingly, I believe anyone can get on fairly happily.

No need to raise more undue drama over this. We've outlined requirements. Please fix them.

Wes endures names like 'Jet Endurain' (from WildArms 3) and 'Chigusa Amagasaki' (from Negima) so everything should be fine.

 

[FM]

Wes endures names like 'Jet Endurain' (from WildArms 3) and 'Chigusa Amagasaki' (from Negima) so everything should be fine.

Also, NIWS.

 

[Wes]

First a clarification: Stuff from other online RPGs is okay if you're the owner. Some characters are clearly ported from other RPs, but that's okay. Example:

Toshiro watches the robots, pity and sadness on his face...he walks to the met and kneels against it, turning it off with ease and care, and carefully placing it, dragging parts and all, into his backpack. He carefully moves toward the drone on its back from behind, Sonic Megaphone ready, to deactivate it, but as it can't turn, he turns it off and deactivates its power core without incident.

"...Poor robots...obviously salvagable, but stuck here instead of being repaired...no wonder the rebellions are going on, if some people treat them this way...we should treat them much better than this..."

Toshiro continued his search for components...and survivors, a bit melancholic in mood.

Yuki Toshiro

That's from a Mega Man RP.

Wes endures names like 'Jet Endurain' (from WildArms 3) and 'Chigusa Amagasaki' (from Negima) so everything should be fine.

I really don't like this. I don't think characters should have the same names as ones from established series' because they could easily be trademarks (and thus expose Star Army to legal risk).

Also, NIWS.

"nodal integrated weapons system" is currently unique, as far as I know (and as far as Google knows).

My intent was never one of depravity. I am no English major, but I was never taught that it was wrong to quote other people.

Read my earlier post:

Quotes (with credit) are okay, but excerpts from published, copyrighted materials definately not, especially without credit.

 

[Zack]

I think FM confused NIWS with the CIWS.

 

[FM]

I meant the suspicious similarities between NIWS and KOS-MOS...but then again, it isn't really serious.

 

[Strangelove]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa...

Leutre, look, you're getting a slap on the hand. If you tell us most of the stuff you did was original, then we believe you. Just as long as you know were we stand on this and act accordingly, I believe anyone can get on fairly happily.

No need to raise more undue drama over this. We've outlined requirements. Please fix them.

Sorry, I'm just too used to the mentality my professors drilled into me. University policy is generally, 'You plagiarize, you're fucked.' Even minor incidents slip ups can permanently get you barred from higher academics, no second chances. Best case scenario you get a nasty, permanent scar on university records. A sort of unforgivable sin, so to speak, regardless of whether its unintentional or not.

On the other hand SARP isn't cynical and unforgiving as higher academic institutions, so perhaps I was overestimating the severity of my situation. I didn't mean to come out as overly dramatic or anything, I just take anything even remotely like plagiarism very seriously. But since the consensus seems to be give a second chance due to the circumstances, I suppose I'll stay on SARP, but treading much more carefully than before.

 

[Wes]

I'm not mad at you - just consider it a learning experience; now you know what's okay and what's not, right?

 

[FM]

Note that referencing in a non-obvious (in a legal sense) way is all right - Elisa does this all the time. Just recently Elisa and Miles referenced Casino Royale, in fact.

 

[Strangelove]

I'm not mad at you - just consider it a learning experience; now you know what's okay and what's not, right?

Sorry, what? Oh. Learning experience, yeah yeah, got it.

 

[Xerena]

This thread also makes me wonder about how copyright law works IC. If SARA calls their next power armor the Phalanx, does SARA wake up the next morning and find itself on the bad end of a twenty quintillion KS lawsuit from Phoenix Aerospacy?

 

[Karma Mechanic]

There are no copyright laws IC, in the Yamatai empire at least, not to say that you can't make someone very angry by copying them or their work.

 

[Zack]

previously copyright laws have been enforced by private armies.