January 14, 2005
Plagiarism vs. Hip References
While editing Downtown Dandelions I came up against a little moral quandary: I wanted to reference some of my favorite pop culture inspirations, but I wasn’t sure when I was plagiarizing and when I was just alluding.
(examples follow after the jump which aren't plot spoilers, but I guess could be construed as spoilers of sort. So be ye warned.)
At one point a girl in a grocery store wants some purple yogurt and her mother comments that purple isn’t a fruit (a reference to Homer Simpsons response to Lisa’s question about fruit: “This [donut] has purple in it. Purple’s a fruit.”). I let that one stand.
Later Sedgewick sees a chalk drawing signed by Grace. He comments that it’s the name of a girl and a thought that changed the world (taken almost verbatim from U2’s “Grace”). I felt guilty about that one and immediately gave credit to U2, though it comes across as clunky.
At another point one of the characters listens to country music, and really wanted to borrow the line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Xander’s been turned down by Buffy and goes home to mope and listen to country music, “The music of pain.” Can I just borrow a line like that alluding to Buffy, or is that plagiarism?
Posted by kevin at January 14, 2005 12:02 PM
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Comments
I actually wrestled with this for my blog when reporting news stories. It's so easy to just copy the text and move on.
When referring to a pop culture quote though, I think copywright rules can be bent a little.
Posted by: MauriceM at February 1, 2005 5:30 PM
