Skip to main content

Stealing Storylines

So I'm on one of my favorite photostory sites and I see that she has a very similar storyline. Orphaned girl, raised in the Alps who later finds out she's a princess when she discovers her father is a king of some tiny made up country. Seriously? The friggin' Alps even?

In her defense, I never mentioned that my doll's father is royalty, (WAS an upcoming photostory shocker) perhaps glazed over the Alps, if I mentioned it at all. And really, take out the Alps and you've Princess Diaries. As my husband loves to say "The Universe has run out of original ideas."

In this case, I know she didn't STEAL material, but I still have to rework my upcoming story. But what if someone DID steal your material? What could you do? As far as I know, we don't copyright our stories and we don't really make money off of them. It would just be principle.

So if it happened to you, what would you do?

Oh it's okay, Dani, we'll figure out why your father's identity has been a secret all these years...

Comments

  1. Honestly? I don't know. I gave up my Roman project, because one person I told about it picked up the general idea, but it was not like he was stealing. It was more complicated and involved among other, more personal reasons my belief that the 1:6 community is too small for 2 Roman storylines.
    But I know of someone who was a few years ago accused by a third party (still not known to me) to have stolen one of my ideas. I knew of the story, I didn't feel she was stealing and the whole thing sparked a group project similar to the one we're planning right now. It was fun.

    If folks feel the need to steal (being inspired is a whole different shoe) other peoples' ideas, they're more or less digging their own grave. I'd hope that the parts of the community would be clever enough to see that.But I think I would rant if I had proof (or at least circumstantial evidence). That at least would hopefully make me feel better. Because I doubt anybody wo has something precious stolen from them could shrug it off. And a story you thought about long and hard, invested in and care about is something precious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with Ursula about this. If it was clearly a stolen concept & details (and story) then I'd make a fuss about it.

    On the other hand, your husband is right. There is only a limited number of ideas & ways to combine them. However, what makes the difference is how _you_ and _they_ interpret them. What and how you spin your take on an idea (and how you execute it) is what makes it "yours".

    There are lots of photostories (and regular written) stories that have the same type of characters/ personalities/ settings/ plot ideas. It's the actual stamp of how the person does it that makes it unique.

    If you want your "hidden princess in the alps" story--DO IT. Make it your own, and make it the best that you can. It won't be a copy. It WILL BE AN ORIGINAL.

    Get my drift chickie?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Erica.

    You know I just started getting into True Blood and the themes it has in common with Twilight are many. But Twilight is so badly written and cheesy that it certainly stands alone!

    Maybe you'll be a princess after all Dani.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Please, just say no to Twighlight!
    (I picked up a copy at the thrift shop for 50pence, but man, I had to slog through it. I get the whole tween attraction to it (who else could ignore such terrible writing?) but I really don't understand why it became such a phenomenon.

    You better do better than that! Put some kind of interesting spin on Dani's princess-dom! Maybe if it gets discovered she will fall victim to a horrible curse....MWhahah (oh, sorry. melodrama mode was kicking in!)
    ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. hahaha. I read all four Twilights. And I will never get that 1/2 hour back. I have a compulsion with books. I have to read an entire series, even if it's bad. And MAN, was it ever. But yeah the movies are even worse.

    Funny you should mention the curse thing, I'm working on a fairytale. Which at my pace, will be done when I'm 80.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Keep at it! Even slow is better than not at all! :)
    And fairytales are gooooooooood! I'm working on gathering stuff and making stuff for an eventual costume drama/fantasy storyline. I can totally understand the slow = 80+ years.

    ReplyDelete
  7. D'oh. Sorry about that Dani! I was trying to update Raven's blog and forgot to sign out before commenting on yours! >_<

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zee Gypsies!

I'm home today, the kids are at school (half day), so I decided to take some pictures with my little window of time. I rarely show the gypsies and one of you guys requested it, so here they are! "Hello, I am Carmen Kirpachi. Welcome to our home." "This is my husband Milosh." "Hallo."  "This is my brother, Franco. While his gaje girlfriend Josephine is in Paris, he's spending a lot more time with us." "Excuse me, I have to put some more wood in the stove so I can get dinner started." "My goat stew is Milosh's favorite but we need to get the pot hot first." "This is my living area, also known as Franco's bedroom. But we don't mind. The Romany love having family around." "Milosh says I drive like a fugitive so he doesn't let me drive very often." "But sometimes I put a glamour on him and he forgets how much he hates my driving." "

Introducing Nymeria and the Alurium Vaccarra

Ever have a couple of days off Facebook and though you wonder what happened to your friends over the long weekend, you can help feeling a little peaceful? That's how I feel in my week of staying off the blogs and forums and various sites. But I missed a lot! So many cool posts! It's going to take a while to dig myself out. One must wonder, did my creative spurt have something to do with not being all over the web looking at what everyone else is doing? Anyway let's get to it. So on my birthday, my three Stardolls arrived! Aside from the outfit, that Paris one was not cute. I dunno, she's too boring looking. But Iris was THRILLED that she got a new, dressed doll. Well for a few minutes anyway. Did you know that they can't bend their legs? Like they can't sit down? Terrible. Anyway, the other two were great! Inspiring. Meet Valentina. A Columbiana who restores classic cars. She was very happy with a Liv body. She might be Nadia's next girlfriend, w

Grandville Summer Festival!

Hello doll friends, First up, I gotta show you this. My 4 year old was playing with my Barbie cast-offs and set up this little scene. (That yellow thing on the table is a TV shaped eraser.) Dig the lamp she made with a wedding cake and the pole from maybe a Barbie dress form? Adorbs. Anyway, this weather (raining pretty much daily for the last month or so) has wrecked my spray painting plans. Much of the royal storyline rests on this painting project. So for now I decided to continue the other stories I have going. Enjoy: "Ho-ly crap, what on earth are you wearing?" "Aw, Sook, I feel bad enough."   "Seriously. You are wearing khakis. You look cray cray. You're like somebody's mom right now. Please explain this situation." "My boss said my outfit was too sexy so I had to borrow something from Le Skater Dork over there at the cafe. Jeez, now I owe her one. Oh crap Channel 1 News is here."   "Thanks John. Lavita