Plagiarism in Activity Creation

[Garthion]

I'll try to be brief here,

Player paths, whilst you can easily create new ones for main lines and such, if you are using a branch line then there are only so many paths possible, say using Ffestiniog Route for Example, you want to go from Porthmadog to Minffordd, there is only one possible path, if you use that (ready created by Colin) path, are you breaking copyright laws? is there any way of proving that you created the path for your activity? Unfortunately not. I have created activities and uploaded them but have had to use ready made paths as too many create problems with the sim.

Of course when it comes to the actual service, that is where the personalisation comes in, if you go and use a consist created by someone else then that is not just plagerism, but also pure lazyness, it is the job of minutes to create a new consist, one that is personal to you, and then you can go about creating the rest of the activity.
I would not dream of passing someone else's work off as my own, but have taken ideas from other activities for my own use.
Currently I'm writing a couple of activities for the re-release of P2P, one uses the GWR Railcar N22, there is only one possible consist so to make it different I'm creating a unique path and service, this creates an activity that is uniquely mine and one I hope others will enjoy, but it does use a ready made consist, so I appologise in advance for that.

My opinion on the subject is, if the work is a direct copy or very near copy of another's work, then it should not be uploaded, or be removed unless permission is granted for the components from the other activity to be used.

Cheers,
Dale Williams
All Good Fun.

Sorry for not being brief like I said I would

[ronald parkin]

Hi , Its Make your mind up time. Rememberance Day or the Day Activity writing Died. And I was just getting started on 3 activities for the B&D route, my first and looks like mine only

Regards

Ron P

[NeutronIC]

Without pre-empting what the moderators are discussing, my views are quite straight forward and contrary to the way Mr Bilton would like to see things work.

If one file is based on another, or makes re-use from another, then that mandates a permission request to all the necessary people or organisations. If granted, then appropriate credits must be included, to be agreed between the two parties as to the exact form of them that is acceptable.

Where complaints are made, files will be withdrawn until the situation is resolved - this is our standard policy, I don't believe there is anything "strange" about it.

On the flip side, activity authors must realise that there may well be much more chance of unintentional re-creation of their work... obviously a traffic file with identical start times is not really up for question, but a path that follows the same route may well just be coincidental.

All the cases identified by David in his post would, for me, come under a requirement for permissions.

If there is an issue that an author has with suspected copying of their work, then the procedure is to inform a moderator so that it can be dealt with as quickly as possible, I believe this dispute process was spread out in clear terms some months ago? Activities are no different in my opinion.

I do get very annoyed at some people on this site who are some of the loudest "he ripped off my work" people, but in fact do that very thing themselves. David - I am NOT referring to you, just to be clear on that!

Now, if the hysteria could all please go somewhere else, and someone could actually report on the problem to me formally (and privately) then I will get the matter resolved as quickly as possible.

Matt.

[thenudehamster]

David, to begin with, my apologies if I seemed only half awake when reading your initial post; I probably was. However, I think my points were still valid, if only to elicit your clarification.

Back to your main theme; yes, I think you have made several valid points, and on the whole I agree with you. My gut feeling remains the same - Activity content should remain largely 'copyright' (inverted commas intentional) at least as far as ukts publishing is concerned. Paths, and to some extent, consists become a delicate balancing act. Paths have been discussed; should I have to create a new consist for, say, a 450 commuter train on DC3 when there's only about three ways of making one anyway? It's the interaction of items in the Activity that make it unique, but quite how we police that is something I suspect the Moderators are mulling over even as we speak.
Does 'borrowing' up to 20% of an activity make it just 'permissible', up to 50% 'acknowledgeable', and over that licensable'? Difficult thing to figure out if you put it in those terms.

I'd rather go the safe route and say that paths and consists are effectively 'public domain' while Services, Traffic and the rest are copyright and should not be re-used without prior permission.

Any breaches would be subject to the usual ukts penalties.


BarryH - thenudehamster

[dorlan]

<snip>
If there is an issue that an author has with suspected copying of their work, then the procedure is to inform a moderator so that it can be dealt with as quickly as possible, I believe this dispute process was spread out in clear terms some months ago? Activities are no different in my opinion.
<snip>
Matt.

The procedure can be found here.

Ian J

[NeutronIC]

Even paths can require considerable ingenuity and inventiveness to come up with complex paths that include many reverse points.

The bottom line is that everyone has to be reasonable - how likely is it that a particular item has been coincidentally recreated, how likely is it that it's been re-used?

Consists - i'd like to think that we could leave these to the public domain, if only because it'd be a nightmare to work out where these came from without trawling through loads of apk files trying to find them, plus they're pretty straight forward and the chances are a consist could easily be accidentally re-created.

Paths - if you're using a path on your system, then you need to find out where it came from, simple. To help this, activity authors should name their paths to aid identification. Paths are a key unique aspect of an activity though so their value shouldn't be reduced, for me, a large chunk of time is spent on refining paths - at least those that aren't simply point to point activities.

Matt.

[ianmacmillan]

I think what is being objected to here is the failure to ask permission and the claiming of copywrite.

There is no point in creating paths and consists which are identical to existing ones. Surely the copywrite on a voyager consist belongs to Virgin.

The realy original files are the traffic file and the act file.

Many of Davids activities were ruined by the Jan1st fiasco.
Most of the removed stock has now been replaced.
If I were to upload an updated version of one of these activities then I'm sure David would not object PROVIDED I ASKED FIRST.

I would also have to make it clear that the original activity remained the copywrite of David but that the modifications were totally mine so he would not get the blame if they didn't work!

The whole point is in the asking and the acknowledging.

I have done both for my repaints and never been refused.

[NeutronIC]

Just to clarify a few things.

Commercial products are no different freeware ones in that permission must be sought.

If it is not sought (and we don't know if it is or not) and you release, and nobody complains, then you can assume that nobody objected.

If it is not sought, and you release, and somebody complaints, then you can assume that somebody objected.

There seems to be some belief that because there are plenty of activities that re-use other paths etc (i'm not aware of any activities which are as blatant as the 5 scenarios david outlined though) then it must be definitely acceptable to do so without asking permission, this is entirely incorrect.

For a start, you don't know whether permissions actually were obtained, perhaps it was an informal mail and no credit was required to be given but the conversation happened and everyone was happy.

I really don't understand why some people have such a difficult time understanding this whole concept of using other peoples work and the need to obtain permission and provide credit.

Just because it has gone on before, and others haven't objected, doesn't mean that in future others WILL object. Play it safe, always seek permission.

The fact that you've paid for a commercial product makes absolutely no difference to the need to request permission - potentially more-so, you bring the site at risk of the commercial developers persuing UKTS for distributing derivative and copyright works without permission if they really wanted to take it that far.

It's simple, ask permission.

If you're working on a commercial product, then simply drop a note to the developer and say "hey i'm looking to do some activities for your great route, do you mind if i re-use some of the paths to save duplication, and borrow some traffic files where they fit with the activity i'm writing?" or something equally pleasant. Most are very supportive, particularly as obviously activities for their add-on are a good thing.

Again, just for clarity and to ensure the message hasn't been lost:

ASK PERMISSION

Matt.

[Garthion]

Matt,

I agree with you entirely, the Consists problem is the most difficult, so unless you create a specific consist that you know is uniquely yours and states as much, then how can people find out where the original came from?
Paths, as I have said, a simple end to end line can only have so many, so some are more than likely re-used by authors when writing their own activities, I try to note down if I use someone else's paths if making an activity for UKTS upload, fortunately the ones I have done have used my own paths. For the new P2P CD I have just created a lovely complex path, going from Paddington to Bristol but via the back routes, this I hope will not get re-used, but I have checked that there are no others similar to it before doing so (now I have to get the rest of that activity done )

Traffic and service files however should only be suitable for one particular activity or author. I tend to reuse my own traffic files more than once, just altering the start times of various pieces of traffic to provide interest.
Anyhow, back to activity writing

Cheers,
Dale Williams
All Good Fun.

[NeutronIC]

There are technical reasons why re-using existing paths etc is a good idea - the more you've got the slower things get, the more ram it uses etc. So if there is a path from an activity already there and you can identify its owner then why not request permission and just re-use it.

I think the trick here is to work out how difficult it is to replace something, how much ingenuity and time has been spent on something. Consists generally don't need much time spent on them except in very specific activities, paths vary wildly from 30 second jobs that take a main line from point a to point b, to several hours of work with lots of reverse points, wait points and other complex interactions with other paths. Traffic and Services tend to be more activity specific and in any case require generally more effort to create and so permission should always be requested.

Another factor is, if you're reusing one or more components from another activity, how close is your new activity to the original?

I will state again that I have not yet received a specific complaint relating to this topic, so while I get the impression we're talking about a specific instance, my comments are general since I can't comment on a situation I have no knowledge of; I clarify that in case someone who DOES know what the underlying currents are here reads my message as something relating to a specific instance.

Matt.

[whobhoy]

Hi , Its Make your mind up time. Rememberance Day or the Day Activity writing Died. And I was just getting started on 3 activities for the B&D route, my first and looks like mine only

Regards

Ron P

There speaks a Honest man With out any agenda hidden or otherwise just the interest of expanding the community which appears that he no longer will be allowed to do
At present UKTS Library has 1671 Activity file contained with in it , I would seriously question if more that 1/8 of them could be considered totally original because as it was said earlier in this thread.

I think that it is inevitable that many "new" activities will contain elements of existing activities, be it consists, traffic paths etc, the MSTS acitivy editor is designed to facilitate this.

I have only written activities for Ballyshannon & Irish Enterprise ,but must confess that I have used elements of other activities contained with in the route CD & I can tell of one contributor who has produced about 6 for IE & each has some element of the original disc content in it should it be consists or traffic pattern etc etc...
In the End everything is a variation on a theme & if this silliness & pettiness continues I would say the production of New activities will be halved.!at best.

I do hope sense is seen because the only agenda that is good is one were the good of UKTS community Comes first

[buffy500]

Maybe you should go back and read what people are actually saying before you let your agenda completely cloud your vision.

No one is saying you can't use anything someone else has done in your activity, people want to have some credit for actually doing (in some cases about 95% ) of the work in the activity.

If I take something you've taken 60 hours doing, and I take 5 minutes to make 1 simple change, and then claim its all (c) Dave Babb with not even an attempt to admit that its mostly someone elses work, would that not maybe just possibly annoy the cobblers out of you ?

To be honest in the trainsim world, most people seem fairly happy to allow things they have done to be built upon, they just want credit for building the original (normally the real hard work bit of it too)

[whobhoy]

Between here & trainsim I have published 7 activities & If there is an individual to ask I always do ,but with retail titles such as your own routes individuals are not always that easy to source .

But I always include a thank you to all who have painstakingly produced or contributed to xxx etc etc My God Imitation is surly the greatest form of flattery
And How many of the 1671 Activities contain no items even ideas from previous or default activities , Dave I think we both know that it would be a very slender percentage

[buffy500]

If you credited people in your activity then you have nothing to be concerned with, you'll not be the person who is being discussed.

[dee4141]

I don't like these type of threads. Like every other activity writer I am now asking myself is it me? Have I done something wrong? To have spent a couple of weeks - and sometimes more - trying to get an activity right for the benefit of the community and then to come across a thread like this is soul destroying. I for one am beginning to wonder if uploading to UKTS is worth the hassle ...... .