OC ReMix plagiarism: report it here!

[Skrypnyk]

so small update, I think legal torrents removed the torrent file (although I haven't gotten an e-mail from them... I suppose they won't bother telling me).

[Nabeel Ansari]

You know I'm really glad I got punished for plagiarism I never actually did (I just used a lot of similar words and my teacher though I was plagiarizing because I'm smart enough to sound epic when I write summaries about books) I never told her that I didn't plagiarize, I was too shocked to say anything and I was already in detention anyway. (This happened 3 years ago) Oh, and if she even looked at the back of the book I was reading she would know in an instant I didn't steal any of it.

Even though I got punished for something I didn't do, at least I get bragging rights to "I've never plagiarized in my entire life."

Because if I get punished for NOT plagiarizing, I'm def not gonna plagiarize.

We should pray this happens to everyone when they're in 6th grade, so they'll learn to not plagiarize and they won't even have to learn it the hard way (by hard I mean the flamed-by-guys-twice-your-age expelled from college way)

[Fratto]

20,000 Winks. I like that song a lot.

[big giant circles]

I would like to report myself. It seems I stole a bunch of muzik.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/artist/Big_Giant_Circles/61935

Not sure who made that list, but I'm at least a little bit certain that I didn't write all those.

[DramaNoMore]

Someone's a really big fan, to think that you do everything around this site:<

[HitoriJaNai]

Ironically enough, most of the stuff mislabeled as Big Giant Circles' is from Voices of the Lifestream.

[TheKrow]

I would like to report myself. It seems I stole a bunch of muzik.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/artist/Big_Giant_Circles/61935

Not sure who made that list, but I'm at least a little bit certain that I didn't write all those.

How would you go about responding to this? :/

[DarkeSword]

Ironically enough, most of the stuff mislabeled as Big Giant Circles' is from Voices of the Lifestream.

......hnnngghhhow is that ironic?!

[big giant circles]

How would you go about responding to this? :/

I'm not. I'm just going to let everybody think I did it.

[Theophany]

I'm not. I'm just going to let everybody think I did it.

big giant circles: Doin' it right

[Nabeel Ansari]

I'm not. I'm just going to let everybody think I did it.

Good idea, man!

...Not.

[big giant circles]

Class, the above is a demonstration of someone who did NOT understand sarcasm. Any questions?

TOMATO FACE TIME

:tomatoface::tomatoface:

[Nabeel Ansari]

Class, the above is a demonstration of someone who did NOT understand sarcasm. Any questions?

TOMATO FACE TIME

I was intentionally doing that because I like ruining the sarcasm.

It is you, my good man, who needs a tomato in da face. :tomatoface:

[kupernikus]

A friend of mine emailed me a song he says he made. I listened to it once and immediately recognised it as an old McVaffe mix. He denied it came from a game at all.... I pointed him over to this thread and explained he would be caught, and it wouldn't be friendly. He has since apologised.... I think i was the only person He emailed.

[Xenon Odyssey]

Actually, in the old days (we're talking Renaissance or so), plagiarism was a form of flattery. If someone took your melody or whatever and put it in their piece, it was considered a great honor.

But now, with copyright and money and all that shit, there's the people who sue you out the nose for 'stealing' two measures of their material, even if it sounds like everything else out there. Granted, we all want to get paid, but some just take it too far, to the point where it's more about the money than it is the music.

And people have always exalted artists; that's really nothing new. Hell, even back in the ancient Greek times, the musical contests were more about the presentation of the artist rather than the quality of the music.

But since OCR is free and people are generally dicks, that's why this thread exists!

[Rozovian]

There's homages, even subtle ones, and then there's plagiarism. Plagiarism is when someone else it taking credit, not just referencing or borrowing but passing it off as their own.

BGC's example is a good one. It's not a case of a BGC fan referencing or borrowing parts of others' works to honor or flatter the other remixers, but rather an act of passing it off as BGC's work.

(of course, someone not doing the research might think this BGC thing is some music-making community devoted to making video game music arrangements, or perhaps it's a case of convenient sorting on an ipod by someone who doesn't know what a playlist is)

The point is still that there's borrowing/referencing (no credit given, no credit taken), and then there's stealing (credit taken).

Welcome to ocr, Gwilendiel. You don't yet know how ocr works, so think things through from our perspective before making bold statements about artists, music, life, the universe, and everything.

[Nabeel Ansari]

artists, music, life, the universe, and everything.

*cough* *cough* 42 *cough* *cough*

[HitoriJaNai]

......hnnngghhhow is that ironic?!

Sorry, poor word choice on my part. I'm not at all sure why I put it like that.

[big giant circles]

Of course back then, music couldn't really be plagiarized in the same way AT ALL. Since no recordings existed, most everything was passed on by either writing or by mouth to ear. As far as music went, there wasn't any such thing as a "production" (as in music that had been recorded, sequenced, mixed, mastered, PRODUCED in a certain way.)

So I'm not really sure how that ties into people being pissed that someone would steal their work and try to say "Yeah, listen to this cool track I did." Regardless of whether or not the music was free, it's still theft. True, in most cases on here, it's just small potatoes of kids who want the attention of people thinking they did something awesome that they actually didn't, but whether it's for attention or money they still need to not do that crap.

I can understand that it's flattering in a way, but the one time it happened to me, it was only a hair above the flattery I felt when some douche bag felt I had a nice enough radio in my car that he busted out my window and tore up my dash board trying to pull it out.

[LuketheXjesse]

Unfortunately this is one problem I see with OC Remix and similar places.

Did you know that in the old days (like before the printing press 'old days') that plagiarism wasn't as big a deal as it is now? Even Shakespeare's plays borrow heavily from other plays of the time, and he did not need to have copyright notices or a long list of citations or a permission slip. If he had made his plays in modern times, people would call him a ripoff artist probably.

But now, we worship artists as if they are gods. It's getting ridiculous. Not that I have a problem with copyright or accreditation, not at all. But it's a double edged sword. When we have such high standards and mass appeal, it drives people to seek fame more than ever - to the point they will blatantly steal your work for the praise only. The more awesome we think something is, the more likely it will be ripped by somebody who seeks to be awesome.

It's a shame, really...

But yeah, personally I don't care (as far as my work is concerned). I always post any work I give away on youtube, that way I can prove 'prior art' because it is clearly timestamped, and I don't really care about credit if I don't know I've been robbed in the first place. Of course if I find out, I'd clear it up, but that's if I find it. I'm not looking.

Why the hell would you not care if someone stole your own work? When I make a remix, I make damn sure that everyone knows that *I* put the hard work and determination into it. I don't want some talentless schmuck saying THEY put the work into my or anyone else's music when in fact they didn't. It's their way of getting positive attention for something they didn't even do, and I'm not going to let them get away with it. If they REALLY want the positive attention associated with making music, they can go learn to do it from scratch like we all did.

[TimberWolf]

I have issues with this too, although not with music. It just irks me when i've gotta fight to do the work, and someone skates in and "picks up" at the easiest moment, and then acts like they accomplished something. Then, people say that i'm the copycat when i point out who did what. It must be fun sliding through life on other's work, but i don't understand it. Guess that's why i'm a terrible manager of anything but me.

[big giant circles]

If they REALLY want the positive attention associated with making music, they can go learn to do it from scratch like we all did.

Oh, I didn't learn from scratch. I had an implant. Kind of expensive, and I had to travel to the future and back to get it, but it was worth it. Only thing is, I can't remember anything that happened before 2003...

[gwilendiel]

Oh, I didn't learn from scratch. I had an implant. Kind of expensive, and I had to travel to the future and back to get it, but it was worth it. Only thing is, I can't remember anything that happened before 2003...

Wish I could have done that. O.O

For me it was picking up a music book on my dad's piano when I was about 8, and looking through his cheat card for reading music for piano and thinking '2+2=4'... I then taught myself to play Für Elise over the course of a couple months (hey, I was 8 and teaching myself heh)

Now I'm 30..ish. And haven't stopped since.

Anyway... just felt like making an anecdote there.

[Genoism]

too bad i can't plagiarize your skills....i'd be making music non stop lol

[big giant circles]

stuff

I get the impression that you are confusing someone borrowing ideas from your work and someone actually taking your song and saying they wrote it.

We're not talking about someone sampling a few measures from your song or using the same melody or chord progression (like in the case of Satriani vs. Coldplay here -

) We're talking about if say, Coldplay had taken "If I Could Fly" straight off of Satch's CD and said it was their song.

In response to the "Why should I care?" perspective, I suppose the degree to which you care is probably governed by the situation. If it's just some 14 year old kid who's starved for attention and thinks he can impress a few people who don't know him on the internet by taking credit for a song he did not create in any way, it's probably not a huge deal, but he still needs a good kick in the ass. What if we take the same kid and instead of just renaming your song and putting it on his website as his track, he burns it onto a CD and starts selling his CD locally. Do you care yet? Not really perhaps? Well, what if he sells a LOT of CDs, so he makes more and keeps selling. Maybe more people take notice and he starts getting recognition and attention for your song. Do you still not know why you should care? If you don't care, then you are probably what most people would call a DOORMAT.

Here's a non-music example. Your neighbors get called out of town on a family emergency. They don't have time to arrange anything to be taken care of, they just have time to pack and leave. They're gone for at least a couple weeks, and you notice their lawn is getting out of control. You like your neighbors and don't want them to get fined by the city/neighborhood or whatever so you decide to go mow it for them out of generosity. They have a big yard, full of obstacles and bumps and hills and trees, and it takes you a long time. But hours later, you've successfully trimmed the grass, weeded and fertilized their garden, watered the plants and collected and mulched the clippings.

The neighbors return, but you don't tell them it was you. Later on, you're talking with them when another neighbor you don't know walks up to you both and says "Hey, I hope you don't mind, but I took care of your lawn while you were gone."

"What's the big deal? It's not like I was doing it for the recognition anyway," you might still say. Well, what if your neighbor is so ecstatic that she says "Oh! How thoughtful! Here is a gift certificate to a really nice restaurant to show you my appreciation, and I absolutely insist that you take it!"

If any of that doesn't insult you in some way on some level, then there is just flat out something wrong with you. In all seriousness, would you really just stand there and let it happen? Back to what I said earlier, not caring doesn't make you noble, it makes you a doormat.

This doesn't mean that every case of plagiarism deserves SERIOUS LEGAL ACTION or something, but you just seem to not comprehend why we don't like it when people steal our work.