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My question is based on a real-life incident that is making the rounds recently.

One YouTuber ("iilluminaughtii", real name Blair) sued (or threatened to sue) another YouTuber ("LegalEagle", real name Devin) for plagiarism, because one of Devin's video editors asked one of Blair's video editors how they had achieved a visual effect in some video. Here is one example Blair cited on Twitter:

Two side-by-side examples of a torn-paper effect

Both YouTubers have occasionally used this "torn paper" effect when presenting written material in their videos.

This specific incident seems spurious because there's a huge amount of prior art exactly like this that predates Blair's entire career, but it's also my instinct that even if that weren't the case, this kind of thing would not be plagiarism.

I want to consider a more focused hypothetical case: Alice publishes a video with a totally novel visual effect. Bob sees Alice's published work, is impressed, and also has a fitting use for the effect. (A real-world case might be "bullet time" from The Matrix, which later showed up in a several other movies.)

Is it plagiarism if one of Bob's staff asks one of Alice's staff how they did the effect, and the staff member explains how they did it, and then Bob uses it in a new work that has no other similarities to Alice's work?

Is the answer different if Bob's staff reverse-engineers the effect instead of asking them?

My gut tells me we're crossing a line between different kinds of intellectual property, perhaps from copyright into letters patent, and there are some kinds of thing that simply aren't protected by any kind of IP law, but I would like to know the truth.

Tom
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    Are either person involved in academia? Plagiarism is an academic issue, not a legal one. – Dale M Dec 09 '23 at 05:35
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    The real example is not from a school setting, nor did I imagine my hypothetical to be. Blair and Devin are (among other things) random adults who post big videos on YouTube, for which they are paid by YouTube (Google) based on views, and also advertising deals, merch, and similar things they independently seek out. – Tom Dec 09 '23 at 07:09
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    Then plagiarism has no business being in the question. It’s also not “offiside” (for whatever sport you might name) - plagiarism or offside are real things in their context; it’s just that the law isn’t their context. – Dale M Dec 09 '23 at 08:56
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    OP's question is fine. If a person wants to know whether alleged acts of plagiarism is grounds for a lawsuit -- as is clearly the case here -- it seems like they need to say that in the question. And of course, the answer is sometimes, because plagiarism often amounts to a copyright violation. – bdb484 Dec 09 '23 at 14:42
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    @DaleM I'm afraid I had to ask about "plagiarism," because that was the charge being bandied about elsewhere. However, as you've explained, there is a bit of an XY problem here, and that's part of why your responses have been valuable. Thanks! – Tom Dec 10 '23 at 04:05
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    AFAIK, Blair never threatened a lawsuit. She brought motions only in the court of public opinions. – Acccumulation Dec 11 '23 at 04:51
  • I’m voting to close this question because it's not about law – Gregory Currie Dec 12 '23 at 04:17
  • @GregoryCurrie In defense of its appropriateness: I assumed an act was criminalized and asked about the criteria for establishing it. It turned out the act is not criminalized, although it does have significant overlap with other acts that are. I assume "is X illegal" is valid here, as would be "what are the elements of crime X" and "if a person does X, what crimes will they have committed." I skipped a few steps in there, for reasons (including ignorance), but I think on analysis this is all within bounds. – Tom Dec 12 '23 at 18:16
  • Did you even follow up on your original inspiration for this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDV71uqk_Gs&t=106s

    iilluminaughtii to Legal Eagle "I made a mistake and plain and simple, I was wrong" and "I messed up and I am sorry"

     – CitizenRon Dec 12 '23 at 21:08
  • @CitizenRon I did not. I posted to learn about the boundary between IP law & skill-acquisition. I'm a programmer who teaches ppl how to perform the craft, often in the context of work-for-hire -- the video editors in my Q might as well be stand-ins for me & my colleagues. I accepted user6726's answer in part because they explicitly discuss "how-to" (which smells to me like my focus) although I will confess it doesn't delve into as much detail as I wanted. Re: Blair & Devin, I have no dog in their fight, and their amicable resolution, though welcome, doesn't help me; I cited them for ripeness. – Tom Dec 12 '23 at 21:39

3 Answers3

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First, plagiarism is taking claiming some intellectual work as your own without giving proper attribution (there are other optional social rules regarding plagiarism which we don't need to get into). Plagiarism is not prohibited by law, just by your teacher or publisher. Copyrights, patents and trademarks are completely different and do involve law (ergo possible lawsuits).

Applied to a special effect in a movie, e.g. a voice of video effect, the technique for producing the effect could be protected by a patent, if the inventor had obtained a patent. Reverse engineering is irrelevant, because the specifics of how-to are publicly known, so that you can know "I can't do it this way". If a method is patented, you cannot use the method without permission. Creating a similar effect using a different method is not patent infringement. Creating a visual or audio effect that only has "the same vague idea" is not copyright infringement, but copying the actual sound of video clips is copyright infringement. In short: plagiarism is legally irrelevant. Copyright and patent infringement are pretty specific and completely different things.

user6726
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    Trademark protection may apply to an appearance (though I would doubt it in this case). – RBarryYoung Dec 10 '23 at 12:41
  • Is it the case that whether Alice has any legal recourse will depend on whether she has previously undertaken to formally obtain a legal monopoly (whether through copyright, a patent, etc.)? – Tom Dec 11 '23 at 05:30
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    @Tom: It depends on the type of IP protection. In order from most legal recourse to least: Copyright is granted automatically, even without formal registration. The registration may be necessary prior to a lawsuit, but need not be done in advance (but it's often a good idea to do so). Trademarks must be registered in advance. Unregistered trademarks provide minimal protection, but it's often regional. Patents must be registered in advance. Patent registration is time-consuming, but there are mechanisms in place to provide patent protection while a patent application is in progress. – Brian Dec 11 '23 at 15:39
  • What about "look and feel" copyrights? That was the issue in Apple vs. Microsoft. – Barmar Dec 11 '23 at 17:10
  • "Creating a similar effect using a different method is not patent infringement." What if the result is exactly the same, but the methods are "different"? But then, if f₁(x) = f₂(x) for all x, then f₁ = f₂, even though the methods are ostensibly "different". Is there such a thing as a method that is different if it always produces the exact same output as the other method? – muntoo Dec 12 '23 at 07:12
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    @muntoo it is easy to imagine real world examples. I could have two different processes which create the same chemical molecule in the end. But both may involve different steps/temperatures/initial conditions. – Falco Dec 12 '23 at 10:06
  • @muntoo For example, the many many types of pencil sharpeners. – Schwern Dec 12 '23 at 18:21
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Plagiarism is not a legal issue

Plagiarism is a type of academic misconduct where a person passes off another persons work as their own or uses another’s work without appropriate citation. It is not a type of wrong that the law recognizes.

It is a matter for universities and colleges, not the courts.

Dale M
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    So, if I reprint Stephen King's It, but change the title, put my name on it, and use ChatGPT to "right-click-thesaurus" every sentence, I'm definitely a plagiarist, but that's not what King (or his publisher) would sue me for; they'd sue me for copyright violation. Is that right? – Tom Dec 09 '23 at 07:18
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    @Tom none of that is plagiarism (unless you submit it as a thesis for a creative writing degree); all of that is copyright violation. – Dale M Dec 09 '23 at 08:56
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    @DaleM It's plagiarism if you submit it as a thesis, but also if you just publish it, or otherwise claim it as your own work. The context of the plagiarism just determines whether it's considered a "University disciplinary offence", not whether it's plagiarism at all. (At least, according to Oxford.) – wizzwizz4 Dec 10 '23 at 01:24
  • @wizzwizz4 you clearly missed the opening sentence “The University defines plagiarism”. Outside “the University”, no one cares. – Dale M Dec 10 '23 at 10:35
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    @DaleM it may not be a legal issue, but if I present your work as my own, I am committing plagiarism whether it is in the context of an academic institution or not. If I present your work to my sister as my own, that's still plagiarism. Perhaps nobody cares, sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't plagiarism or that the act of plagiarism requires the involvement of an academic institution. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarizing. For instance, it is also a thing in the workplace and if I present my colleague's work as my own, I am plagiarizing my colleague. – terdon Dec 10 '23 at 14:30
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    Plagiarism is simply an act of taking someone else's intellectual work and passing it off as your own. For example, stand-up comedians get accused of plagiarism all the time for stealing jokes from other comedians. – Davor Dec 10 '23 at 15:21
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    It’s just that outside university, plagiarism is not illegal in many places. (In Germany, the author of a work is the only one who is allowed to claim they are the author, so plagiarism might be illegal). – gnasher729 Dec 11 '23 at 14:18
  • @gnasher729: Does that mean that in Germany it's illegal to hire a ghostwriter? – ruakh Dec 12 '23 at 04:43
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    @ruakh I don't know the specifics of German law, but it would be common on that case to sign a contract with the ghost writer where they either agree to transfer their authorship rights, or agree not to enforce them if they are inalienable. – James_pic Dec 12 '23 at 10:12
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    You can't transfer the authorship rights. You can hire a ghost writer for your autobiography, you just cannot legally claim that you wrote it. I have seen something similar in books by US authors who wrote they had the moral right to be named as the author, which I take means they actually wrote it. – gnasher729 Dec 12 '23 at 19:57
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Others have explained that plagiarism is a technical term in academia.

With regard to the example, however, I'd like to point out that even in an academic context, plagiarism is likely not applicable here:

Alice's staff teaches Bob's staff how to produce that visual effect. Alice's staff then goes on an applies the learned procedure to their [Alice's group's] own work. This is not plagiarism, this is teaching and learning as academia supposed it to happen.

Plagiarism would come into play iff Alice's staff claimed that they invented/discovered/developed the procedure themselves (or in an academic publication omitted to mention Bob's staff as the source of knowledge they used since that would amount to the claim of having invented/discovered/developed it themselves).

But neither working according to that new procedure/technique, nor the product of that is plagiarized.

Of course, Alice may sue their staff for revealing confidential information/business secrets, depending on the terms of their contract.

cbeleites unhappy with SX
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