15.14 Plagiarism
WHAT IS PLAGIARISM? =================== Plagiarism is: (a) the use of someone else's ideas or language AND (b) the representation of these as your own work. Point (a) includes taking someone's work and adapting it or incorporating someone else's work into your own. This includes use of artificial intelligence (AI) to write part or all of your work. WHEN IS PLAGIARISM AGAINST THE RULES? ===================================== Plagiarism will be against Lusternia's rules if: - it infringes copyright; or - it confers an unfair benefit on a character or organisation. Copyright ========= Copyright is a 'right' over literary or other works. By owning the copyright to a particular work, the owner of the copyright has various powers over it. In particular, he is the only person allowed to copy the work or issue copies of it (although he can give permission to other people to do so). Copyright lasts for different lengths of time in different legal jurisdictions. Ordinarily it will last for 50 to 70 years after the writer has died. The poems of Ted Hughes are protected by copyright; the poems of William Shakespeare are not. If you copy a piece of work over which there is copyright for use in Lusternia, then you may make both you and us liable to be sued in civil courts or prosecuted in criminal proceedings. Any plagiarism which infringes copyright is against Lusternia's rules. The offending article will be removed from the game. The offending player may be subject to punishment. An Unfair Benefit ================= If you: - use the work of another person or artificial intelligence (AI); and - claim it is your own; and - thereby gain an unfair benefit over other players then you have broken Lusternia's rules. For the alleviation of any doubt, the following instances are considered gaining an unfair benefit over other players: - Submitting a plagiarised work: o to a Bardic or Artisanal competition; or o as a library or bookshelf book; or o as a play in the theatre system; or o as a design to the Charites. This list is not exhaustive. WHEN MIGHT PLAGIARISM NOT BE AGAINST THE RULES? =============================================== Very rarely. It must not infringe copyright. It must not confer an unfair benefit. It must not harm immersion or be OOC. If in doubt, file an issue requesting clarification.
