Would this be considered plagiarism?

[3afash]

So recently I have been looking for niches to fill and I noticed that the market for personal development products in my native language is very ripe and most of the people are not exposed to the products that are in English so making a product in their language would be helpful to them. So I thought of reading three or four books and ebooks that I purchased recently, writing detailed notes about them and then translating these notes and adding a few ideas of mine and connecting everything in my own way afterwards and then selling that as an ebook. So essentially I'll be learning what I can and then making my own product using the knowledge that I gained from these resources but I'm concerned because some of my ideas or most of them will not be "mine"... Would that be considered plagiarism? If so, what is the way to make it legal? Also, since a topic like personal development (I'm thinking of doing this with other topics such as health, style, business) is very broad, if I don't copy what is said in these products word-by-word, do I have to reference them?

I'd appreciate any advice if you have any backround in legal matters...

[Curtis2011]

From what I've heard, copyright laws apply to the method of how an idea is delivered, but not to an idea itself.

For instance, nobody can copyright the idea of exercising every morning, but you sure as hell copyright an exercise workout dvd set that teaches you how to get into the habit of exercising every morning.

For the most part, just don't copy things word for word and you will be fine.

[joyfulgrowth]

The way you describe it, probably most authors and publishers would see it as plagiarism. If you are unsure, ask a publisher, they are really good at legal issues.

Especially if you are planning to monetize it, it should be very clear what your contribution to the text is other than summarizing and paraphrasing it.

[hawkal]

I was under the impression that copyright laws were based on the product not the idea, for example if someone writes a book with unique idea's it would be illegal to republish sections of the book but it would be legal to lift their idea's from the book and put them into your own words but then I read that Tony Robbins was sued by an author because he had used words that happened to be in the authors book in one of his workshops.

It was not word for word copying, it was just using similar words in the same context but would still be considered unique to the authors work, yet he lost the case, I know they appealed but I don't know if they won the appeal. If not he would of paid out nearly $700k.

[joyfulgrowth]

It may also differ from country to country.

However, imagine you were an author with a bestseller, and somebody would summarize your concepts in an e-book.

You may have planned to publish your book in that country a year later. You may be concerned whether your ideas will be represented the way you meant them. You may care about in what contexts your ideas are sold (e.g. if someone sells books about personal development and beating up kids for educational purposes).

How about bringing something truly original to it, like seriously researching the adaptation of the concepts to your culture?

[rocksupreme]

It depends on how you present it. If you just want to sell "Some Translated Summaries of Unnamed Personal Development Books," you should be fine. But if you are using the titles of those books in an effort to attract buyers, you will need to license translation rights from the publisher.

[The Rock]

If you paraphrase then plagiarism is NOT illegal. Only when you copy more than a couple sentences word for word does make it illegal because then it is copyright infringement.

[runningbird]

Ideas are not copyrighted, but if someone looks at a section of your book and says "oh, it is a translated paraphrasing of Personal Development for Dummies", or some book, I'd say that's copyright infringment. It's a shakey issue for sure, because what is truly original? Everything is made up of pieces of other things. Shake well.

[CoolBee]

If in doubt apply many quotation marks, references and so forth.

It is plagiarism when it is presented as your OWN work. Even if you paraphrase, you should still reference the original ideas (Bloggs, 1999) or whatever.

If you quote exactly, even in translation, then put quote marks round it and reference the source.

If you provide your own underlying linking theme and write a script that goes something like:

Many writers recommend the benefits of early morning exercise. For example, Mr Bloggs in his book "Exercising in the Morning" (Bloggs, 1999) says that it raises the blood pressure in your brain cells and makes them more productive. Mrs Smith claims that it enhances your green aura (Smith, 2004)

or whatever.

That would not be plagiarism.

[runningbird]

Oops a couple of us have said that ideas are not copyrighted, but according to plagiarism.org:

"Changing only the words of an original source is NOT sufficient to prevent plagiarism. You must cite a source whenever you borrow ideas as well as words."

[The Rock]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Oops a couple of us have said that ideas are not copyrighted, but according to plagiarism.org:

"Changing only the words of an original source is NOT sufficient to prevent plagiarism. You must cite a source whenever you borrow ideas as well as words."

Plagiarism and copyright are totally different. You can't sue someone for plagiarism because it is not illegal, unless you infringe upon the author's intellectual property rights.

If I take some article on a blog, completely paraphrase and post it on my own site then it won't be copyright infringement. Yes, it is plagiarism but it is 100% legal in this scenario.

[hawkal]

Nevermind

[runningbird]

Originally Posted by The Rock

Plagiarism and copyright are totally different. You can't sue someone for plagiarism because it is not illegal, unless you infringe upon the author's intellectual property rights.

If I take some article on a blog, completely paraphrase and post it on my own site then it won't be copyright infringement. Yes, it is plagiarism but it is 100% legal in this scenario.

Are you assuming that a blog isn't copyrighted? Plagiarism of copyrighted material is illegal, and everything should be assumed copyrighted unless explicitly contributed to the public domain or published under a creative commons license.

[The Rock]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Are you assuming that a blog isn't copyrighted? Plagiarism of copyrighted material is illegal, and everything should be assumed copyrighted unless explicitly contributed to the public domain or published under a creative commons license.

Eh, I said it there man. Read that post of mine again:

Plagiarism and copyright are totally different. You can't sue someone for plagiarism because it is NOT illegal, unless you infringe upon the author's intellectual property rights.

Plagiarism in and of itself isn't illegal, regardless of whether or not the material is copyrighted or not. It's only illegal when you plagiarize more than a few sentences word-for-word.

I know blogs are copyrighted. Anything created online is copyrighted automatically, I know that.

[runningbird]

I was just trying to clarify your stance. You seemed to imply that blogs weren't copyrighted, and I still don't see where you made that clear, but anyway...

Copyright.gov says: "What is copyright infringement? As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner." So if you paraphrase an article without getting the first author's permisison, wouldn't that fit the description of "made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner"? I am just trying to understand.

[mypcandi]

Which is considered plagiarism copying the idea, the way it is formulated or both? I think we can discuss other people's ideas or use them but we can't steal the way they are formulated. I think!

[Brutha]

There are multiple meanings of the word plagiarism.
One happens to be the academic meaning where you generally don't plagiarize when you quote your sources.
If you copy your homework from your classmate with the permission of your classmate you aren't violating any copyright but you are still engaging in plagiarism in the academic sense.

The other happens to be the legal meaning it's about violating someones copyright. Whether something is a derivate work and whether fair use applies varies a bit from country to country.

Ideas by itself aren't protected by copyright but a text can be protected by copyright and changing words around in a text doesn't remove the copyright.