The latest news from UNICA is that one of the films shown at the 2013 festival - and which won awards - has now been revealed as plagiarism. Some of the visuals, soundtrack and even commentary was taken from a television programme. The UNICA Awards have now been handed back. The film maker's own federation is stripping him of their awards for his work.
I do not want to discuss that particular case and perhaps to do so would take us into legally murky water.
But I am interested to know:
a) has anyone ever come across plagiarism of movies in the British non-commercial world?
b) what should we do if we have reason to suspect it?
c) is there any way that a competition or its parent organisation could guard against it?
Note: I do not mean films which use someone else's work with appropriate credits - such as the many films using historical material from the Imperial War Museum.
PLAGIARISM
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Dave Watterson
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- Location: Bath, England
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TimStannard
- Posts: 1235
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- Location: Surrey
Re: PLAGIARISM
That leaves a nasty taste, Dave. It brings the whole area of non-commercial film-making competitions (not just UNICA) into disrepute.
From my point of view:
a) has anyone ever come across plagiarism of movies in the British non-commercial world?
Not as far as I'm aware.
b) what should we do if we have reason to suspect it?
What we in the audience/fellow competitors should do is make every effort to find the original material and present that, along with the accusations to the festival/competition organisers. Simply stating "He nicked that bit from a Sci Fi B movie I saw in 1959" would put an unreasonable workload on the organisers."
The organisers, having examined the proof should then present it to the "accused" and ask for an explanation, an apology and a return of the award.
Whether or not the accused should be banned from future entry is a greyer area - for example they may claim the footage was contributed by a third party (possibly also credited in the film), claiming it was his own - so the accused might have been acting in good faith.
c) is there any way that a competition or its parent organisation could guard against it?
I don't see how. Given the few people who judge or select films there is little chance of it being discovered until it has been seen by a large audience.
We have to take these entries on trust. Entrants sign entry forms to state the work is their own and/or they are entitled to use it. If people are so intent on cheating they will. If they win an award they are cheating themselves more than anyone else.
One might argue that they have cheated the "true" winner, but in my, admittedly limited, experience the top films in any festival could easily be won by more than one film so what one judge might consider the "best" would not necessarily have won anyway.
From my point of view:
a) has anyone ever come across plagiarism of movies in the British non-commercial world?
Not as far as I'm aware.
b) what should we do if we have reason to suspect it?
What we in the audience/fellow competitors should do is make every effort to find the original material and present that, along with the accusations to the festival/competition organisers. Simply stating "He nicked that bit from a Sci Fi B movie I saw in 1959" would put an unreasonable workload on the organisers."
The organisers, having examined the proof should then present it to the "accused" and ask for an explanation, an apology and a return of the award.
Whether or not the accused should be banned from future entry is a greyer area - for example they may claim the footage was contributed by a third party (possibly also credited in the film), claiming it was his own - so the accused might have been acting in good faith.
c) is there any way that a competition or its parent organisation could guard against it?
I don't see how. Given the few people who judge or select films there is little chance of it being discovered until it has been seen by a large audience.
We have to take these entries on trust. Entrants sign entry forms to state the work is their own and/or they are entitled to use it. If people are so intent on cheating they will. If they win an award they are cheating themselves more than anyone else.
One might argue that they have cheated the "true" winner, but in my, admittedly limited, experience the top films in any festival could easily be won by more than one film so what one judge might consider the "best" would not necessarily have won anyway.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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Peter Copestake
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- Location: Colne, Lancashire
Re: PLAGIARISM
This happened to a local club competition that I was asked to judge years ago. The film concerned a visit to a tourist-type site and I was surprised at the steadiness and quality of several minutes of footage taken underground. I rang the site, asked if they had a video of the attraction, they had, I bought a copy and my suspicions were seen to be well founded. I put this in my comments and did not give an award. The maker said he'd only done it for a record for his companions on the outing.
I have myself recently used 4-5 seconds of footage from a 20 year-old news-magazine-type programme. Prior to doing so I emailed the successor channel for permission but my email wasn't answered. If I don't profit from this do folk feel I should remove it? I didn't credit it. Should I tell any competition organiser? I'm not entering it to BIAFF.
Glad of views.
I have myself recently used 4-5 seconds of footage from a 20 year-old news-magazine-type programme. Prior to doing so I emailed the successor channel for permission but my email wasn't answered. If I don't profit from this do folk feel I should remove it? I didn't credit it. Should I tell any competition organiser? I'm not entering it to BIAFF.
Glad of views.
Peter Copestake
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Bob Lorrimer
- Posts: 67
- Joined: Fri May 01, 2009 4:15 pm
Re: PLAGIARISM
Something of a fine line...I suppose....one of our top Film makers at Huddersfield has a successful film which relies heavily upon the 'published' still photography of a professional photographer.
In this instance the Documentary is relating the "story" which applies to these images and I cannot imagine the word plagiarism would apply to his film...even though the word is defined as "Informal Cribbing" "Piracy" "Theft" to name but a few terms.
If an amateur film 'director' seeks to pass off a sequence as an original work of his own then Plagiarism it most certainly is...but what happens if he acknowledges the content in his credits? To some extent most documentary film makers are seeking to endorse their subject matter with outsourced material....
In this film I plagiarise my own film!
Bob
In this instance the Documentary is relating the "story" which applies to these images and I cannot imagine the word plagiarism would apply to his film...even though the word is defined as "Informal Cribbing" "Piracy" "Theft" to name but a few terms.
If an amateur film 'director' seeks to pass off a sequence as an original work of his own then Plagiarism it most certainly is...but what happens if he acknowledges the content in his credits? To some extent most documentary film makers are seeking to endorse their subject matter with outsourced material....
In this film I plagiarise my own film!
Bob
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Michael Slowe
- Posts: 824
- Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:24 pm
Re: PLAGIARISM
Nice one Bob, clever and it looks fantastic.
No clearance problems there but I've had one or two. In my last year's documentary on the famous cellist I had to use some BBC archive footage. This was made available to me by the production company who had been asked to make a DVD on the quartet of which my musician had been a member. It took me about nine months finally to get the licence from the BBC, the cost was not exorbitant. No problems until a record company in Germany who are re issuing music recorded by the quartet, want to send out my film as an 'extra' with the CD's. (I was not asking for payment) and I told them that we had to clear this with the BBC. I put them in contact but I fear that they will ask rather more than the record company are prepared to pay.
The point of all this is that I want to stress that using other people's archive material is quite justified just as long as it fits naturally into a documentary and is credited (as mine is) and, most important of all, is cleared for copyright by way of a formal licence.
No clearance problems there but I've had one or two. In my last year's documentary on the famous cellist I had to use some BBC archive footage. This was made available to me by the production company who had been asked to make a DVD on the quartet of which my musician had been a member. It took me about nine months finally to get the licence from the BBC, the cost was not exorbitant. No problems until a record company in Germany who are re issuing music recorded by the quartet, want to send out my film as an 'extra' with the CD's. (I was not asking for payment) and I told them that we had to clear this with the BBC. I put them in contact but I fear that they will ask rather more than the record company are prepared to pay.
The point of all this is that I want to stress that using other people's archive material is quite justified just as long as it fits naturally into a documentary and is credited (as mine is) and, most important of all, is cleared for copyright by way of a formal licence.