Question about plagiarism

[Li'l devil]

So, I'm working on a few maps (not really working, actually, because I'm lazy as fuck, but that's a different story) and I got a few questions:

1) If I recreate a level from other (not-Doom related) game in Doom and post it on idgaems, will it be rejected for plagiarism?

2) If I don't fully copy that level, but instead, say, use the same layout for my map, will it be considered plagiarism?

3) If I use textures from other games in my totally unique map, will this be considered plagiarism?

Spoiler

In short, I just wanna plagiarize shit because I don't have my own original ideas, and I want to know if it's legal here, yeah...

[vadrig4r]

Here's a good place to start.

[kuchitsu]

TimeOfDeath submitted various remakes of levels from other games and they were accepted. Textures from other games are OK too, see e.g. https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/graphics/dukeres

[scifista42]

I'd say that the answer to all 3 of your questions is: Such a wad would be technically plagiarism, but this form of plagiarism is generally tolerated on /idgames, and accepted.

[NinjaLiquidator]

You ask like you did it for money :D nobody would tear your ears off for using somebody else's stuff. Worst thing that can happen is that you will get bad reviews.

[Devalaous]

Doomworld only seems to care if its a direct identical copy or PG/H2P stuff.

If your going to borrow parts of maps, build them from scratch, like how Switcheroom does it. I'd say also credit the original mapper the idea/area/map came from too

[Li'l devil]

Thanks for your replies. The reason I asked was because there seemed to be a lot of maps rejected for copyrighted material and I thought that levels from other games could be classified as copyright material, too.

Ok, one more question: if I use soundtrack (not-midi) from other game, will it be accepted at idgames?
(..I guess not, since everybody here uses those midis..)

[kuchitsu]

Back when the archive was maintained by Ty, non-midi soundtracks from other games were often accepted (see Sacrament, for example). Unfortunately the new maintainers are much more strict and now such things usually get rejected.

Imo you shouldn't sacrifice your artistic vision just because some guys on the internet apparently decided what is allowed and what isn't. Do what u want, be a free artist.

[scifista42]

^ In that case, the default answer is no (see point 11 here), although there are wads with such music that managed to get accepted onto /idgames anyway (maybe they were missed, maybe the archive maintainer decided to be benevolent in their cases, whatever).

[Chezza]

There are lots of wads that use content such as music, props, monsters, textures and even scripts from other peoples wads. But as per the rules, they got permission for the artists. Lots of people go to Realm 667 which is work the authors published for anyone to use, just as long as credit is given appropriately (there is a necessary file and procedure that guides you when you submit your wad).

Although I know your major concern is map layouts. In most cases no one will notice unless you obviously copy beyond reason. To be on the safe side, always throw in your inspirations and details of its authors in the credits.