Topic: Modifying a signature code, can or should this be considered as plagiarism?. - page 2. (Read 577 times)

i think it is mostly a grey area because on one hand a signature could be considered a "design" and because of that it could be intellectual property but also there is some confusion which rises because none of the signatures used by signature campaigns have ever used any kind of license with their code. so in a way they are publishing their code on public domain without any license. that could be interpreted as "you are free to use without attributing the authors" to some.
i say if anybody doesn't want their signature codes to be reused by others they should reserve their right by adding a copyright, it doesn't have to be all rights reserved (C) but the creative commons license with more flexibility that is more suitable for internet culture.

Nice point buddy, out of smerits if not I would had sent you some.I love how this is going. With your example I think it all depends on what the owner of the code what. If you observe closely, on countless occasion especially on the signature thread of chipmixer the signature code are usually modified by some members to either make a point in an argument or welcome new members, if I'm not mistaking too there's this user (Gyrsur) by username (just browse that out) promoting a separate project with the same design, Darkstar seems to haven't done anything about if which probably means he's cool with it.

I understand that some designs are so unique that it represents the project, like in the case of chipmixer that one doesn't need to see what's written before he associate the designs to chipmixer. When such design are user mostly it's just for clickbait. In a situation when such code are modified to an extend its doesn't have much similarities to that of the original, who that be ok?.

I beg to disagree with the idea that signature codes are there for anybody who wishes to use them as they please, with some modifications of course. Codes represent design. By the time the code is worn, it comes out a different thing, a signature. It must have taken a good deal of effort and time to create such design and convert it into a bbcode. As a matter of fact, it was created with a certain price tag. And so it is unfair to just choose among existing signature codes, do some little tweaking here and there, and then you have your signature.

Well, how do you feel if this happens:

For what it's worth, I can compare this scenario with using media player skins. You download skins from the internet, usually not knowing who wrote it, and even in those cases, there is no license or terms of use provided with them, just the little file you can add to your player. It is generally accepted among the public that such items can be freely modified and redistributed without violating the author's wishes, and if they don't want people to go about modifying it they can bundle a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivatives license with the skin.

Same idea for signature codes, because nobody really cared in the past if someone modified and adapted their signature for something else, it's accepted behavior. So if someone really didn't want you to change their signature, they would write that, or tell you directly. If you're really paranoid to enforce that then license it under one of the Creative Commons licenses. But neither of these can be classified as plagiarism because the derived work does not belong to them, only the original work (the latter case, if the license is breached, is a trust violation).

Stealing the signature code and then claiming it's yours is a different story that's definitely plagiarism and also a trust violation.

So if a designer just posts a signature code out in the open, chances are they don't care whether you modify it or not. If they did they'd contact you after you use a modified signature.


All writings are implicitly copyright of the entity that wrote them, by law. If the copyright holder has legal powers to prosecute you then they're most likely going to do that if you don't include a copyright attribution with © year author etc. But if they don't, like bitcointalk users, then there's no reason to add an attribution to the stuff you copy, a citation (the person/place you got it from, without a ©) is good enough. But some people want you to contact them for permission if you're copying large parts of it, and even in those cases, it's either verbal or written permission usually they don't ask you to add a copyright attribution to the stuff you copied.

So, the answer is without a citation for a signature code, you can't accuse someone who modified it, or copied it without stating who designed it (especially if the sig is already on the designer's portfolio like Jayce's) of plagiarism, but copying it and claiming it's your own is plagiarism, but moderators don't seem to go after those offenses yet.

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That guy ignored the designer when he tried to contact him about his copy, so a reasonable person can discern that he didn't give permission to anyone to modify his signature.

I think that's pretty much the case.  I don't know who the people are who design signature designs for campaigns and such, but I've never seen anybody state that the code is theirs or whatever.  I'm not a coder, so I'm not really sure about how to put that into words.

The question is really whether writing that's published (whether it's in a book, news article, or an online discussion forum like bitcointalk) should be treated the same way as code that shows up on the internet in one form or another.  I don't have the answer to that, and I don't know if there are any standards as far as copying code goes.  My opinion is that it's not ethical to use code that someone else created without their permission, but with respect to the rules of bitcointalk I don't know if doing so would be a violation of the plagiarism rule.

Sure, that's what you ought to do, but I'd say most of the time you don't necessarily know who wrote the code or how to contact them. 

And then even if you get their permission, how is anyone else supposed to know that the permission was granted?  It's not like you can include a statement to that effect in a signature code.

Should really be on this way yet its neither they would allow or not but at least you do ask for some permission as long you do modify a little bit and not looking exactly on which you had copied.

Its plagriasm in the sense you're using those codes but when there are alterations or changes then i dont see much of an issue.It does really give out bad impression for those people who do see the

signature is just the same into the original ones this is why its important to have permission so that at least if there are bitterness or issues arise then you can always show that you have been permitted.

I think it will depend on who design the signature code.

Why not ask them(Designer) first if you can use their signature code and modify it. This is the best you can do if you want to use their BBcodes.

And I think if the designer is already been offline for many years you can also use the old design and modify the code to design it with your own.

Or for safety, start reading and learn how to create your own signature design there are lots of tutorials out there but you can check this link below.

- [LEARN] BBCode Lessons & Tutorials [+tutorial videos!]

It's something tricky and I could depend on how the person who designed the original signature code feels. This kind of topic has been coming up once in a while in the reputations boards. Maybe you can look through the threads to see how members reacted
1. Stealing signature design
2. Plagiarism of My Signature Design - The accused got tagged and profile is banned. Not sure if it was due to the copied signature
3. Copycat Signatures: Chipmixer and Wasabi
4. The signature plagiarism is happening again
5. PLUGIAT ON CREATING SIGNATURES
6. Stolen Signature Design

From my opinion, I think it's unethical especially if you are going to advertise a service. Asking for permission would reduce the possibility of someone being bitter seeing his/her signature design being used someone. I think some people around here are cool if you asked for permission.

So I was thinking, the signature code are like open source code that anyone can modify since there's no restriction to who can use them (correct me if I'm wrong here). Personally when trying to create a signature ad for myself to wear in advertising my currency exchange business or other personal business, I chosen some signature code I found their ads to be attractive or perfect, do some adjustment and used the code on my profile to advertise my business. I'm not a coder nor have any indepth knowledge of creating the bbcodes. On no occasion also have I used any of the ad code in decieving users with clickbait.

So my question goes as this, if such event occurs when two projects have similar or exact signature ad format meaning the later obviously copied that of the first advertisers can this be deem punishable especially when permissions wasn't taken from the code owner.

On several occupations, I have seen project using similar signature code most especially as most knew code designers get their inspiration from previous designs.