Poll: Plagiarism and Nutjobs: A Tale of Extra Credits and Spirit Science

[Tactician42]

Alright. So there's this guy by the name of Jordan Duchnycz. He believes in some pretty wacko things, and I'll be the first to admit that he's rather charismatic about his absurd ideas. His "Spirit Science" (http://www.esoterictube.com/spirit-science.html) videos are actually starting to gain popularity. A friend sent me one the other day (in a "look at this loonie" kind of manner) and something immediately struck me as odd. The high pitched voice. The podium. Hell, some of the individual poses......All seem.....eerily familiar to....wait for it....Extra Credits. So now not only does this guy make part of my brain twitch with his purple prose laden Atlantean fanfiction, he's also possibly a thief, stealing from actual intelligent human beings. Any thoughts?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ya he copied the EC setup, still doesn't make him sane.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What, someone copies the style of a successful person?

C'mon, that'd never happen outside a particularly weird comic book from the 60's.

 

[Exterminas]

Uhm...? No?

He did not steal anything.

It may stagger you, but: Extra Credits neither invented the concept of a podium nor the concept of youtube-videos.

 

[Dogstile]

Uhm...? No?

He did not steal anything.

It may stagger you, but: Extra Credits neither invented the concept of a podium nor the concept of youtube-videos.

I thought this. Dude, come on, that's like saying Jim Sterling stole from EC because he uses a podium.

 

[Tactician42]

If it were merely just the podium I could understand. But the digitally squeakied voice, the uncannily familiar movements, the more than vague similarity in character design.......

 

[not_you]

It's not necessarily the point of theft... And to be honest, it's not really just a point in actual retardation for "taking" the idea...

I think the idea of the podium is more of a symbolic nature, it gives the speaker, and whatever they're talking about an essence of extra "meaning" as if it's more important than just a normal person talking like it means nothing...

Sure, there are some things that are common between those videos and EC, which is a little strange... But, the world is built off stealing other people's ideas...
Maybe stealing is the wrong word...
But, you get the idea...

 

[Exterminas]

What Videos have you been watching?

That nutjob uses a big blue monster. EC used a guy with a tie. Where is the similar design?

And yes, the voices sound similar.

But I am pretty sure sounding like a twelve-year-old while being a twelve-year-old proclaiming your bizarre world-view over the internet isn't exactly a copyright-infringement.

 

[Saltyk]

I've tried watching a few of those videos. While they are admittedly interesting... Yeah, I can't believe the concepts. Just a little too crazy conspiracy theory.

And I did see the similarity to Extra Credits in style. Probably why I tried to watch them, to be honest. I'm not sure I'd call it plagiarism, though. Just similar styles.

 

[Stilkon]

Actually, yeah, the format here is quite similar. The only real difference is that this guy is batshit crazy, whereas the EC guys actually know what they're talking about.

 

[Zhukov]

You realise that in their early videos the EC guys freely admitted to copying ZP, right?

They used to have a little thing at the end saying, "Inspired by Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation."

 

[XHolySmokesX]

the world is built off stealing other people's ideas...
Maybe stealing is the wrong word...

Learning would fit in quite well there, as a species humanity is as intelligent as we are because of our increased capacity to learn and make sence of that information. if we never copied anyone because it was 'idea theft' then there would have only been one monkey that descided to walk on it's hid legs and ww would have never evolved.

On to the topic at hand. i'm convinced the style he's using was learnt either from EC or from wherever EC learnt it from if they learnt it from somewhere else.

What i also find quite wierd is this style, probably becasue i watch EC every week without fail, is really persuasive. I have only watched 2 of those episodes, and they don't seem to be the ramblings of a mad man, rather the theories of someone who has spent a lot of time thinking, so I don't think this guy is a 'looney' just becasue he believes something different to the majority belief.

For me the looney line lies in someone prophesising bias opinions of information they haven't properly researched. If your going to turn around and say aliens had a hand in our evolution, don't shout it out untill you have found some evidence of ancient events that could be linked to such a theory.

 

[Jason Clem]

Everything in the world has been done before.... Any "original" idea can be linked to something else that is the same or similar... Did you every notice how are movie line ups keep repeating themselves because in the universal think tank there isn't anything else for them to make a movie about it's all been done before and it will all happen again and again...