Seen a lot of people complaining at the cost of good mouse scripts for commercial games, and it got me thinking: given you're making a commercial game, you need to know how a mouse script really works to be able to implement it well and test it properly at the end of it.

So, it would be logical to take apart the mouse script you have and put it back together, like taking apart an old clock to see how it works and then... getting it working again.

But at what point does this become "a new script"?

The things in scripts - the functions, lines, etc - are going to be relatively the same for any mouse system. It's the concepts that are important, but those concepts can only be coded in a few different ways, and it's best to go with the most efficient one, and there can only be one "most efficient".

So in that case, it's the concepts, not the actual script, you're paying for. ...but in something as "basic" as a mouse system (basic as in that the concept is basic, not necessarily it's implementation), the concept isn't really patentable or unique.

So, I'd put the case that if you take apart a script and put it back together in your own way, you have created a new script. You've learned from, but not copied and pasted, the old script.

...which is a horrible way to look at it, because either way, the original scripter deserves credit and royalties.

But that original scripter could have been one of many scripters to implement the same concepts in their own way.

I guess I'm trying to stir up debate or come up with an answer. I try not to use other people's scripts in my games, but... I do have a lot of scripts that are very similar to existing scripts, in as much as it's difficult to code them efficiently but also differently. And I did learn a lot of my scripting by reading other people's scripts, even if not deconstructing and remaking them like for like.

What's your thoughts. When does it become plagiarism? And when are you OK to claim something as your own?