I’ve Been Fanficced

I was a writer/producer on SEAQUEST 2032, which was cancelled mid-way through production of  its third season, though scripts were ordered for several more episodes. William Rabkin and I wrote one of those scripts, which was entitled "About Face," and would have been episode 14 of the season. The script has been lost, but a SEAQUEST fan named Rod J. Glasbergen has taken  our one-page treatment for the episode and used it as the basis for his own fanfic story, which he’s posted on the net with this byline and disclaimer:

seaQuest
2032: the Continuation is as the title suggest the continuation of
seaQuest 2032.  I have for this reason started with episode 14 of the
incomplete third season.

About-Face

By Rod J. Glasbergen

Based on an original outline by Lee Goldberg and William
Rabkin

– used without permission –

Since he admits that he did it without permission,  I guess that makes it okay, right? Fanficcers certainly have a bizarre take on what constitutes copyright infringement.

Rod even lifts some of our lines of description and bad temp dialogue word-for-word and uses them in his story as his own (I can’t imagine what Rod would have written, and claimed as his own, if he’d actually managed to get his hands on our detailed outline or our actual script).  He’s not some kid, either…he’s in his mid-20s and even has the chutzpah to take credit for the creation of the rest of the third season:

SeaQuest 2032: the Continuation and all related materials are the concept of Rod Glasbergen.

I don’t think his version of our SEAQUEST 2032 "About Face" story would even qualify as legitimate  ‘fanfic’ to fanficcers. This is simply a blatant  rip-off of someone else’s work.

Shame on you, Rod.

(Thanks to Adam for the heads-up)

UPDATE 8-20-2006: I heard from Rod today. He wrote:

I clearly intended no offence to you or Mr Rabkin in my attempt to
flesh out ABOUT FACE  as a fan fiction.  The idea behind continuing
SEAQUEST 2032 as a multi-episode fanfic was not designed to offend or
insult the writters and producers or anyone involved in the making of
SEAQUEST. I apologize if my work too closely resembles your own, and if you would like I will remove the episode from my website.

I appreciate his willingness to remove the "episode" from his site (and I’ve taken him up on his offer). But he still doesn’t get what he’s done wrong. He’s sorry if his work too closely resembles ours? It is ours.  He literally took our story idea and tried to write it himself.  At least he’s taking it off the net…