Current Affairs

Novelist Holly Lisle promises to prosecute anybody who circulates  fanfic based on her work because "fanfic writers demonstrate not just blatant disregard for, but
active antagonism toward, the wishes of individual authors on this
issue."

UPDATE (6-24-05) Holly posted this as a comment on another blog entry:

"Ten years ago, I was, if not wildly supportive of the idea of
fanfic, at least tolerant of it. A few fans asked if they could write
fanfic using my characters, I told them they could as long as they
understood that they could not publish it and that I owned all rights
to the characters, and that under no circumstances would I be willing
to read what they’d written.

Times changed, associates started having to take legal action
against people who were writing in their worlds without permission, and
I asked my fans to please discontinue writing fanfiction in my worlds.
Which they did.

There were some fanfic writers posting in these threads who said
they would respect the wishes of authors who stated clearly that they
didn’t want fanfic written around their characters or worlds.

So obviously there are still some decent people like my fans who are
writing fanfic, and I feel badly about having to post a harsh notice
informing all fanfic writers that under no circumstances will I condone
any fanfic set in my worlds, and that any such writing that IS done
will be treated as derivative work and prosecuted.

Looking at the quality of people posting here, however — people who
are actively hostile toward the creators of the original work, who hold
the rights of the original creators in complete disregard, and who
state that they don’t care whether the original creators want them
writing in their worlds or not — that they intend to do what they want
until someone forces them to stop — I’m confident that the posting of
my notice is necessary.

As for taking heat from the people who have chosen to use my
statements as an opportunity to vilify me — ah, well. They’ve also
done a pretty good job of disseminating my wishing across a number of
sites and boards, thus decreasing the chances that someone writing
fanfic in one of my worlds could claim ignorance of my clearly worded
hands-off post.

So, to all of you who have been spreading the word for me, my deepest thanks."

Naomi Novik, one of the two "pro-fanfic" guests on OPEN SOURCE, comments on the radio show and the discussion here on her blog.
To give you a sense of the bizarre logic behind her arguments, she believes
that writing reference books about television (like my book UNSOLD
TELEVISION PILOTS)  is no different than fanfic.

And the books in the last category profit off the creations of others
*without* authorization — because legally you don’t need to have
authorization to report facts. So in the venn diagram of ‘borrowing
characters to write fiction’ and ‘use without authorization’, where
fanfic writers are in the intersection, he’s got one foot in either
camp even while he’s going after the people in the middle.

Need I say more? Okay, a little more. Here’s how she feels about authors who object to fanfic about their work:

I realized after posting, that the joking remark above might seem to
imply an insult any author who does object to fanfic. Not my intention
— I do understand individual authors who feel strongly that they don’t
want fanfic on their own work out there. If an author feels an intense
negative reaction to fanfic on her work, that is a completely valid
feeling. I don’t think that it obliges people to respect that feeling,
but it’s not ridiculous, it’s how she feels, and I personally do
respect that reaction out of courtesy.

Courtesy?? What
courtesy? She isn’t showing authors any courtesy at all. She "respects
the reaction," but not the author.  Her attitude is basically this:
Fuck JK Rowling if she doesn’t like stories about Harry using his magic
wand to have sex with everybody at Hogwarts.  Anything she writes
belongs to me to use however I see fit.

Her arrogance and stupidity is mind-boggling. Between her, and the
guy who made the "We more emotionally attached" comment, I think you
get a pretty accurate picture of the fanfic community and how they
think. Scary, isn’t it?

(I was amused, though, but her inadvertent acknowledgement of the central hypocrisy of fanficcers. If someday fanfic is written based on one of her
novel, she won’t read..

  …any of the fanfic anyway (just not worth the
potential legal headaches), so what difference does it make to me?

That statement says so much. Fanficcers see absolutely nothing wrong with stealing the work of other writers, even if it the author of the work is opposed to it, but
would sue any novelist or TV producer they think may have stolen something from their
fanfic.  Their work should be protected, it’s everybody else’s that up for grabs…)

Fan fic writers have no deadlines, networks/producers/actors to please,
and often have a better grasp on the characters and their history than
the tv writers usually because We Are more Emotionally attached.

The incredible stupidity of that blog comment tells you all you need to know about fanfic writers…and the tenor of the "discussion" on NPR’s OPEN SOURCE (the comment above comes from their blog). The radio show did a terrible job yesterday exploring fanfic —  and I’m not
just saying that because it was 45 minutes into a one-hour show before
the bewildered host remembered I was there. 

I think that the guests and listeners on both sides of the fanfic debate would agree that the host was woefully unprepared for the discussion.  He didn’t have a grasp of what fanfic is and seemed to be stumbling around blindly in search of a point or an angle (something his producers should have prepped him on more thoroughly beforehand). He was unfocused and, therefore, so was the discussion, which is why I’m not at all surprised by his baffling "post-game analysis" of the show on the OPEN SOURCE blog:

The poverty of fanfic is its confinement by television and what seem
the limited stock of Star Trek characters—and the bodies of Charley’s
Angels. But the courage of readers who, all along, have been
reimagining outcomes and dialogue and motives is awe-inspiring. I guess
it is just as well that we waltzed right past all those confounding
lit-crit riddles of post-modern textuality. Naomi Novick tried to tempt
us with a sweeping dismissal of authorial intent, and I cheerfully let
it go.

What is he babbling about? I was on the show and I can’t make sense out of it. By the way, I was the only fanfic naysayer invited to participate (and then only included in the discussion as a brief after-thought).  He spent the bulk of the show talking to the two dimwits who felt there’s no difference between a modern retelling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and STAR TREK mpreg fic (for one thing, the authors the fanficcers are ripping off are still alive)  So it’s no surprise the host ultimately comes out in favor of fanfic…or at least his blurry notion of it.

Common sense about music makes me wonder why any of it should be
copyrighted. Music is not something human beings own; it something
people love, make and do every hour of the day, socially and alone. So
much of the music I love is recreated: like Brahms’ transcription of
Bach’s Chaconne for left-hand-only at the piano, or Chucho Valdes’
reconception of Chopin’s Preludes as jazz. Up with imitation, then, and
the geniuses who can make it original.