Lee Goldberg

Scammer of the Month Reponds

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A while back, I criticized Bookreview.com as a scam for offering to review books for a fee. Heather Froeschl, associate editor of the service, has responded and thinks I was way out-of-line (I wonder if she’s also a member of the Colonial Fan Force, "the power brokers of the new Babylon"?)

Every writer providing a review deserves to be paid for the service. This does not mean paying for a rave, it means paying for the reviewer’s time and written word.

Sure, a reviewer should be paid. By her editor, not by the person whose work she is reviewing.

My goal is to give authors what they ask for…a review of their work. Sometimes I have to give bad news, sometimes I do give a rave, but in the end, authors respect what I have said about their book. Can you buy MY respect? Nope. But you can get a review from us within 14 business days. And that’s no scam.

Heather argues that the reviewers, despite being paid by the author or publisher for their comments, can maintain their objectivity and journalistic integrity. Paying for a review, she says, doesn’t guarantee a rave or that the reviewer will tread gently.

Okay, for the sake of argument, I’ll take her word for that.

How could anybody respect a book review that’s paid for by the author or publisher? How could anybody trust a critic who takes cash from the subjects of her reviews?

Of course the assumption is that a review that’s bought and paid for will be positive. If a  book gets a negative review from her,  I’d have to figure the author’s check bounced…or he wouldn’t kick in the extra $50 for a rave.

She doesn’t seem to get why anyone would question the validity of a review that’s paid for… or a critic who is in the pocket of the author or publisher. Heather also doesn’t seem to get the ethical problems, either…or how the practice creates a glaring conflict of interest.

Would you respect a movie review from a critic hired by the studio? Would you trust Consumer Reports on their review of a car, appliance, or other product if they were paid for the review by the manufacturers? Would you respect a restaurant review from a critic who was paid by the chef?

Apparently, Heather would.

What I’ve Learned from the Fanfic Debate

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I’ve found this passionate discussion about fanfic fascinating and informative. And I have to say that some of your well-considered, heartfelt arguments have made me seriously reconsider some of my long-held views on the subject.

In particular, a comment yesterday from “Morgul” really got me thinking…

“Would you be so offended if, in one of your episodes one of the characters died of cancer, a fanwriter chose, instead of writing the Slash and MPreg you are so fond of mentioning, to write about that person when they realised that they were going to die? Or perhaps go AU and make that person live a year longer, exploring what that character would chose to do with that time?

Because, if you had an episode in which a character died of cancer, you’d get truly Godawful stories that would tell how true love will conquer all and be boring, but you would also get some amazing stories about how the character’s family coped with that loss, or even how the nurses and doctors that looked after the character reacted. You may have to sift through dirt, but there are gems out there.

That’s what we’re trying to get across to you here. The people who are taking the time to tell you what they think are the people that truly care about their fandoms and would never desecrate them like the people who use fanfiction as a form of masturbation.”

I think he’s right. I think my exposure to the fanfiction community – first with Seaquest and later with DM fanfic – didn’t show the field, or its writers, in the best light, establishing and strengthening my negative views.

I went back today and found that GUNSMOKE fanfiction I stumbled on some time ago… and yes, it’s very good and, as a GUNSMOKE fan, I enjoyed reading it very much.

In retrospect, I believe I have made some unfair generalizations about fanfic and the people who write it. But that’s not to say I don’t still have some strong objections to fanfic.

Defending fanfic on the basis that it’s not copyright infringement is silly. It is infringement, and it violates the intellectual property rights of the author/creator. You know it. I know it. Any reasonable person knows it. While the issue of copyright infringement/violation of intellectual property has strong ethical and artistic importance to me, it’s obviously a meaningless issue to those who write fanfic, so I won’t try to argue that any longer. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that score.

We can debate, however, the other arguments/defenses for fanfic, for which there is no clear-cut right-or-wrong —

a)it’s a way to learn how to write, a stepping stone to writing your own, original work.

The arguments here have persuaded me can be… but I still believe it’s a mistake for an aspiring writer to spend too much time and effort on fanfic… that they are better off, and will learn more, and will develop their own voice, by putting that effort into original work. It might be a useful exercise for a 12-year-old, but I think anybody, particularly an adult, serious about becoming a professional writer should concentrate their efforts on original work. That is the only way you will truly develop the skills you need to succeed (and, I believe, any aspiring or professional writer should respect the intellectual property rights of their fellow authors).

b) it’s the only way to get real feedback of your writing from a wide audience of people.

I’m unpersuaded. Personally, I don’t think this is a valid argument at all. There are many, many ways to get feedback on your writing without having to do fanfic.

c) it’s a way to explore aspects of the shows/novels/movies that the film-makers/authors don’t.

This was something I didn’t fully appreciate until Morgul’s post. My view has been far too influenced by all the slash/mpreg/hurt-comfort/etc. sludge out there and by strident fans who think their fanfic is the canon the TV writer/producers should be following. But his post opened my eyes.

d) it’s a way to celebrate and enjoy shows/novels/movies that you love with other fans.

I can see the point. .. though I think you can enjoy & celebrate a show/book/movie without writing and disseminating stories based on them.

e) it’s an expression of appreciation to the film-makers/authors

I suppose it is when you’re doing the things “Morgul” was talking about. But not when you pervert the authors intentions with garbage like mpreg, slash, hurt-comfort, etc. That isn’t flattery or appreciation. It’s aggressively offensive.

f)it’s self-policing…when fanficers violate the canon and write out-of-character stuff (mpreg, slash, etc), they get slammed for it.

I’m not persuaded… there’s far too much of the swill out there to believe “self-policing” is at all effective.

g)it’s harmless fun, give us a break.

On this, I have to say… you’re right. I’m a schmuck.

h)It’s a challenge to the ‘business model’ and thereby a political act.

This is a popular rationalization among all kinds of copyright infringers and product pirates and I simply don’t buy it.

No Funny Bone

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As some of you may recall, I had a freak accident back in April and broke both of my arms. My left arm healed fine, but my right was badly damaged and had to be rebuilt with titanium (which you can see in the x-ray to the left and click on for a larger image). Sadly, I have very limited range of motion in my right arm and will soon be undergoing surgery, most likely in early November, to remove the implants and some scar tissue. Myarmxray
While I am in the hospital and recuperating, I’ve been thinking of handing over my blog for a week or so to a "guest blogger," like my brother Tod or my writing partner Bill Rabkin, or perhaps both of them.

My question to you… would you prefer I "go dark" during that period, or would you prefer the guest bloggers?

What David Montgomery Has Learned About Fanfic

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David Montgomery has posted an interesting essay on his blog about what he’s learned about fanfic from the debate that has raged here the last few days:

1) Most FanFic is a violation of the copyrights of the original creators. (The main exception to this is works in the public domain, which are free for all.)

2) This violation doesn’t really amount to much and is probably not actionable in most cases.

2a) Most writers of FanFic are unaware (or don’t care) that they are violating copyrights.

2b) They aren’t making any money off it anyway.

3) There is no essential difference between writing FanFic involving Huckleberry Finn or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, other than the copyright concerns.

4) Writing FanFic is a diverting hobby for some people.

5) Writing FanFic might be of some use to its creator as a learning tool, but the writer would be a lot better off creating his/her own works, if they can.

6) Presumably FanFic is fun for some peple to read, although hardly anyone seems to be making this point. (I get the impression that FanFic has many writers, but few readers.)

7) Most FanFic is crap (Sturgeon’s Law in action), but some of it’s pretty good.

8) The sexually-oriented FanFic (slash, mpreg, etc.) is downright creepy — and there’s quite a bit of it out there.

9) One will never convince FanFic writers that they’d be better off pursuing works of their own — and they’ll get mad if you try.

And, perhaps, most importantly…

10) FanFic is not a serious thing, nor an important one, so there’s no point in treating it as such. It’s fun for those who practice it, largely harmless, probably pointless, and the discussion of it has occupied too much of my time the past couple days.

I think I’ve learned a few of the same things. I may follow his lead and post my own list in the next day or two…

Tod Goldberg on Fanfic

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As you may have noticed, the fanfic debate is raging here once again… so I thought I’d post some excerpts from my brother Tod Goldberg’s article on the subject, which appears as one of his weekly columns in the Las Vegas Mercury.

Among his many other wise and witty comments, he had this to say:

For those of you not in the know, fan fiction is when people not involved in the actual creation of a show, book, movie or a celebrity’s actual life create stories about them. It is one of the greatest and most wildly entertaining forms of copyright infringement this side of Kazaa. So, to say I was excited to read the fanfic about this particular star would be a vast understatement. I gravitated to the one where the star gets involved in a prison riot. It came with a helpful dictionary of terms used in the story, including "turn out," "shank" and "keep it real." Our hero was almost gang-raped by some convicts, but, alas, escaped with his anal hymen intact.

I clicked through the rest of the stories and killed a plate of leftover ham in the process. The stories were uniformly…uh…well…bad. All of them were written by women, which I found somewhat surprising, but then I thought about the correlation between Teen Beat and Tiger Beat and fan clubs in general and it seemed to make some sense.

Now I was all fired up to read more fan fiction about bad actors, minor celebrities and long-forgotten TV shows and movies. Forgoing the usual and known–anything involving Spock, Buffy and Elvis, basically–I fired up the Google and got searching. I started with a rather tender story revolving around Face and Murdock from "The A-Team." On the day of his wedding, Face takes a little time from the usual pro-forma screwing of hookers to reflect on the life he and Murdock have shared.

In my quest to read fan fiction about Corey Haim, or inspired by his wonderful life, I discovered a Lost Boys fan fiction site that contained a disclaimer warning others not to "steal my original characters or my ideas…go and get your own characters and ideas; have a little faith in yourself! But don’t steal from me!" I searched the entire story the woman had written and not one mention of the word "paradox" was found.

Romantic Times Magazine on Fanfic

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The Romantic Times magazine featured an article this month on fanfic, covering both sides of the debate, though largely favorable towards the practice. But they note:

Writing fan fiction is a violation of copyright law. But many fanfic writers are either unaware of or unconcerned with this fact. Often they’ll slap a short disclaimer at the top of the story, disavowing ownership of the characters used and consider the matter handled…

Attorney-turned-Romance author Julie Kenner says… “for our purposes as writers, copyright serves to protect our words. But when someone is using, say, Stephanie Plum in fan fictio, they probably aren’t quoting any of Janet Evanovich’s language and they think they are they’re clear of infringement. But the 9th Circuit and the 2nd Circuit — both leading courts with regard to intellectual property law — have found protection for the characters themselves under certain judicially defined parameters.”

And those little disclaimers? Ain’t gonna hold water in front of a judge, Kenner says.

Published authors reactions to fan fiction vary….Laurell Hamilton, Anne Rice and Diana Gabaldon firmly believe this practice is both legally and morally repugnant and have, in some cases, hired attorneys to fight fan fiction sites with cease-and-desist actions.

Author Meg Cabot who, by the way, doesn’t mind fanfic, recounts an interesting anecdote:

“Another reason I don’t read fan fictions is because I know an author who, justifiably, freaked out when she read a fic where the writer had one of her characters get graphically and brutally raped. You could see how that would be disturbing and put you off writing anything for a while.”

Even authors who approve of fanfic have hesitations:

Both Rowling and Cabot write for children, who sometimes don’t fully understand the distinction between a published work and fan fiction — especially if they stumble upon a sexually explicit fic or one that talks of Harry whispering sweet nothings in Ron’s ear.

To say nothing of the Harry and Ron “male birthing” stories…

Fanficers in an Uproar

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I saw that a fanfic forum had linked to some of my posts here… so I took my argument into their camp… and they aren’t happy about it

But you don’t you understand his PAAAAIIINNNN??? The big, mea, awful, horrible fanfic writers just come in and destroy everything he loves and works for, yea verily like Vikings descending upon a helpless crannog they swwop down and leave his pwecious pwecious creation in RUINS! Oh, will no one save the poor creators? May my fingers be broken if I ever start taking myself that seriously.

Another poster, with a unique take on copyright law, argues that by not profitting financially from their “fanfic,” it’s not copyright infringement (I’ll be sure to tell that to all those file-swappers facing prosecution and huge fines for sharing their music collections over the net…)

As long as you don’t SELL them, you’re free to use copyrighted characters since… gasp, they ARE public domain. Anything that it published is free game, so long as there is no profit gained on the part of the person using them. Ethical issues? Bullshit, slappy. Do you mind if I call you slappy? Too bad. Anyhow, what’s unethical about seeing something, decide that you like it enough to write something involving said something, and deciding that you like what you’ve written enough to show it to others? Is any money exchanged? Is anybody profiting from using your materials (hence breaking Copyright laws)? Is anyone blatantly reproducing someone else’s work (word for word) and distributing it?
Nope. Besides, haven’t you ever heard, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Grow up, Slappy

It’s fascinating to me to see all the ways that “Fanfic” writers try to justify/rationalize what they do…

If fanfic is unethical or a breach of copyright whether or not the creator is okay with it, then scriptwriters and the authors of tie-in novels are in no better place just because they’ve got a contract.

What’s even more unbelievable is that they believe they are “self-policing,” that “fanfic” writers are the best ones to decide when their “fanfic” is inappropriate…

If you hate it so much, why are you even here? Take a look around you, all of us are fanfic writers and/or readers, and we have taken it upon ourselves to ‘police’ the net, naming and shaming the fics we feel step beyond common decency. If you want a whinge about fanfic find somewhere that cares. I’m sorry, but you’ve overstepped the line here. If you are anti-fanfic, fair enough, but don’t come here and slag us off.

Of course, I believe that ALL “fanfic” is inappropriate unless the writer has the consent of the author or copyright holder. You won’t see the “fanfic” writers policing those who cross that line, will you?

(UPDATE: The outrage over my comments has spread to another fanfic forum).

Godawful Fan Fiction

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I came across a fanfic discussion group called “Godawful Fan Fiction” that, despite the topic of the discussion, isn’t too pleased about my comments regarding fanfic.

Lee Goldberg, in my opinion, is nothing more than a glorified fanfic writer himself. He didn’t create the series, he just wrote some of the tv-episodes and followed up the series with several books…Basically, although I see Lee Goldberg’s point, I don’t think he is in any position to critisize, and I don’t think it’s his place to, either.

Obviously, he or she doesn’t understand the distinction between someone who steals the intellectual property of others (ie fanfic writers) and someone who is authorized by the copyright holders to write about their characters (ie me). He or she also doesn’t realize I was more than just someone who wrote a few episodes…I was an executive producer of the show (with William Rabkin) and, prior to that, a supervising producer… and we wrote DOZENS of episodes… and those are just the ones we took credit for.

I did learn something from reading these posts, however. Apparently the slash/impregnation fanfic is a genre all its own called “mpreg.”

Yuck.

The Mail I Get

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I am not a documentary film producer, nor am I in the documentary film business. And yet, I still get emails like this:

I am an amatuer film producer. I have a great idea for a on going documentary series, I would love to run the idea (in its in infancy) to somone…i can make it happen. The basic is coverage on nj’s new problem with young youth, gangs, ets. I am a youth worker at the Juvenile Justice Commision. There is sooooo much opurtunity for a great 3 part series. It would be based on a youth worker/ Convicte juveniles lives and tribulations inside these programs that are rehabilitional services there are so many secret occurences that would wow an audience. Its NJ’s dirty secret. It could even strech over a 5 year span, mabey once every 6 months. I’m talking real footage and a study of the mental idealology of these youths. Thugs that cant even think for themselves and the problems of the JJC. amazing stuff. I have it all in my mind on how to make it work. killer-drug dealing robbing thugs in real life, but boys in here. Its amazing. they dont have the capability to make the most basic decisions. Please call me and here me out. It would be memorable. I true look into NJ’s dirty little secret of what the future of America is looking at. Music impact…..movie impact.. endless interestin insight into the mind and actions of these children. I cant begin to explain. i could get interviews live footage.. travel to there homes.. interview families. Its about a new wave of mental disorder that is dumbfounding.

Don’t people stop to think before they said me stuff like this? Just because I am an episodic TV writer/producer, that doesn’t mean I want to hear everybody’s ideas for reality shows, movies, and books…

I thought if I started posting this stuff on my blog, people would stop sending it to me for fear of embarrassment. I guess I was wrong.

The Mail I Get…

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The networks are run by space aliens….and this man is ready to expose it:

My TV Program Flattened the WTC, Oh, the power of the media or did I piss of the aliens?

I am a celebrity publisher and former NASA scientist that has been censored and exiled. I would like to produce and star in an investigative tv series that is a combination of “Geraldo” meets “The X-Files”.

If you want to get involved in this series and you are not afraid of the alien race then contact me.

Sincerely Yours,

Wayne E. Manzo,
Publisher, Human Rights Leader, Scientist
wmanzo@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/movies_alien/
http://wmovie.tripod.com/
http://www.geocities.com/tv_access/
http://www.geocities.com/mansuedotcom/

So, if Space Aliens are running network television, why didn’t Gary Coleman ever get another TV series?