Lee Goldberg

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…

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).

James Winter, a reformed fanfic writer, speaks his mind about his former pursuit on his blog

Why does anyone who does write fanfic bother writing the creator or writer of their favorite series to whine incessantly about rendering their creations irrelavant?

When you read crap like that or get letters like Lee gets, is it any wonder why people think science fiction fans are losers living in their parents’ basements and having trouble holding real jobs? When people send letters to writers and producers demanding they adhere to insipid story categories (ie – formulas) like hurt/comfort or slash (wtf!?!?!?!), how can you not understand why they get monumentally pissed off?

To the writers and producers, I say look, it’s just grafitti. Treat it as such. The problem is that the people who write fanfic seem to believe they’re writing the next Great Gatsby.

The thing about grafitti, Jim, is when someone puts it on the wall of your house or around your community, you paint over it… because it’s a violation of private property, it’s ugly and it ruins the neighborhood.

I got this email from someone this morning on the DorothyL list…

Lee Goldberg wrote: How is appropriating an author’s characters “praising” his ideas? In fact, you’re doing the exact opposite… you’re showing your lack of respect for their ownership of their own creations by stealing them. Unless the author says you may use his characters, fanfic is indefensible.

Lee, have you quite finished? I gather you are quite something in TV over there. As a poor limey I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your work altough I had a look at your impressive CV on IMdB. You’re very lucky, you’ve got to places others can only dream of. Instead, they strive towards their dream by emulating their idols. Notice that they don’t emulate what they don’t like. There’s a convention amongst pioneering climbers that they leave their pitons in place to help those who follow. You are like a mountaineer who, having conquered the mountain, surrounds it with barbed wire to stop anybody else from following. I wonder if you were bitten by a fanfic when you were a child – your reaction is so out of proportion.

Rosie

I don’t see how allowing other people to write about your characters is “leaving pitons in place to help those who follow.” I’m not against “fanfic” because I don’t want other writers to succeed. Quite the opposite. I want to encourage them to write original work that showcases their unique talent and creativity. That’s how they will succeed. Encouraging young writers to steal someone else’s intellectual property isn’t helping them learn their craft… it’s hurting them.

I raised the ire of the DorothyL moderator, Diane Kovacs, for the following exchange about fanfic which, as those of you who read my blog know, is one of my pet peeves. She sent me a warning saying she didn’t appreciate my comments and is now reviewing all my posts for appropriateness before deciding whether add them to the digest. Here are the exchanges that upset her (I’ve cobbled them together into one long post here). You be the judge. The first one, by the way, is a response to a comment of hers…

But, most of the fan fiction I’ve read is written for joy/practice/praise/ or because we want more of that author’s ideas.

How is appropriating an author’s characters “praising” his ideas? In fact, you’re doing the exact opposite… you’re showing your lack of respect for their ownership of their own creations by stealing them. Unless the author says you may use his characters, fanfic is indefensible.

I thought David Klass’s screenplay of James Patterson’s Kiss The Girls was much better than the novel. Stanley Kubrick made the Shining a classic movie even though Stephen King hated it and re-did it in 1997 which by all accounts was a ho-hum

As I’ve said before, there is a big difference between being hired to adapt an author’s work for another medium and stealing his characters for original “fanfic.” With an adaptation, the author is compensated for his work and has given his permission for its use in TV or film. There is no comparison between this and the odious practice of “fanfic.”

In the case of television, the way you get an assignment is to write a spec script… a sample episode of a series (We go into great detail about this in my book, Successful Television Writing… and what seperates a good spec from “fanfic”). Aspiring television writers (or should I say “pre-produced” ??)
need to write a spec episode because that’s how you audition. You have to show the writer/creator of a series that you can capture the voice of his characters and the tone of his show. The only people who sees these scripts are agents and producers.

Again, there is no comparison between this and “fanfic.” For one thing, they are entirely different mediums. And for another, you write a spec episodic script with the permission of the creators of the work for the sole purpose of obtaining an episodic assignment.

And exactly how many of Shakespeare’s plots were original?

Jim, you’re not REALLY comparing Shakespeare’s plays to “Babylon-5” fanfic are you??
You can’t possibily put “Buffy” and “Star Trek” fanfic on the same level with HAMLET. I wouldn’t put them on the same level as Hamburger Hamlet.

There’s good fanfic and there’s bad fan fic. Shakespeare’s stuff is often so good that we don’t even think of it as fanfic.

You know how much I respect you but…. there is no good fanfic. Yes, that’s a blanket statement and I stand by it.

Fanfic is the appropriation of someone else’s characters and using them in a story of your own without the permission of the author. Fanfic is also, by and large, hideous garbage… go to one of those fanfic websites and look at some of that slop, most of which involves characters who aren’t romanticall
involved in the TV series jumping each other’s bones (Spock & Capt. Kirk, Mulder & Scully, etc) or meeting characters from other TV shows and movies (Darth Vader vs the crew of the Enterprise).

Comparing this drivel, the appropriate of TV and movie characters in fan-written stories, to Shakespeare is nonsense.

Under the ground rules we’re discussing here, Laurie King’s wonderful Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novels are fanfic. You can’t say they’re not fanfic just because they happen to be really good.

There’s also a big difference between fanfic and using characters that are in the public domain.
I don’t think we’d be having this discussion if it was about Elvis Cole, Inspector Rebus, or Kinsey Millhone fanfic… you would be as horrified by it as I am. But somehow, this intellectual property theft is okay if we’re talking about TV or movie characters.

There is no difference between Star Trek “fanfic” and Harry Bosch “fanfic.” They are equally wrong and indefensible, in my opinion.

What is happening now is that the fanfic is on the web, unedited and uncritiqued. You can find it easily enough via Google. There are a few conventions where fanfic is available in print format, but most of the venues where fanfic was distributed are gone… as are the fanzines. *sigh*

Good riddance… I wish the same would happen to online fanfic sites, which are disseminating fanfic far wider than fanzines ever did.

I remember, years ago, when I took some writer/producer friends of mine on “Beauty and the Beast” to a science fiction convention and showed them some of the abundant “B&B” fanfic fanzines. To say they were shocked, horrified… and sickened… is an understatement.

If your criterion for condemning fanfic is that it appropriates others’ ideas, then by reduction, that which appropriates others’ ideas is bad.

It’s not the ideas, my friend, it’s appropriating the actual characters, relationships and situations… that’s not just bad, it’s intellectual property theft and copyright infringement in the most blatant sense.

how is fanfic different from me writing #21 in my Brady Coyne series

How would you feel if somebody started writing Brady Coyne fanfic… maybe got him involved in an affair with Harry Bosch. Or decided he was into S&M… and disseminated their version of Brady Coyne on the Internet? I think in that situation, as the creator of Brady Coyne, you’d feel very differently about your comment:

and who’s to say what somebody should and should not write?

Before the exchanges above got Diane upset, a teacher posted that she encouraged her students to write fanfic. So I asked her what she thought her students could possibly learn from the experience:

Teaching them to walk before they can run? Teaching them how to work with a ready-made environment and ready-made characters that they are already familiar with so that they can concentrate on other aspects of technique, like how to write credible dialogue? Teaching them, above
all, the importance of consistency – that they have to be true to those characters?

If my daughter’s teacher used “fanfic” as an approach to teaching creative writing, I’d be enraged… and would not only talk to the teacher about it, but the principal as well. Teaching kids to write by having them use characters from a TV show or a movie doesn’t “teach them to walk before they can run,” it teaches them how to take short cuts, how to devalue another artists’ work, and how not to apply themselves creatively to a project. The “consistency” I want to teach my children doesn’t begin with using someone else’s work… it begins with having faith in your own powers of imagination.

A lot of the people who write fan-fiction scarely get round to reading books

I think that’s obvious… not only from how they write, but what they write. The last thing I would do as a teacher is encourage “fanfic” in any way, shape or form.