Lee Goldberg

The Fanfic Mind

by

Ah, another fascinating view into the bizarre workings of the fanfic mind from a writer/reader of Potter porn:

To be perfectly clear: I don’t give two shits about minors having access to sexually explicit material on the internet. This may well be a byproduct of my own hypersexualized childhood (I started reading romance novels at age 8 and my barbies were doing some very nasty kinds of nasty shortly thereafter), but I don’t buy that reading about sex or
seeing images of sex is going to warp kids’ fragile little minds. Which is why "Won’t someone please think of the children?" is one of my chief sarcastic lines. "The children" don’t need half the protection we insist on giving them, and I wish prudes would just admit that it’s not
"the children" they’re safeguarding when they’re arguing for censorship
— it’s their own delicate sensibilities.

But anyway. I do give several large, steamy, well-textured shits about respecting
artists and creators. That was part of my oh-so-eloquent and
not-wanky-at-all OUTRAGE over fanfic plagiarism.

[…]Even though I can’t point to anything Morally Wrong about
copyright-infringing fanfic, even though I’m a pomo slut, even though I
would cry if there was never another Blackcest dub-con femslash fic
waiting for me on my flist, part of me still wants to concede to
artists the right to disallow derivative works that they don’t like.
It’s their sandbox, and all the justifications about "just playing with
their toys" don’t change that. And so: guilt. Not enough guilt to keep
me from reading and (if I ever get my lazy ass past the outlining
stage) writing adult-rated HP fanfic. But enough to make me feel dirty.
Not in the good hatesex-on-the-Hogwarts-Express kinda way, either.

Let me get this straight — exposing kids  to kiddie porn is okay, copyright infringement is okay, but she is OUTRAGED by fanfic plagiarism.  Uh-huh. She feels a slight tinge of guilt about violating an author’s wishes regarding their works, but not enough to actually stop writing or reading the crap. But fanfic plagiarism — that’s INTOLERABLE (she even wrote this howler:  "In short, fanfic matters, so plagiarism in fanfic matters.")  Interesting set of principles she has.

Off Again to Germany

by

I’m heading for Germany today to pitch some series to the networks there on behalf of a studio I’m working with. I will be traveling between Munich, Berlin, and Cologne, so I may be scarce here for the next week.  Play nicely amongst yourselves while I am gone.

I’ve Been Fanficced

by

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…

 
 

There Are Only 500 Copies of BEYOND THE BEYOND Left! Hurry Before Supplies Run Out!

by

Stand_beyond
As I mentioned here before,
I’ve got hundreds of copies of my book BEYOND THE BEYOND clogging up space in my garage (reminder to self:  never buy more than 100 copies of my own remaindered book).

My mistake is your gain. I’ll be glad to send you a signed copy BEYOND THE BEYOND for $9.99, which includes media mail postage to anywhere in the United States. 

BEYOND THE BEYOND is about ex-cop Charlie Willis, who handles
“special security” for Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the
studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to the
keep the peace in the land of make-believe. How he does it is up to
him. In this book, a sequel to “My Gun Has Bullets,” he has to protect
the president of a fledgling TV network from an assassin, an A-list
screenwriter from his homicidal agent, and the cast of a cult TV series
from its legion of rabid,
homicidal fans.

Here’s a sampling of the critical praise for the book:

“Goldberg uses just about everything he can think of to
send up the studio system, fandom, Star Trek, Trekkies, agents, actors…
you name it, he’ll make you laugh about it.” Analog

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary
showbiz,"Kirkus Reviews

“Mr. Goldberg has an observant eye and a wicked pen!” Washington  Times

“Beyond the Beyond reads like a modern-day Alice in
Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It’s
wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate,” Vancouver Sun

"Stingingly funny! B+" Entertainment Weekly

"Some of the easily recognizable actors, agents and producers who
are mercilessly ribbed may find
it hard to crack a smile at the author’s gag-strewn prose. Likewise
those seekers after politically correct entertainment. But the rest of
us should have no trouble….the novel’s satiric slant is strong enough
to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star
Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

And yet, there were still 600 copies that didn’t sell. Even with a
giant penis on the cover. Can you imagine that? If you’d like to buy
one of them for $9.99,  just click on the button below:




Is Fanfic Legal?

by

Author John Scalzi has irked fanficcers by <gasp> saying that he believes fanfiction is illegal which, of course, it clearly is.

it’s clear that some portion of fanficcers actually seems to believe
that writing fanfic isn’t actually copyright infringement, and that
therefore it "exists in a gray area" or is actually not illegal
via some interpretation of fair use. Some of this belief stems from the
contention that there has not been (to the common knowledge) a
copyright suit specifically dealing with fanfic, probably because a
"Cease & Desist" letter is usually enough to cause the fanficcer to
take down his/her fanfic so no court case is necessary. The thinking
here seems to be that if a suit does not specifically address fanfic, then the legal status of fanfic is in fact indeterminate.

I can’t help but think this is a bit of magical thinking, based on
the idea that fanfic is in itself a legally special class of writing
(possibly under the "we’re doing this for fun" idea), which as far as I
can see it’s not. It’s bound to the same injunctions and restrictions
as any other piece of creative writing. Certainly US copyright law
carves out protections for fair use, parody and criticism, and equally
certainly some fanfic qualifies under a realistic reading of
these protections. But I hazard to guess the vast majority of fanfic
could not be shoehorned into these protections even under the most
liberal of terms.

He backs up his assertion with a lengthy post that quotes an intellectual property attorney and the Chilling Effects Clearing House (a joint project of the Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San
Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington Schools of Law) on the subject.  What I found especially interesting was a letter sent by JK Rowling’s attorneys to some fanficcers who were writing porno Harry Potter stories.

As you are aware, Ms. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books. Ms. Rowling therefore owns the copyright in the Harry Potter books. The sexually explicit content of the fan fiction available at www.restrictedsection.org, which is plainly based on characters and other elements of the fictional world
created by Ms. Rowling in the Harry Potter books, is a matter of
serious concern to our client. In addition, our client Warner Bros,
which owns the film and merchandising rights to
the children’s series of Harry Potter books, is concerned to protect
the integrity of its Harry Potter properties. For the avoidance of
doubt, our clients make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans.

She’s okay with fanfic but is ready to go after people who write sexually explicit material using her characters. That should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that writing about Harry and Ron exploring the magical delights of anal sex is "fair use."

Fanfic Hypocrisy

by

You gotta love the hypocrisy and idiocy of fanficcers. It seems the "fanfic community" is in an uproar because some fanficcer stole from another fanficcers work. Author John Scalzi sums up the laughably inane situation nicely:

Let’s remember one fundamental thing about fanfic: Almost all of it
is entirely illegal to begin with. It’s the wild and wanton
misappropriation of copyrighted material (I’m sure there is fanfic that
features public domain characters, just not nearly as much as there is
of, say, Harry Potter fanfic). Copyright holders may choose not to see
it, or may even tacitly encourage it from time to time, but the fact of
the matter is that if you’re writing fanfic, you’re already doing
something legally out of bounds. And, really, if you’re already wantonly violating copyright, what’s a little plagiarism to go along with it? Honestly. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I recognize this attitude probably won’t sit well with fanficcers,
but this is really an "honor among thieves" sort of issue, isn’t it? If
you’ve already morally justified intellectual theft so you can play
with Harry and Hermione and Draco and whomever else you want to play
with, I’m not entirely sure how one couldn’t also quite easily justify taking juicy chunks of other people’s text to play with as well.

[…]Out in the real world, I take plagiarism rather very seriously, but
then, out in the real world, I take appropriation of copyright
seriously as well. If fanficcers want me to oblige their outrage about
fanfic plagiarism, I suppose I would have to ask how it is essentially
more serious than the appropriation of copyrighted characters and
settings, and how if I must criticize one why I am not also therefore
obliged to criticize the other.

(Thanks to Jim Winter for the heads-up on this).

I’m a Writer

by

Wrtcv0906
Michael Bracken was kind enough to alert me that there’s a full-page interview with me in the September issue of The Writer magazine. I did the interview so long ago that it completed slipped my mind. I haven’t read it yet, so please let me know if I come off like a brilliantly clever fellow or a complete moron.

My Space on MySpace

by

I have no idea what MySpace is or how to use it or why I should be part of it… but I have bowed to peer pressure and I am there with a cross-posting of this blog. Please be my friend, whatever the heck that means in MySpaceSpeak…

Mr. Monk Basks in the Glow

by

Three more bloggers have given MR. MONK GOES TO HAWAII kudos. Gerald So says:

Mr, Monk Goes to Hawaii is an
ideal summer read, a rambling tale to match an exotic setting. Several
side mysteries show Monk’s quirks as seen by the more practical
Natalie, yet Goldberg keeps a confident hand on the story, eventually
putting every strand in place just as Monk and his fans would have it.

Meanwhile, the folks over at MyShelf enjoy seeing things from Natalie’s POV:

Natalie’s point of view provides an unexpected and delightful twist. Goldberg nails Monk’s intriguing and complex character. Natalie and Monk’s interactions are laugh-out-loud funny. Find
Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii and take a humorous trip through murder and deceit!

Cynthia Clark at Future Mystery Magazine says: 

        You don’t have to be a fan of MONK or to have ever watched an episode
        on television to enjoy this fast paced, witty, quirky, yet charming suspense.
        Mr. Goldberg has once again captured the nuances and idiosyncrasies of
        Mr. Monk and of OC (obsessive compulsive) sufferers. Mr. Goldberg makes
        us laugh as he takes us on Monk’s wild Hawaiian ride solving numerous
        crimes. Only Monk could find a paradise like Hawaii to be a health risk,
        and barbaric — roasting a pig in the ground? Mr. Goldberg gives us just
        enough clues to let us be MONK if we dare….I read this book in one sitting
        and loved every moment of it. I felt the tug of heart strings with Mitch
        and Trudy. I laughed, I was sad, I plotted who done it, but mostly, I
        loved it! An excellent escape, a great read.

Back from Germany

by

I returned from Cologne late last night. It was a great experience working with the German writer/producers and it looks like I may be going back soon to continue what I started.

On the 7 1/2 hour flight from Dusseldorf to LA, I worked for a bit on DM #8, which is due this week, and watched BASIC INSTINCT 2, which was a horrendeous piece of shit (except for the production design, which was great. You know an erotic movie is bad when you’re appreciating the locations and sets and not the people who are fucking).

On my flight from NY to LA, I sat across from a gregarious and very friendly rap star named Flavor Flave or Flave Flavor or Flaky Flavor. I don’t know, I’m all jet-lagged and out-of-it today. He wore a wall clock around his neck, which I thought was odd and rather uncomfortable (and he had spares in his carry-on bag). But he was a nice guy and seemed to have boundless energy.

Next to me was a Hassidic Jew who wore the big, heavy black overcoat, the hat, the whole thing…he smelled like ten men’s locker rooms. He was pleasant, but isn’t there such a thing as Kosher deodorant?

Behind me, was this young girl, in her late teens or early 20s. At one point in the flight, she took out a fancy camera from her bag and began scrolling through some pictures. The man next to her, who was perhaps in his late 40s or early 50s, asked if she was a photographer. She said she was an aspiring one, and that she’d just spent a few weeks in Paris taking pictures, and that she’d interned at some newspaper or magazine, the name of which I didn’t catch. He then introduced himself — I didn’t get his name, but apparently he’s some famous photographer for magazines like Esquire, Vanity Fair, etc.  She knew who he was, of course, and nearly wet herself in surprise.  So for the next six hours, this kind man gave her a tutorial in photography, answering her questions, showing her examples, reviewing her photos, and giving her advice in a very professorial sort of way (he  mentioned at one point that he’s taught before).

I didn’t understand all the stuff they were talking about, but I certainly picked up on her excitement at this opportunity and her respect for the man she was seated with. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for that girl.  It would be as if I was 18 or 19, got on a plane and happened to be seated next to Larry McMurtry or Stephen J. Cannell. Of course, this sort of thing is far more likely to happen in First Class than coach.

At the end of the flight, she thanked him, saying that never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d ever meet him. He said it must have been meant to happen, gave her his card and wished her luck in her career.  I thought it was great. I only eavesdropped on the whole thing, but I felt her excitement and I was struck by how attentive and nice the man was (there was no hint of hitting on her or anything like that, by the way. He was very fatherly and polite).

Tonight, I have my class at UCLA and a mountain of mail to catch up on… not to mention a book to finish writing!