"We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. We preserve our fannish economy, values, and creative expression by protecting and nurturing our fellow fans, our work, our commentary, our history, and our identity while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans."
That, my friends, is the mission statement of the Organization for Transformative Works, a new organization that hopes to legitimize fanfiction. I kid you not. When I first saw the site, I thought it was an elaborate practical joke, like amptp.com. But it isn’t. The movers and shakers behind this effort include Naomi Novik, a fanficcer turned acclaimed fantasy novelist, and Dr. Robin Reid, the Texas A&MUniversity professor best known for writing fiction about real people like Viggo Mortenson having sex with other male actors.
They steal the creative work of others and then have the balls to say they want to "defend their work from commercial exploitation." Their hypocrisy is staggering…and apparently boundless. One of their "missions" is "establishing a legal defense project and forming alliances to defend fanworks from legal challenge." (I wonder if they will also form an alliance with the group that polices plagiarism of fanfic by other fanficcers) Novik writes on author John Scalzi’s blog:
"We just want to enjoy our hobby and our communities, and to share our creative work, without the constant threat hanging overhead that an overzealous lawyer at some corporation will start sending out cease-and-desist notices, relying not on legal merit, but on the disproportionate weight of money on their side."
With that kind of reasoning, I’m surprised they haven’t recruited Lori Jareo to lead their organization.
While their staggering hypocrisy might be lost on the majority of fanficcers, the foolhardy nature of this effort isn’t. For years, studios, publishers, authors and other rights holds have largely turned a blind eye to the blatant copyright infringement that is Fanfiction as long as fanficcers haven’t tried to profit from it. Or, as John Scalzi puts it:
"To the extent that fandom currently does what it does, it does it because of the benign neglect or tolerance of the copyright holders of the works the fans are working with.
Now many fanficcers seem justifiably concerned that the OTW’s efforts to claim ownership of their copyright-infringing works could end this fragile détente. Elfwreck writes on Scalzi’s blog:
"Sooner or later a copyright owner is going to issue a DMCA notice to a fan, a fan is going to run to OTW (or alternately, OTW will offer its services), and an expensive legal suit will be on and if the case is of sufficient profile, then other copyright owners, alerted to the existence of a group who says they can in fact no longer control their copyrights from people who claim to be fans, will start giving the fannish community quite a bit more attention, and probably not of the good kind…"
Scalzi envisions it happening like this:
"If and when a fan, told by, say, NBC Universal to take down her Battlestar Galactica fanfic, decides to make the legal argument that her work is transformative and fair use, […] and the fan shows up in court with the assistance of an umbrella group dedicated to the proposition that all fan work is legal and transformative, I suspect the era of benign neglect or tolerance of fan activity will be at a sudden and pronounced end. Because now the fans are saying, why, yes, this really does belong to us, and corporations who have invested millions in and can reap billions from their projects will quite naturally see this as a threat. From there it’s all DMCA notices and entire fan sites going down."
The OTW claims that "fannish work," an umbrella term for fanfiction and the "Real People Slash" that Dr. Reid gets off on and even such fetish fanfic as "DUE SOUTH Masturbation" stories, is "transformative" rather than "derivative," that it is a unique and important expression of feminism, and therefore should be legally protected. John Scalzi observes:
"OTW’s claim, however, appears predicated on a fairly expansive idea of what "transformative" means under the law, and also that all fanwork is transformative, apparently by the mere nature of being fanwork. OTW is perfectly in its rights to make such a claim, but they are fairly significant claims, and I don’t imagine that OTW’s interpretation of the law would go unopposed if it were presented in a court of law."
[…]I suspect that a judge asked to consider a possibly infringing works’ "fannishness" as a relevant criterion for evaluation will toss that out early, chosing instead to look at what the law actually requires."
One fanficcer offered this comment on Scalzi’s blog:
"I’m not going to stop [writing fanfiction] either way, so I’d like to see the rules set on fandom’s terms, even if it is a segment of fandom that I and others don’t wholly agree with. There’s a risk in founding OTW at all, of course– it scares me to think of what unintended consequences might arise due to the whole thing. But there’s also a risk in sitting on one’s hands and doing nothing. If this history ends up being rewritten by victors that are not part of fandom, I’d at least like to know I didn’t stand still and do nothing while they were at it."
I want to see the day OTW legally challenges J.K. Rowling’s right to prevent people from disseminating stories about Snape and Voldemort gang-banging Harry Potter and Ron. Or the day the OTW fights for Robin Reid’s right to create and distribute stories about Sean Bean having sex withViggo Mortenson. Because when that day comes, instead of legitimizing fanfiction, they will kill it…not only in a court of law but in the court of public opinion.
I do have to ask. Does Wicked by Gregory Maguire constitute an infringement upon L. Frank Baum’s intellectual property? Do Disney’s or Robin McKinley’s or Mercedes Lackey’s fairy-tale retellings constitute infringement on the intellectual property of the Grimm Brothers et al? Does the movie She’s the Man constitute infringement on the intellectual property of William Shakespeare? How are these transformative uses of intellectual property so different from transformative uses of intellectual property for which no one is asking for money, and which tend to increase the amount of money flowing towards the owners of intellectual property not in the public domain, by making fans familiar enough with settings, characters, and plot of these stories to want to read/watch the originals for themselves?
Works that have fallen into public domain aren’t subject to the same laws as Harry Potter etc.
I can see why everyone wants to protect themselves from being sued, but I hardly think a legal organization is necessary. I always thought it was simple – fanfic writers don’t write for profit and acknowledge that they’re borrowing the characters and they don’t face legal hassles. And the fanfic archives take action when someone breaks the rules of the site. Seems simple enough – why complicate it?
I write both fanfic and original fiction with the goal of getting the original fiction published one day. While I’ll never read any fanfiction based on my stories because I wouldn’t want to be influenced, I’d be flattered if people thought that much of the stories to want to start fanfic about it. Apparently the characters and stories mean enough to them that they aren’t just willing to turn off the TV or put the book away with no further comment, which means I’ve obviously done something right.
RPF is something else altogether, but many fanfic archives don’t support it anymore.
“I do have to ask. Does Wicked by Gregory Maguire constitute an infringement upon L. Frank Baum’s intellectual property? Do Disney’s or Robin McKinley’s or Mercedes Lackey’s fairy-tale retellings constitute infringement on the intellectual property of the Grimm Brothers et al? Does the movie She’s the Man constitute infringement on the intellectual property of William Shakespeare?”
No, because once they fall into public domain there is no infringing on intellectual property rights. It’s perfectly legal to do as you wish with work in the public domain.
“and which tend to increase the amount of money flowing towards the owners of intellectual property”
Is there any actual evidence of this? Because following the discussion on Scalzi’s blog, as well as several posts defending OTW on LiveJournal, this claim is never supported with more than anecdotal evidence.
“Fanfic doesn’t lose anyone money, my friends and I spend MORE because of it!” is far from a legitimate legal defense.
I’m not an attorney, so it’s quite possible that there are legal issues I’m not familiar with here (quite probable, actually). But there does seem to be two primary issues.
1. Does fanfic negatively affect the income of the originator? I think you could argue that any effect, positive or negative, might come into play here.
2. Does fanfic affect the intent of the originator’s work? This is a major issue and gets deeply into areas of intellectual property rights. And frankly, I don’t see where fanfic writers have any legal basis for saying they have a legal right to do this. If I were to write, say, Harry Potter and the Department of Aurors, a straightforward tale that is, as much as possible faithful to JK Rowling’s 7-book vision, but which picks up where she left off, with Harry going on to become an auror, although I might argue that I was in no way harming Rowling’s books, as a matter of fact, I was infringing on her intellectual property. And, I would suggest, breaking the law and setting myself up for a major lawsuit.
If I wrote it and kept it in a drawer, no big deal. If I tried to have it published by a publisher, they wouldn’t get near it because of the IP issues. If I self-published it, I’d get a cease-&-desist order so fast, I’d be better off taking a bushel of money and setting it on fire. If I post it online…
Hey fanficcers! That’s publishing, you idiots! That’s a copyright and IP infringement and it’s illegal!
My favorite comment among the 500 on Scalzi’s blog is the one I quoted above..
“I’d like to see the rules set on fandom’s terms..”
To me, that embodies the hubris and outrageous sense of entitlement that fanficcers have…at that OTW wants to legitimize (good luck on that one). They don’t believe the original creator has any say in how his creations are used…that it should be decided on “fandom’s terms.” They think that just because they have read something or watched something that it’s theirs.
Lee, OTW defines fandom as LiveJournal and female. As a male FanFiction.Net anime fan fiction writer, OTW does not speak for me and does not speak for most of fandom.
I also thought it was pretty cocky of OTW to claim all of fandom as primarily an expression of feminism. In one fell swoop, they alienated 50% of their potential supporters.
I also wonder how they are going to determine what is fan expression and what isn’t…and what fandom actions they will consider as part of their “fannish culture.” They have set themselves up as the arbiters of what is or isn’t fandom…which takes some chutzpah. Then again, that’s typical of the outrageous sense of entitlement and hubris they are exhibiting in every other aspect of their misguided endeavor.
…former fanficcer.
Thanks for the link. 😉
For months I’ve tried to puzzle my way toward an understanding of fanficcers. How can it be that the same people who would be outraged if a mugger ran off with everything in their wallets are not outraged when they themselves mug the intellectual property of others?
I finally gave up on trying to understand the psychology, and have come to see the problem in terms of opportunity. Advancing technology has made publication cheap and universal, and this gives any larcenous literary impulse a free platform.
Worse, to take a gloomy view of it, technology is trumping intellectual property; anything can be easily pirated, and nothing devised so far to protect the originators, such as copyright or royalty payments, can stem the tide of piracy.
Roll back technology to a time when publication meant setting type and printing and binding books and then distributing them, all at great cost, and you reach a historic time when fanficcers weren’t very active. The opportunity wasn’t there.
No one involved in any fan activity is making money off it (except an idiot here and an idiot there, who of course get smacked down as quickly as the author can manage it). No harm, no foul. And perhaps the only evidence that fan activity tends to increase the author’s profit is anecdotal, but that doesn’t change the fact that a few more Naruto graphic novels have been sold than would have had I not decided to check out the Naruto fanfic written by the same fanauthor who writes one of my favorite Harry Potter fanfics, and been intrigued enough by the characters and setting to check out the original story.
Some authors support the idea of fanfiction, in its current form with no rights attached. J.K. Rowling is quoted as responding to the following question in the Comic Relief live chat transcript, in March of 2001 ( http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2001/0301-comicrelief-staff.htm ):
—
Carrie: How do you feel about thousands of fans writing fanfiction about your books, and having them posted on the Internet?
J.K. Rowling: It’s wonderful … I love writing more than almost anything in the world so the idea that Harry has inspired other people to write makes me very happy.
—
So, accusations of evil intent based on stealing an author’s characters and work can be overwrought. In the case of Harry Potter fanfiction, writing and posting fanfiction to the internet is supported by the copyright holder. She has been known to curtail use that she considers too mature, but historically only the extreme stories or sites.
I’m not a lawyer, but I would think any illegality is waved with permission of the author, as she has given by her supporting comments as quoted above and in other interviews.
Mike F.
“The question before the court,” he wrote in his order, “is not who gets to write history, but rather whether Ms. Randall can permeate most of her new critical work with the copyrighted characters, plot, and scenes from ‘Gone With the Wind’ in order to correct the ‘pain, humiliation and outrage’ of the ‘a-historical representation’ of the previous work, while simultaneously criticizing the antebellum and more recent South.”
http://e http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/05/02/wind/ n.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone#Legal_controversy
The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Randall and her publishing company, Houghton Mifflin, on the grounds that The Wind Done Gone was too similar to Gone with the Wind, thus infringing its copyright. The case attracted numerous comments from leading scholars, authors, and activists, regarding what Mitchell’s attitudes would have been, and how much The Wind Done Gone copies from its predecessor. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated an injunction against publishing the book in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin (2001), the case was settled in 2002 when Houghton Mifflin agreed to make an unspecified donation to Morehouse College, a historically African American college in Atlanta, Georgia in exchange for Mitchell’s estate dropping the litigation.
No harm, no foul, says MercuryBlue, defending fan fiction. But in fact there is grave harm, no matter whether the fanficcers make a dime. There is innate harm when an author or creator loses artistic control of a work or character. That may not result immediately in financial loss to the author, but it could in the future if an author’s character is corrupted. Fan fiction compromises the artistic integrity of the work, and it destroys the very quality of the work. I have a series character I would dread to see corrupted by fan fiction, and would regard such efforts as actionable.
But I always return to the great mystery: why do fan fiction writers steal other people’s literary or film characters instead of inventing their own? It is innately parasitic in artistic terms, if not financial terms. These people are literary leeches, unworthy even of contempt.
Haha, Lee, I was wondering when you would catch onto the OTW coup and start to milk it for all it’s worth.
In view of the above quoted Mitchell/Randall case I even might suceed with officially publishing my HP fanfic as I use a secondary character for a critical retelling of the HP books. Not that I will try, but I could – and probably get away with it.
And it was, of course, clear that you hadto bring this censorship thing up again. Fanfic is bad, very bad – but homoerotic fanfic? Perish the thought. What Lee Goldberg dislikes must naturally be illegal.
As someone said so poignantly, “You can’t stop the signal.” You can’t stop fanfiction. No one can stop human creativity – whatever way it choses to go.
Why not just bend over and take it like a man? 😉
Richard Wheeler says, “Fan fiction compromises the artistic integrity of the work, and it destroys the very quality of the work.”
I call bullshit.
I mean, wtf? How exactly does fanfic do that? Does it take it out to cheap brothels and feed it bad gin? Make it read “Lolita”? Induce it to mainline Jackson Pollock? It surely doesn’t matter how many fanfics are written about a work, or how bad they are, the original work is there on the shelf untouched for other readers to enjoy.
Bit like it doesn’t matter how many crap directors re-tell the Iliad in less than glorious Technicolor. The Iliad is still there for me to enjoy, and it always will be.
In any case, surely the point of copyright isn’t to protect the ‘artistic integrity’ of the work, but to protect the creator’s right to profit from it. It’s a mechanism of the market. It has nothing to do with artistic endeavour.
The only reason the author of The Wind Done Gone got sued over it is because said author was trying to make money off it. (And hadn’t gotten permission from the people who make money off Gone with the Wind, but that wouldn’t have been enough for a lawsuit to be worth the effort, whether or not there’d be a legal basis for a lawsuit if there hadn’t been money changing hands involved.)
One of the many reasons people write fanfic is that it helps one practice skills needed to write that Great Novel everyone dreams of writing. One cannot be a great author, or even a good one, without, among other things, being capable of keeping one’s characters distinct from each other and acting like themselves. With fanfiction, there are already-defined characters; if one can stay true enough to those definitions that no one fusses at one for writing characters out of character, one is probably skilled enough to define one’s own characters and stay true enough to those definitions within one’s original story. If one cares to. Some people don’t care to–they might like to write a Great Novel, but that involves more worldbuilding and character-building than they care to put in to a hobby. Are people who build model airplanes from kits instead of from scratch to be censured for not caring to put too much effort into a hobby?
And one could as easily say that Disney is a literary leech unworthy of contempt for producing Peter Pan, because Barrie had nothing to do with the Disney movie except write a stage play and a book decades earlier, and doubly so for Peter Pan: Return to Neverland, because no one involved with the first movie was also involved with the second.
(Also: Apparently I am a comment spammer. Why I was informed of this only after defeating two captchas, then informed again on the second try only after defeating a third captcha, I do not know. Hence using my other nickname and email.)
C.S. “Jack” Lewis was asked if he’d ever write any more Narnia stories after he finished the Chronicles of Narnia and he said he didn’t plan to – but that he thought he left enough hints for other people to do their stories to continue on.
Realistically – I don’t see how it could ever harm the original. Yes some people are going to take it to slash and other extremes, but nobody is going to take that serious enough to have that affect their judgement of the original work. If you don’t like the quality of the fanfic you just stick to the actual series/book.
Why? Well, I don’t know about book fanfic but in the case of television fanfic it’s because I’m not content to only have 22-24 stories a year. Most shows I don’t bother, but there is the odd one where I’m not content to just watch tapes/DVDs of reruns. And most series don’t put out novels for tie-ins. (And even if they do – that’s still not enough because they only last so long) I may have to wade through some bad stuff, but I’ll check fanfiction just to give me something of a fix. For writing, it’s to look at and explore the the information they didn’t have time to cover and play with what might have happened if the story could have had more time were it not for constraints. Or because I want to play with how a character would respond to a situation that they haven’t encountered yet that I wish they would. Or just simply play with the “What-if” question, which I’ve seen them teach in actual writing classes with movies or novels, just as an exercise.
Opinions are interesting for analysis, but need facts to be good argument.
A comment that begins “In fact,” but provides none, is a case in point:
But in fact there is grave harm, no matter whether the fanficcers make a dime. There is innate harm when an author or creator loses artistic control of a work or character. That may not result immediately in financial loss to the author, but it could in the future if an author’s character is corrupted. Fan fiction compromises the artistic integrity of the work, and it destroys the very quality of the work.
After “In fact,” there is nothing but rhetoric.
The factual “grave” and “innate” harms are assertions without proof. Links? Court cases? I’m not seeing any harm except to authorial ego when someone doesn’t read the character the way the author did, or god forbid, rewrites it to more popular. But that’s what the arts are all about – improvisation and improvement. Deal.
Saying something “could result” in financial loss “in the future” is pure speculation. Courts don’t accept this; neither do I.
“An author’s character is corrupted… the artistic integrity… the very quality… ” is destroyed.
What is an “uncorrupted” character – a virgin hero? Sort of like virgin fiber, that would be a book nobody has read. The second someone does, it’s not the author’s character any more. It’s the reader’s. (Ad lib sexual jokes here.)
Someone has mistaken his personal and subjective opinions of art, integrity, corruption, and quality for objective standards. Thank you for sharing your inner feelings with the group.
Moving on, here’s a fact that can be (and is being) quantitatively and qualitatively assessed:
Most attacks on fanfic resort to a pseudo-authoritative tone (Fallacy of Authority), and rely not on facts but an hysterical mixture of art-critic pomposity (Fact-Values Fallacy), financial paranoia (Hypostasis, Slippery Slope Fallacy), bullying misogyny (Fallacy Ad Baculum, or argument to violence) and homophobic moral panic. (The futile stupidity of that last one stands on its own.)
The knee-jerk resort to bad reasoning and threat suggests the writers know little about fandom culture and feel threatened for a host of vague reasons revolving not around “writing” but something else. That other thing is the role of writing in supporting traditional race, class and gender power structures.
Fanfic challenges these control structures, especially as practiced by women, PoC, and non-heteronormatives or body-normatives working outside the for-profit economic sphere.
Traditional writers, critics and readers alike feel threatened by this kind of fanfic because they didn’t invent it, can’t make money off of it, and don’t comprehend it intellectually or artistically. In retaliation, they seek to control it.
Fanfic doesn’t seek to end normative profit-centered art, it simply seeks acknowledgment that there are multiple styles and reasons for doing art, of which fanfic is one. If Bollywood writers came to Hollywood, would they be accused of trying to “steal real writers’ money,” “corrupt the quality,” or “destroy the integrity of art” because the Indian writers portray favorite characters differently? Because they have even the most macho cop-type guy burst into song? (Oh wait, that’s been done.)
Hysterical rants about how fanfic steals our money, corrupts our morals, and destroys our culture are familiar to anyone who’s studied the language of racism, anti-immigration, sexual puritanism and religious bigotry. It’s an effort to reassert control through rhetoric, where facts are lacking.
Hate rants are not facts but bad fiction. Politically and artistically, they’re not up to the standards of bad TV shows and airport novels, let alone fanfic.
“why do fan fiction writers steal other people’s literary or film characters instead of inventing their own? It is innately parasitic in artistic terms, if not financial terms. These people are literary leeches, unworthy even of contempt. ”
Mr Wheeler,
Let me preface by saying I’m not here to prozealotize or try to prove you wrong, but given the fact that fanfic *does* exist, and is written by people in huge numbers, perhaps it is worth treating the question of why they write fan fiction rather than original stories in a manner other than the rhetorical.
When a creator produces a serial work it is surely their aim to make their audience emotionally invested. A creator *wants* people to fall for the characters, to care about their stories and to want to keep coming back for more. Serial fiction is written with the *deliberate* artistic intention of getting the audience emotionlly hooked, is that not true?
As I understand it, the fanfiction urge comes from *that* impulse – the desire to sate an appetite which the original source material excited. Is it not evident that such a drive could never be satisfied by writing original fiction? The primary drive is not to write (though it is people who have a drive to write who see fanfic as the best outlet for the other drive). The primary drive is to further explore the world and characters in which they are invested.
You may call it parasitic, but it stems from a symbiotic coexistence of source material and fan investment which original creators repeatedly deliberately seek to cultivate.
It’s one thing to write fanfiction, Ella, it’s another thing to publish it on the Internet. I don’t think Lee Goldberg or Richard Wheeler have anything against the act of writing fanfiction. Their beef is with the need to distribute it worldwide. I think it’s clearly a violation of the creative rights of the authors when the fans do that. You can like a book or a show without trodding on the copyright of the authors and creators whose work you admire.
I don’t think Lee Goldberg’s problem is homophobia. I think his beef is with the twisting of characters into sexual roles that their creators didn’t intend. In the case of Robin Reid, she is using real people, not fictional charcters, in her slash fiction. I don’t see how the OTW or anyone else can call what Dr. Reid writes fanfiction or an expression of feminism. I am a woman and it sickens me (and not because of the gay angle. I’m a lesbian). I think Dr. Reid is showing an enormous disrespect for the actors she admires, their families and their loved ones. I can only imagine how the families and children of these actors feel when people like Robin Reid publish stories depicting them having sex with other people. It’s one thing to depict the characters they play in sexual situations and it’s another to use the actual actors themselves. I know how I angry and violated I would feel if I found a story about myself on the net having sex with a man. I know how hurt and angry my partner would feel and how confused our son would be.
Typepad is behaving strangely today and sending a lot of legitimate comments — even this one! — to my SPAM folder. Don’t worry, I am checking the SPAM folder and will post the genuine comments (those not involving deals on Xanax and penis enlargements).
Mr. Rommel, fan fiction is usually devoid of character description, including each character’s idiosyncrasies and each character’s unique way of talking and dealing with others, because its writers assume that fanfic readers already know the characters. In typical fan fiction there is not even a physical description of the characters. That means that the work is incomplete and cannot stand on its own, and therefore it has limited artistic merit. Material that damages the author’s characters, as fanfic does, is harmful. The harm I am talking of here has nothing to do with copyright, but with the aesthetics of the story and the characters. Or are you saying that the fan fiction version is on an aesthetic plane with the author’s work even though the fan fiction version cannot even stand on its own? I hope you won’t embarrass yourself with an argument like that. Go ahead, Mr. Rommel, kill the host and see if your parasites survive for long.
“Fanfic challenges these control structures, especially as practiced by women, PoC, and non-heteronormatives or body-normatives working outside the for-profit economic sphere.”
If that isn’t the sentence of the year, I don’t know what is.
I always thought I was fat. But now that I know I’m just non-body-normative, I feel so much better about myself. I think I’ll celebrate by writing some fanfiction.
Hmmm. Who should take it up the ass?
I happened upon your blog and took the time to read everything relevant to your views on fanfiction. I am aware that people rarely alter their opinions and this is hardly my intention. I couldn’t however stay silent and without expressing my points of view for anyone that might care.
First of all, this is not about the legality of fanfiction or lack thereof. Laws that cannot be enforced effectively are nothing more than waste of good flora. In the Web, a global environment of abundant, sometimes excessive, freedom, such enforcement is hardly feasible or even practical. Copyright laws might protect creators but more often than not they are meant to protect the profits of said creators. Unless a creator can prove loss of revenue, few courts would interpret the law in a way that would convict an often-penniless fanfiction writer. In fandoms with thousands of fanfiction writers the notion becomes absurd. Like beating a dead and mummified horse, I say.
The phenomenon of fanfiction is nothing more than a textbook case of the laws of supply and demand. By definition, readers/fans go through the official material faster than the creators can produce it. A reader might finish a book in six hours while the writer might have had to invest six months on its production. This surplus demand is covered by the fans themselves through fanfiction, fanart, fansites, fan conventions, etc. Notice that I’m not saying whether this is right, wrong, moral or immoral. It is simply natural and unavoidable in the societies we live in. Trying to suppress this current would only lead to tighter forms of ‘black market’ and, in extreme circumstances, damage the creator’s fame itself.
On the quality of fanfiction I’ll be blunt. To find good fan stories you have to wade through the excrements at the bottom of the pit of It (also known as ‘the stereotypical mother-in law’). 90 percent of fanfiction is crap. Another 8 percent is material with potential while only the top 2 percent would be considered publishable material (were it NOT fanfiction). However, that top 10 percent is worthy of the inconvenience for many fans. This is also very natural and true for aspiring professional writers. More than 90 percent of the manuscripts is rejected by the editors and a good thing it does.
I have noticed you often refer to Harry Potter fanfiction. While I have read the books and fairly enjoyed them, I usually won’t set a foot (i.e. mouse pointer) in that fandom’s fanfiction archives, unless someone I trust recommends a particular story. That’s because the community, while extensive, is still severely immature. The last book was only recently published and the target group is not quite yet consisted of adults. There is of course the subject of homosexual fanfiction (a result, I believe of sexual repression, but that’s neither here nor there). These… ‘works’ are not the majority, just the ones that prickle and ignite the ‘innocent’ public opinion. More often than not, they belong to the aforementioned 90 percent, which I’m personally not touching with a ten-foot pole. Not that I have anything against ‘gay’ people, or those who indulge in any kind of harmless and/or voluntary depravity…. when *out* of my senses’ range.
It should also be noted that ‘slash’ is much more restrained in other fandoms. Akin to a camp fire, one must wait for the initially untamable flames to settle down before achieving anything useful, like cooking. In effect, wait for the idiots to get out of the fandom (And hopefully get out of the gene pool too. One can hope.)
As for whether fanfiction can aid a writer to achieve the very coveted published state, I theorize it can. I happen to be a non-native English speaker, although I want to believe I have reached a level where that matters little. I entered the fanfiction scene three years ago, starting just above the previously mentioned 10 percent. I’m pretty sure, after 300k words, both my grasp of the language and my style has improved a lot, perhaps even within that pinnacle 2 percent.
There are elements in fanfiction writing that can prepare a potential professional writer, provided he writes in a fandom with a portion of intelligent readers. Writers that are not up to par with the readers’ standards usually receive either silence, a constructive criticism review that exposes the work’s flaws or even the traditional ‘LOLOMGWTF YOU SUX0RZ!11!1!’. More potent stories receive variations of the also traditional one-liner (Good job out there. Now go write the rest!), the more common five-liner (recounting the reviewer’s highlights of that particular chapter) or, more rarely, the 500-words review. This last one mentions the good the bad and the ugly and can be anything between sugar-coated and brutally blunt. I personally love this last kind despite its potential sting, because somebody thought what I produce is good enough to essentially mini-edit it. While none of any potentially negative reviews is akin to a true-life rejection letter, I believe it’s good practice.
About the supposedly hypocritical plagiarism among fanfiction writers. Generally, ideas are free within a fandom. What is frowned upon is coping a story word by word, changing the names of characters and locations, or even a mere couple words, then pasting it on the net and taking full credit for it. Fans get very angry with such practices and would be even more enraged if somebody was to do the same with the original published work. After all, fanfiction writers write for the glory in the same way pro writers write for the money. While hardly the only reason, they get very cranky when their reward is transferred to another. On the other hand, an idea taken from another story and sufficiently improved/altered is a very common practice and generally leads to better fanfiction.
About the supposedly harmful effects of playing in another’s sandbox instead of forging your own characters and worlds. This is true for the less competent fanfiction writers who lack the talent to improve much more anyway. However, there is also the concept of original characters (OCs), either completely new or even already existing in the canon’s background as inconsequential. Reviewers are very brutal and demanding when it comes to OCs, often declaring them unrealistic and/or Mary Sues with little provocation. After that, incompetent writers generally quit while the more driven try harder. In addition, not all fanfiction is based on books. I have written quite a bit in video game fandoms, where the world descriptions, technology specifics and many characters’ personalities must be constructed from meager canon resources. While such pursuits do not offer complete freedom, they are a step above strictly defined fiction universes and are also the environment I generally thrive.
About profit from unlicensed fanfiction. I first started writing fanfiction because I thought I could do better than the majority and was proven right. In the process, I discovered the joys of storytelling and even began to crave the attention I was receiving. Finally, I learned the bittersweet victory of finishing a story or story arc. I never thought about profiting from something I’m basing even a little on somebody else’s universe. In fact, I believe that people like the spawner of ‘Another hope’ whose-name-shall-not-be-written should spend the rest of their lives being tortured via hot toothpicks or at least be banned from reading altogether (the horror!).
As for the ‘Organization for Transformative Works’, don’t be naive. They just want to gather donations. They want to make money out of clueless kids that think that because they write in a world, they automatically own it. In the unlikely event a creator from my fandoms was to use my ideas, I’d say more power to them. Not only do I get bragging rights, I also receive the message what I’m writing is actually worthwhile and from sources I respect more than any of my reviewers. They use my ideas for profit? So what? I never expected monetary gains in the first place.
As a footnote, I have to say that fanfiction was what introduced me to amateur writing. I’m already testing my limits, judging how much work I can output within a set amount of time, whether my original ideas and characters generally work, whether I have the tenacity to produce a story of multiple chapters and I also get a tiny glimpse to what the public reaction to my work could be. I have even started to experiment with original short stories. Some day soon, when I have judged myself to be able to produce truly publishable material, I might decide to try my hand (and keyboard) in the brutal world of professional writing, despite the additional barrier of having to contact editors in foreign to me countries. Should I be lucky enough to be published and should I be successful enough to actually attract a fanfiction community, I already know what my reaction will be. I’ll be flattered and ecstatic about those who sincerely try. I’ll be angry and bitter if I read about my characters being perversed and raped in sick ways, but I’ll also be aware that there is nothing realistic I can do. Above all, I’ll be hoping that some of my more talented fans will be able to enter the professional scene themselves and produce work I’ll want to buy.
Sincerely B. “Archaon” T.
There is a legal remedy to the slash fiction with real people. You can sue for “misappropriation of likeness” or being placed in a “false light.” Both are considered invasions of privacy and even celebrities can bring such suits.
And on a different note, what happens when a writer of fanfic posts his or her works on a web site with advertising?
It’s lawsuits like that which the OTW wants to prevent. They see it as an expression of womanhood and fan culture.
Up until now, I was on the fence about this fanfiction thing that Lee been railing against for so long. But now with this OTW silliness, I’m solidly on Lee Goldberg’s side. These people are whacko.
Richard S. Wheeler wrote: In typical fan fiction there is not even a physical description of the characters.
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If I recall correctly, Erle Stanley Gardner never provided a physical description for Perry Mason in his novels. Hence, the disparate difference between the Mason in the 1930s films vs the 1950s TV series.
The lack of descriptors is not a trait unique to fanfiction.
Pepper
I think it’s very important that we don’t confuse fan fiction based on original works and fan fiction based on real people. These are two separate issues with different legal and moral implications.
“Mr. Rommel, fan fiction is usually devoid of character description”
‘Usually’ is a weasel word, Mr Wheeler. As a writer you should know that.
You’ll also know from past discussions we’ve had that I would liken most fanfic on the web, not to published and edited works but to a slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts that will never see print. The best fanfiction is up there with the best books, the proviso being that very few fanfic writers are their own editor so editing sometimes isn’t as good as it could be even in the “best of the best” fanfiction – but then I’ve seen some appallingly edited books see print.
RSW: “That means that the work is incomplete and cannot stand on its own, and therefore it has limited artistic merit.”
Hmm…where to start with this one. Putting “therefore” in the middle of two statements does not necessarily mean that one follows the other, for example, ‘The sky is blue therefore my cat is a microwave oven.’
I’ve read real, published books even by famous writers where the story was (in my opinion) so poorly put together that I was even more lost at the end of it than I had been at the beginning, but a good deal older and in a much worse temper. My favourite example of this is Golding’s “Pincher Martin”, which won prizes for literature. I still have no clue what that book was meant to be about (yes, I got that the ‘island’ was his own teeth) and do not care. I think that book had ‘limited artistic merit’ but clearly those who give out prizes for literature did not agree.
I suggest that, as someone else said, you’re assuming that your own assumptions and tastes are obvious and are automatically shared by others. That is not the case.
RSW: “Material that damages the author’s characters, as fanfic does, is harmful.”
Unsupported assertion. You have yet to show that fanfic damages an author’s characters. How, exactly, does a story in which (say), Aragorn does not marry Arwen but Éowyn instead damage Tolkien’s original characters? The original remains untouched. (And, in this particular example, it may be helpful to note that it was the author’s original intention was to have exactly that happen. Arwen was a later addition.)
RSW: “The harm I am talking of here has nothing to do with copyright, but with the aesthetics of the story and the characters.”
But you still have nothing more than an unsupported assertion here. In what way does this mechanism operate? In what way is this damage demonstrated? Because I’m not seeing it.
RSW: “Or are you saying that the fan fiction version is on an aesthetic plane with the author’s work even though the fan fiction version cannot even stand on its own?”
I have read examples of fanfiction which entirely stood on their own, and which were understandable without any prior knowledge of the original material. Now, it’s likely that your next statement is going to be something along the lines of, “But that’s so close to an original work that the writer should write their own stuff and get it published.” or “They should become a ‘real’ writer.”
To which my reply is, ‘why should they?’ For many fanfiction writers, writing is a hobby, an activity undertaken for amusement. Nobody, surely, tells Saturday footballers that they should cease to pay soccer until they can do so on a professional level. Or that they should make up their own game! Likewise, there are amateur musicians, actors, cooks and so on.
“In typical fan fiction there is not even a physical description of the characters. That means that the work is incomplete and cannot stand on its own, and therefore it has limited artistic merit. Material that damages the author’s characters, as fanfic does, is harmful. The harm I am talking of here has nothing to do with copyright, but with the aesthetics of the story and the characters. Or are you saying that the fan fiction version is on an aesthetic plane with the author’s work even though the fan fiction version cannot even stand on its own?”
Mr Wheeler, fanfiction qua fanfiction does not ever ask to be judged on its own merits alone. To divorce fanfiction from the source material is to change it so that it is no longer fanfic. You can then take a hot knife of aesthetic criticism to it and decide how well written it is as an original story, but that is to 100% miss the point of its original purpose.
Fanfiction asks the reader to judge it on the merits of its relationship to the original text. As you said, fans write for other fans and presume a familiarity with the source material. The currency of fandom is the canon. The source text is the gold standard. Spend any time at all watching fans talk on the internet and what you’ll see is constant discussion of what is true and factual in the source text, which forms the boundaries of what will be accepted by most fans.
Read criticism of fanfiction by its readers and the common complaint you’ll find is when something in the story does not conform to the source matierial. Love of the source material comes *first* and is of primary importance. Fanfiction is written in full knowledge and acceptance of that.
So when it comes to the aesthetic damage done to original worlds by fanfiction, I am left scratching my head and wondering do creators really believe their fans are so stupid that they can’t distinguish the difference between the original source material which they love and with which they are enganged, and another fan’s creative commentary upon that work? That they’re too thick to decide for themselves whether they think a particular fanwork is a good or a bad derivation from the original?
If that’s the case, it must be a constant source of delighted surprise everytime a viewer even manages to turn on the TV set, or opens a book at the right end.
All of your objections seem to be of a sexual nature. Are you repressed? Please keep in mind that the internet is for more than just Americans.
*I also thought it was pretty cocky of OTW to claim all of fandom as primarily an expression of feminism.*
You really have no idea about our history, do you? If it’s got nothing to do with you, you don’t care. Way to alienate 50% of your supporters.
“I think it’s very important that we don’t confuse fan fiction based on original works and fan fiction based on real people. These are two separate issues with different legal and moral implications.”
Not to the people who write it or to the OTW. They sees it as fanfiction and an outgrowth of feminism. I’m a woman and I find the argument offensive. It demeans feminism and the battles we have fought and are still fighting today. All we need is for people to associate feminism with the childish, masturbatory, and probably illegal activity of a tiny percentage of women. That’s the real danger of the O.T.W. and the one that we should really be worried about.
“Nobody, surely, tells Saturday footballers that they should cease to pay soccer until they can do so on a professional level. Or that they should make up their own game!”
There’s no comparison, on any level, between people who play football and people who steal the creative works of others, distribute them worldwide, and claim the work as their own. Football is a sport, owned by no one, that anybody can play.
I suppose you could compare football to the act of writing as something anybody can do without being a professional. But that’s about as far as you can take that comparison without looking ridiculous.
Fan fiction damages an author regardless of copyright or financial issues. It damages the author’s creations. Fan fiction usually lacks the essential story elements found in original drama and fiction. In original works, characters are carefully introduced. Their appearance, age, history, attitudes, beliefs, idiosyncracies are swiftly introduced because without them the stories make little sense. Fan fiction usually short-circuits these essentials, which is why so little fan fiction could be considered literature. This incompleteness damages the original author’s characters, and potentially turns off potential readers or viewers.
A while ago an ardent advocate of fanfiction based in Germany emailed me one of her stories, based on a TV series I had never seen. What I found myself staring at was a jumble of male names; characters devoid of description, so that the episodes she sent meant utterly nothing. There was no way to connect with her work. She was, of course, engaged in the parasitic business of creating stories without creating or even bothering to describe the characters. It was very sad, actually, because she was obviously proud of her work.
I believe that abusive fan fiction does indeed damage the reputation of the original authors, by broadly publishing deeply inferior material based on the original work and creating public skepticism about the quality of the original work. It also is plain that the original author is deprived of artistic control, which in itself is damaging. However much these people believe they are engaged in a harmless pursuit, they are not: they are doing grievous injury.
“There’s no comparison, on any level, between people who play football and people who steal the creative works of others, distribute them worldwide, and claim the work as their own. Football is a sport, owned by no one, that anybody can play.”
Fanfiction does not steal from others (stealing implies loss to the original owner, and nobody’s offered any evidence so far to support that apart from a lot of handwaving and calling other people perverts).
Fanfiction writers do not claim the work as their own. That strawman could use a little help from the Great and Powerful Oz. The liberty fanfic writers are taking is in expressing their interaction with the original source material in fictional form, rather than in watercooler conversation/academic papers/playing with action figures/adopting fashions inspired by the show/any other of a hundred ways audiences adopt cultural material for their personal use.
“All we need is for people to associate feminism with the childish, masturbatory, and probably illegal activity of a tiny percentage of women. That’s the real danger of the O.T.W. and the one that we should really be worried about.”
To meander off topic slightly, since you’ve positioned yourself as a defendent of feminism, doesn’t it intrigue you at all that fanfiction is so predominantly written by women? In media fandom, figures in various studies have always found upwards of 85% of fanfiction to be written by women. In some fandoms, I would not be in the least surprised to find the percentage even higher.
If fanfiction is so morally reprehensible as you declare, does it give you pause at all to wonder why women do it? What is it that is lacking for them in popular culture which drives this impulse?
Cause I’m a woman too, and one who finds a cultural and emotional outlet in fanfic, and *I* find it offensive when a subculture which probably consists of tens of thousands of women all told are dismissed as perverts unworthy even of being allowed room for dialogue.
Erin: “Not to the people who write it or to the OTW. They sees it as fanfiction and an outgrowth of feminism. I’m a woman and I find the argument offensive.”
Way to conflate a series of disparate ideas.
‘Real people fiction’ isn’t confined to fanfiction – it happens all the time and is (sometimes) accepted as art on its own merits. The film “Titanic” used real people’s names and a real event as its basis – and some of the descendants of the real people concerned objected very strongly to the fictional use which was made of their ancestors.
Interestingly, they had no legal case – as soon as someone is dead they can be fictionalised all you want. If real people slash fans wanted to posit a relationship between Marc Bolan and John Bonham, they could do so until their eyes bubbled and nobody could do a damn thing about it. If they wished to do so about Robert Plant and Brian May, those gents might (depending on what the story said) have a case for libel. Or may not.
Now, anyone who’s crossed swords with me before on this blog may remember that I am no supporter of real people fiction. I don’t like it; it gives me hives.
That’s not because I’m a woman or because I’m a feminist, though I am both those things.
It’s because I think it’s rude to use real people’s names in fiction for the amusement of others, and that goes whether they’re alive or – if they have living relatives -whether they’re dead. Legal =/= moral.
That objection is all the greater when real people’s names are being used in a Hollywood blockbuster; I hold that view because a lot of people get their history from films. It never seems to occur to them that the film-maker was telling a story, and one which is often at wild variance with actual events. It’s unlikely that anyone reading RPF is going to mistake it for reality, not when there’s a clear header saying, “THIS IS FICTION!”
I therefore think the person who made the original point was right. Real person fiction and fanfiction about a fictional creation are completely different and I think (I can’t speak for them) that OTW hold that view, too. They are an umbrella organisation for both FPF and RPF, but they’re not conflating the two into one.
“There’s no comparison, on any level, between people who play football and people who steal the creative works of others, distribute them worldwide, and claim the work as their own. Football is a sport, owned by no one, that anybody can play.”
I think you have it a bit wrong. If OTW is comparable to sports fans, it would be similar to sports fans creating an organization and sending out press releases claiming that as fans, they have the legal and moral right to tell the owners of a sports team how to run their organization. This includes telling them who to trade, who to keep, who they can approve as advertisers, when they can play their games and who they should chose as opponents. It sounds silly. Sports fans offer lots of commentary on owners, rail against what they see as stupid trades, condemn them for obtrusive advertising in a ballpark. They do not claim to be equal to the owners, nor do they threaten legal action to support that claim.
OTW supporters using that sports analogy, just plain silly and not thought out. I also expect better of the anti-OTW crowd, recognizing that analogy for the stupidity that it is.
One of the ugly truths out there that a discussion about the ethics of fan fiction is it forces us to confront what is “original.” The old adage that there is nothing new out there looms out there; taunting us would be writers with the possibility that our Great Idea for a novel might be a rehash of themes seen countless times before in different incarnations.
Is anyone really “original” anymore? Would Sir Arthur Conan Doyle consider Monk a derivative sham of his own eccentric crime solver? Would JRR be looking sideways at JKR about the characters in her works? Oh wait Dumbledore can’t be Gandalf – he’s gay.
Anyone think that any publishing company in today’s business is going to let one of their properties fall into the public domain? Me neither.
I’ve got a short story making the rounds. It’s the story of a pay per view Werewolf hunt set on October 31, 2020 (a blue moon on Halloween if anyone cares). Everyone in my writer’s group agreed that it was an entertaining use of 3000 words, but I soon found myself answering questions concerning whether it could be considered derivative to King’s (well technically his pen name’s) “The Running Man”, because of the game show aspect. This led to several posts in which I argued that applying that logic “The Running Man” could be considered derivative of “The Most Dangerous Game.”
Fan fiction removes the thin blurred line of what can be considered derivative. No longer is a person using themes that we’ve seen before or characters that are “familiar yet different.” They simply use the characters and settings without attempting to hide it under the guise of “original writing.”
Provided that piece of fan fiction isn’t directly making them money, I don’t have a major issue with it. Matthew above (and if it’s the same Matthew I know – incidentally involved in the “Running Man” vs “Most Dangerous Game” debate) comments that suppose a piece of fan fiction resides on a website that has advertising on it? I’ve heard that the Mugglenet website (which hosts news, interviews, and of course fan fiction) generates around $100,000/per year and essentially paid for the founder of that sites education at Notre Dame.
The fan fic writer making money off of using other peoples characters – bad.
A hosting site such as Mugglenet(dot)com or Fanfiction(dot)net making money off of hosting fan fiction via advertisers – ???
Someone told me recently that the woman behind the Princess Diary series of stories got her start writing fan fiction. More recently there’s a young adult writer signed by Simon and Schuster simply because of her large reader base for her fan fiction. Neither of these women made money directly from their fan fiction, but it obviously had a factor in their success.
Is it wrong for an aspiring writer to use fan fiction to develop and cultivate a reader base so that when they do publish their own original works that their sales are higher? Is that underhanded or creative advertising? I prefer the latter since it’s my own route.
Like most everything else, simple things become more complex and convoluted as more questions are asked, again forcing us to confront what is ethical, moral, or even legal.
Mr. Wheeler’s comments about rolling back the technology miss the fact that fan fiction really began with the Star Trek fanzines of the mid 1970’s – mailing lists without computers and whatnot. The computer age has made this much more accessible to everyone.
A quick look at your impressive list of novels shows that from 1973 to 1990 you produced 13 novels. In the next 17 year period you produced twice that number averaging two or more per year since 1999. I can assume the modern age which has only served to loose this digital larceny upon the world also might have had a hand in boosting your own productivity? You must acknowledge the good with the bad, sir.
As for these OTW people, they come off sounding like a paper tiger. I can’t picture them surviving the first onslaught of legal challenges. They’ll claim they’re doing it to “protect the fandom” and what not.
Me, I’m a bit more honest than that. I’m in it for me. I’ve little interest in whoring myself out to an agent, who will then pimp me to a publishing house. The rise in small and independent publishing means I have a shot to get started without kissing too many rings.
I was most impressed by the post by B. “Archaon” T. Good luck with you works.
Lee,
I don’t know if you are still monitoring Scalzi’s blog, but Robin Reid is back. Here is my favorite part of her comment:
“Re: female space. You are confusing fandom with media fandom and fanfic and fanvidding fandom elements. Many people make the mistake of using “fandom” when we really mean “the little corner of fandom I inhabit.”
My current fandom for example is LOTR (book and film), slash fiction (Fictional People Fiction, and Real People Fiction), in LJ. That is almost exclusively female, but it’s not all of fandom.
While there has been no demographic study done of fandom(s) (even pre-internet days), the existing scholarship on media/fanfic fandoms (done by Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon-Smith, and Constance Penley) confirms my personal experience, the experience of the Board of OTW (mostly coming from media fandom and being heavily into both fanfic and fanvids, vidding pre-existing machanima or whatever that’s called), and the basic attendance at fan conventions which indicate a heavy female presence coming into fandom at large during the 1970s (Star Trek–I first came into organized fandom as a Trekkie myself). Women writers invented fan fiction (as stories written about characters in the media shows and some books). Previously, fanzines tended to focus more on essays, letters, con reports, evaluations of books and shows (what is now called “meta” — fan scholarship and evaluation).”
By the way, Lee, Fandomwank is once again attributing the comments of others, in this case Richard Wheeler’s, to you and you are getting trashed for it. You might want to talk to them about it.
Snoot,
I’m not surprised that other people’s comments on my blog are being attributed to me. It’s happened before and I don’t think it’s always accidental.
Lee
When I was a book editor I received the second manuscript of a new series, from an author who went on to become a top-seller.
As I read it I was dismayed to discover that he hadn’t reintroduced the characters that he created in his first novel. It is a rule of publishing that all series books must stand alone; a publisher or author can’t assume that the purchaser of a subsequent novel has read the earlier ones. That means that in all cases, to avoid chaos, the characters must be reintroduced to readers in each work. The author resisted introducing the characters, and attempted to do it by inserting material from the first novel in italics. The book bombed. He hurt himself badly.
But here we have fan fiction writers displaying the same weakness. The characters are not introduced or refined, and this weakens their stories and confuses anyone who is not familiar with the original. In other words, these are works of so little merit, because they lack vital story elements, that they damage the reputation of the original. The absence of artistic control over fan fiction ipso facto damages the originator. The incomplete nature of fan fiction has a ruinous impact on the original. It really should be stopped cold.
Snoot…if you have any evidence which would show that Robin Reid is wrong, let’s see it. There’s no use making unsupported assertions and none in a discussion she’s not participating in.
My experience of specifically media fandom (25 years and counting) would indicate she’s right. The only – and I mean *one* out of many – corners of fandom where my experience was that participation was slightly skewed toward a male demographic was Dr Who. Everywhere else, women predominated.
In fanfiction writing and reading, specifically, it seems to me to be around 95% women and I’ve been to fanfiction events which were 100% women.
“A while ago an ardent advocate of fanfiction based in Germany emailed me one of her stories, based on a TV series I had never seen. What I found myself staring at was a jumble of male names; characters devoid of description, so that the episodes she sent meant utterly nothing. There was no way to connect with her work. She was, of course, engaged in the parasitic business of creating stories without creating or even bothering to describe the characters. It was very sad, actually, because she was obviously proud of her work.”
Jesus Christ, Richard. Can’t you at least *try* to get your facts straight before you make a comment? I did send you a link to Cesperanza’s Due South fanfic “Eight Sessions” as it is my favourite entry fic to introduce people to slash. I never claimed that I had written this story and so could not be proud of it. And if you consider Ces’ work inferior – to what exactly? to the show? to your own work? – because she doesn’t bother with lengthy descriptions of the mountie and Ray K. which aren’t necessary anyway – why, I think you still don’t understand what it is about. And let me tell you that I consider Ces’ work (style, writing talent) far superior to your own although she didn’t get paid to do it.
Paul Cornell, scriptwriter for, among others, Doctor Who (co-Writer’s Guild award winner), novelist, tie-in writer, and comics writer, has just posted fanfic to his blog.
http://paulcornell.blogspot.com/2007/12/twelve-blogs-of-christmas-six.html
Talentless unpublishable man that he is.
Kete,
You sent me one of yours, and named the TV show it was based on.
Kete, considering you’re an outspoken advocate and fan of child pornography, I’m not surprised that you would rank butt-fucking fanfic based on a Canadian TV show over the highly-acclaimed work of Richard Wheeler, the author of more than forty books, the 2001 recipient of the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to Western literature, a four-time Spur Award winner, one of the most respected authors in the history of the western genre (he is the western equivalent of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury or Arthur C. Clarke).
Your profound ignorance, lack of respect, arrogance and bad taste says more about fanfiction “writers” and their “readers” than anything else I’ve read on Lee Goldberg’s blog.
I don’t know why Lee let’s you continue to post on his blog. The stench carries.
“You sent me one of yours, and named the TV show it was based on.”
Richard, at the time we corresponded I had not written any fanfic for TV shows, only for LOTR and HP.
And frakman, dear, I’m a gen-writer and don’t read kiddie-porn. I have, however, stated and stand by it, that in my opinion people may write whatever they want, even if it is not to my taste.
Kete,
If my memory is failing me, then I apologize to you. I’ve switched computers and no longer have the material.
“But I always return to the great mystery: why do fan fiction writers steal other people’s literary or film characters instead of inventing their own? It is innately parasitic in artistic terms, if not financial terms. These people are literary leeches, unworthy even of contempt.”
::sighs::
Well, your list of literary leeches beneath contempt must then include Neil Gaiman, Joan Aiken, Helen Fielding, Gregory McGuire, Jean Rhys, Carrie Bebris, Tom Holt, Barbara Hambly, Gregory McGuire, Roald Dahl, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, to name but a few.
It must also include the writers of children’s books such as ‘The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig’, or ‘The Stinky Cheese Man.’ (Teaching children to write sequels to beloved stories, or alternative endings to said stories, is an explicit part of the British National Curriculum, incidentally.)
(Out of courtesy to Mr Goldberg, we shall perhaps draw a veil over the whole business of people who write books based on other people’s television shows, rather than inventing their own characters. I am sure you did not mean to insult our host.)
Taking pre-existing stories and characters and working with them is its own discipline, Mr Wheeler. Nailing character voices and psychology in such a way that people who love those characters will recognise them in your retelling is a challenging (and enjoyable) task in its own right. Then again, at other times it is the *universe* that someone is intrigued by, rather than the characters – one of my favourite ‘Star Trek’ spinoff novels, as a kid, was ‘The Pandora Principle’, which took a minor character from the Trek movies and sent her to a Romulan world as a spy. I found it quite fascinating. Conversely I have just bought Hambly’s book ‘Renfield’, which promises to retell Dracula from the pov of the titular bug-eater; in this instance I’m not expecting any great expansion of Stoker’s universe, but I *am* looking forward to seeing events and characters presented from a different perspective.
‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ is a rather delightful example of what fanfiction does and how it functions. Stoppard’s play is a response to ‘Hamlet’, and it makes precious little sense to a reader or viewer who is not already familiar with Shakespeare’s play. Its impact, its humour, its cleverness and its pathos all depends upon the interaction between the two texts. Now, of course Stoppard is profiting from his art – and, moreover, he is in the happy position of knowing that the creator of the source text has long since shuffled off his mortal coil and thus cannot protest at the misrepresentation of his characters. But it seems highly unlikely that Shakespeare would have had any such objections, given that all but 2 of his plays were themselves retellings of other people’s stories.
Similarly the recent ‘re-invisioning’ of the 1970s SciFi show ‘Battlestar Galactica’ takes a setting, a plot and a collection of characters invented by someone else and then remixes and reinvents characters, motivation, context and narrative arcs with great success.
In short, Mr Wheeler, many people – perhaps most people – enjoy interacting with texts by playing the ‘what if’ game. This may be simply a matter of speculating with a fellow fan about what will happen in the next movie/episode/volume of an ongoing narrative. You will also find that people have many different interpretations of texts and characters; in any group of undergraduates, or any weekly meeting of a book group, you will find a wide array of different perspectives on what happens and why. You will find people’s readings of character and motivation are influenced by their own experiences, by their own gender, race, sexuality, class etc etc etc. Jane Austen was probably not consciously making statements about colonialism in her books, but readers who are familiar with Edward Said will nevertheless view her books with an awareness of how colonialism underpinned the characters’ lives (as the most recent film adaptation of ‘Mansfield Park’ emphasised).
Certainly fanfiction does not work in the same way as an original text. Writers do usually avoid patronising their readers with extensive scene-setting and character-describing, in much the same way that one does not waste time explaining the appearance and function of a kettle or an iPod in an original text – because it is needless and dull to do so. Introducing familiar characters and describing their appearance, within the context of fanfiction, is actually BAD writing; it’s rather like a novelist reintroducing and redescribing their characters at the start of every new chapter, or a TV show doing the same at the start of each episode. The reason the reader is there in the first place is because they already know the characters and the setting and the story.
“It is a rule of publishing that all series books must stand alone; a publisher or author can’t assume that the purchaser of a subsequent novel has read the earlier ones. ”
I am sure you are right that this applies in particular to a second book. But the farther advanced (and more beloved) the series, the less the rule is adhered to. Patrick O’Brian certainly never bothered to make his books standalone. On a less elevated plane, neither does Laurell K. Hamilton. The devoted O’Brian reader would find it tedious to be reminded who Aubrey and Maturin are; the new O’Brian reader is pretty much abandoned in midocean, to sink or swim. You *can’t* put “In our previous episode…” into a tenth novel without becoming ludicrous,
As Fay noted, fanfiction works the same way. Author and audience have a common understanding of situation and setting (unless it’s an alternate universe); therefore it is bad writing to reintroduce material that both reader and writer are thoroughly familiar with. If the person who jumps into the middle is confused … well, it’s not her (possibly his) fandom.
There’s the occasional piece that stands alone and can be read outwith the fandom, and those are generally the ones we use to try to lure friends into a particular writer or into fanfic itself. But those pieces are unusual; they aren’t the norm, nor should they be. Fanfic is based on a shared passion for the source.
Publishing fan fiction without the consent of the originator or owner is a little like ravishing a lady. It is not being done by consenting adults. That is why it deserves contempt. Does the fan ficcer have rights to the body of work that the originator lacks? Some droit de seigneur? Call it rape, or call it theft, but don’t call it legitimate.
I also thought it was pretty cocky of OTW to claim all of fandom as primarily an expression of feminism. In one fell swoop, they alienated 50% of their potential supporters.
For christ’s sake, feminism is about equality, and isn’t damaging to men in any way.
Well, Mr. Wheeler early in the comments section, you compared fan fic writers to muggers and street trash. Later, thieves and now rapists.
By tomorrow are we the doorman at Auschwitz?
For your publishing rule of books standing alone, I offer the Harry Potter series. Apparently, the best selling books of recent history beg to differ with your opinion.
A more realistic comparison would be comparing fan fiction to reality TV. It is generally poor in quality, widely available and lacks any sense of art.
From what I understand, most new writers breaking in need to be able to deliver a trilogy. The big publishers want repeat business with smaller and print runs.
Obviously, I won’t change your mind, but your rhetoric seems to be growing more venomous.
While I do agree that an organisation such as OFTW is pretty ridiculous since it neither is necessary (because the concept of fanfiction in itself excludes any sort of financial benefit or legal ownership for the fic writer) nor are their ideas legally justifiable, I am sort of amused about what else has been said about fanfiction in your entry.
You do realize that the people who write fanfiction ARE indeed the ones who watch the shows and movies and read the books, right? Those are the ones who are actually interested in the writers’ work and who spend THEIR money so YOU can get paid. And I don’t mean to say that that gives them any right to claim what’s yours was theirs, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that most writers are aware of where their success comes from, like for example J.K.Rowling who you mentioned, and they welcome and encourage their fans to be creative when it comes to fanfiction or artwork because they understand that fanwork is not at all costing them their rights or money but actually PROMOTING their work.
It’s no surprise that TV show writers such as Joss Whedon are so successful. They CARE about their fans, communicate with them, show interest in what the fans do and want, instead of generally condemning everything but their own thoughts. And that pays. Caring about your fans will get you movie contracts (like Firefly Serenity) even when your show was cancelled, or even bring your show back on air despite what the channel it was on originally said (like Jericho).
Of course, you don’t HAVE to like your fans and you don’t have to care about what they think. However, if you don’t, then who are you writing for in the first place? Maybe you should just go and write a diary instead. I’m sure nobody will pester your precious writing with their filthy thoughts of affection, then.
Also, if I’d had written fanfiction and anybody who is involved in the show/book/movie in question asks me to stop writing, then I would. Period. (And I’d stop being a fan, but that’s not the point. There simply is no NEED to keep pointing at how your work is YOURS because nobody’s really trying to take that away from you)
Richard, personal abuse does not improve your argument; either address the issues raised or bow out.
I fail to see how the author suffers any damages from fanfic. If a fan screws around with someone else’s characters in fanfic, it’s only fanfic. Only the truly dimmest readers would ever confuse it with the canon work.
Because the purpose of most fanfic isn’t to be to supplant the original, but to act as a reactionary medium. The bulk of the stories are gap-fillers and “what if” speculation and wish fulfillment. They’re shared among like-minded fans who want to engage with the material in a way that goes farther than simple reviews and commentary. Fanfiction’s meant to supplement the original work, not compete with it.
“By tomorrow are we the doorman at Auschwitz?”
I call Godwin’s Law! Do I get a prize?
Do I take it, then, Mr Wheeler, that you have realised the folly of the whole ‘contemptible leech’ train of thought? That you concede that telling stories based on an external source material, rather than inventing characters and settings afresh, is a literary technique that goes back to Homer and beyond? The fact that you’ve chosen to ignore my riposte and shift the ground of your argument rather suggests this to be the case.
A bigger person would perhaps have acknowledged this point before shifting the argument away from the inherent literary value of the endeavour and over to the issue of courtesy to the creator of the source text. But no matter.
“Publishing fan fiction without the consent of the originator or owner is a little like ravishing a lady. It is not being done by consenting adults. That is why it deserves contempt. Does the fan ficcer have rights to the body of work that the originator lacks? Some droit de seigneur? Call it rape, or call it theft, but don’t call it legitimate.”
…Really? Um. REALLY?
Let’s examine your parallel, shall we? So, in this equation: The Author = The Lady; The Source Text – The Lady’s Body; The Fanfic Writer = The Dastardly Rapist. And, one assumes, The Writer of Condoned Tie-In Novel Or Sequel = The Boyfriend.
This certainly lets Mr Goldberg off the hook – no literary rapist he, for permission and money have changed hands. Shakespeare, Gregory Maguire, Barbara Hambly, Tom Stoppard, Neil Gaiman et al, however – they don’t have the consent of the originators of their source texts, so that still leaves them contemptible. Hmm.
In fact the parallel you seem to be striving for is more ‘Fanfic is like seeing a beautiful woman on the subway and then going home and whacking off while thinking about her.’ Yes, perhaps the woman would find this distasteful or upsetting were she to know of it; on the other hand, she might find it funny or flattering or a turn-on, one never knows. But in no way has she been hurt or damaged by the fact that her image has been burned into your imagination. For that matter, you may have seen the beautiful woman and gone home and, rather than indulge in a spot of onanism, have incorporated her image into the painting you’re working on, or decided to get your hair cut in that exact style. She may be your muse, or your object of desire, but YOU NEVER TOUCH HER. She remains oblivious, unchanged, pristine.
Because when someone writes a piece of fanfiction based on CSI:Miami, or on Pride and Prejudice, THE SOURCE TEXT REMAINS UNCHANGED. No wallet has been snatched, no sexual assault has occurred; the wallet remains bulging with bills and the lady’s body remains untouched.
What about people who have the gall to write Real Person Fiction? Those individuals arrogant enough not merely to tell stories about fictional characters they did not invent, but to actually take real human beings and, without their consent, dare to assume the authority to shape the truth of their lives? To speak for them? To claim to know what their thoughts and fears and desires might be? To make extrapolitions and suppositions about their morality, their integrity, their hopes and dreams based upon second- and third- hand accounts, or upon papparazzi photographs. What do we think of such people? Are they essentially rapists, by your rationale? For they aren’t merely taking liberties with a fictional person – they are taking liberties with a real human being, sullying and distorting that person’s image. I confess, I find that style of fiction – whether we’re talking graphic slash, an imaginary tale of Justin Timberlake locking himself out of his car or ‘The King and I’, considerably more dubious a business than retelling or remixing or sequel-writing for a fictional source. I’ve enjoyed ‘Wilde’ and ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ and ‘Macbeth’ and Calico’s LotR RPS as much as the next person, but I still find that kind of usurpation of POV decidedly disconcerting.
The real crux of this matter, Mr Wheeler, is that you are disturbed by the idea of someone engaging with your characters in a way that you yourself would not. You care about your characters, you feel protective and possessive towards them, and you are horrified by the notion that somebody else could read your words and have a vastly different understanding of what is happening in your story. That they might see the potential for storylines and twists that you would hate. This feels like violation, which is why you’re being so vociferous. You’re arguing from the heart rather than the head.
I do sympathise with this, actually. I think it’s very understandable, even pitiable; but I also think it’s based on a misapprehension about the nature of storytelling.
The devil of it is, Mr Wheeler, that once you have shared your story with an audience – once you have made characters and settings live in *their* imaginations rather than kept them secret in your own – you lose control of those characters. You can’t control what those imaginary people will mean to other men and women; you can’t control how other people will judge or interpret your characters’ actions; you can’t control how other people will speculate about what happens off the page. If you’ve done your job well, then your writing *will* encourage your readers to believe that the characters continue to live and breathe and have an existence off the page. And unfortunately, just because your reader enjoyed your story, and was engaged with your characters, that does not mean that your reader is a clone of you. It doesn’t mean that their interests and values and passions and whims are going to mirror your own.
It means that they might enjoy imagining what would happen if Doctor Who’s TARDIS suddenly appeared and whisked your character off for adventures on the other side of the galaxy. They might find one of your supporting characters truly fascinating, and speculate about what happens to them before or after the end of the book. You have written characters of various ethnicities and genders; it is entirely possible that a reader who is of the same gender or ethnicity as one of your characters may perceive their actions and motivations in a way you yourself do not, and this may prompt them to write a story that you yourself would never have considered writing. They may want to play the ‘what if’ game, and posit an entirely different ending for a story.
And the thing is, Mr Wheeler, that NONE OF THESE THINGS, nor any other readerly response, will harm your source text. They really won’t.
Yes, if you overhear people discussing your characters over a coffee, and realise that these two readers did not receive the story as you would want them to do (they hated Character X, they thought the prose was insipid or overwrought, they loved the whole thing to pieces and were convinced that Character A was secretly in love with Character B), then this may be distressing. Yes, if you stumble across a piece of fanfiction that does the same kind of thing, you may find *that* distressing. But you should understand that whether or not such fanfiction were to exist (and I think I can safely reassure you that the likelihood of your books garnering any fanfic is pretty microscopic – literary sources are so few and far between), you still cannot guarantee that readers will share your own perspective on your stories and characters.
And that’s okay. That’s how storytelling works.
“It’s no surprise that TV show writers such as Joss Whedon are so successful. They CARE about their fans, communicate with them, show interest in what the fans do and want, instead of generally condemning everything but their own thoughts. And that pays. Caring about your fans will get you movie contracts (like Firefly Serenity) even when your show was cancelled, or even bring your show back on air despite what the channel it was on originally said (like Jericho).
Of course, you don’t HAVE to like your fans and you don’t have to care about what they think. However, if you don’t, then who are you writing for in the first place? Maybe you should just go and write a diary instead. I’m sure nobody will pester your precious writing with their filthy thoughts of affection, then.”
Absolutely right, Nicky! And please note that it’s mostly writers who have no fanfic written about their works at all who cry, “Theft!” the loudest.
If Joss Whedon is so successful, why were all his shows canceled?
Maybe by encouraging this nonsense?
(Granted, I think this is an unsupportable position — just like the contrary one you posit.)
Firstly, I agree with Lee that the OTW are presumptuous idiots, and the faster they are defeated in the courts the better. But I don’t fancy seeing *all* fanficcers labelled thieves because I don’t believe it is necessarily true.
Speaking only of the HP fandom, J.K. Rowling gave explicit permission for people to write and publish non-profit stories about her characters and universes on the Internet. On the topic of fanfic, she says ‘it’s wonderful’ (Comic Relief interview) and, on writing in general, ‘doesn’t know why everyone doesn’t want to write’ (Harry Potter and Me, TV documentary). There are similar quotes from other interviews, but suffice to say she approves of genuine fans enjoying her world in a non-profit way and sharing their stories with each other on the web.
What she never, ever did was give permission to people to abuse her generosity by corrupting her characters. She has actively closed down several sites when it became known to her that they contained explicit content. Her very understandable cease-and-desist-orders stated that she cared deeply that children, most especially, didn’t stumble onto such content.
I think Mr Wheeler expresses a very hard line overall, but I do agree with his statement that:
“I believe that abusive fan fiction does indeed damage the reputation of the original authors, by broadly publishing deeply inferior material based on the original work and creating public skepticism about the quality of the original work.”
Regrettably, too many graphic-content HP stories still exist on the web, so I think it is fair to say that the HP fandom possesses a major problem with bad-faith fanfics. But … if a fanficcer honours Rowling’s generosity by exercising common sense and good judgement in terms of content, is it fair to tar such writers with the same brush?
If written in good faith, a HP fanfic *is* actually authorised in that the copyright holder has given permission for both the story and its non-profit distribution. If Rowling ever elects to retract her permission, then all bets are off, and the stories would need to be deleted from the web.
As for literary merit, a fanfic is just a first-draft story, and it can have the same literary merit (or not) as any other first-draft story. True, a judgement of ‘no merit’ is more likely than not, but that doesn’t make a decent story impossible, merely rare (as editors all over the world bemoan when trawling through a huge stack of manuscripts from new writers).
If written in good faith, the worst you can say about a HP fanfic is that it is boring, hard to read, and lacks a point; the best might be that it sheds an interesting and entertaining new light on characters you loved reading about in the original.
I offer a question, then. How is a decent, good-faith, HP fanfic (rare creature though it may be), so fundamentally different from, say, the first draft of a professional tie-in novel? Both are authorised by the copyright holder, both are based on someone else’s universe and characters, both are written with love of the relevant universe. The tie-in will go on to be carefully edited and checked for continuity, pacing, etc, and it will end up being a far better all-around product, but that speaks to consumer expectations. You get what you pay for.
J.K. Rowling doesn’t have a problem with HP fanfics written in good faith, Lee, and however vexed you might possibly feel about her letting the side down, please reconsider labelling *all* hobby writers as thieves.
Kete, both “Firefly” and “Serenity” BOMBED. They were major, costly FAILURES. They may have drawn the tiny fanfiction crowd but nobody else gave a damn. J.K. Rowling has openly and repeatedly stated her opposition to sexually-related Potter fanfiction and that hasn’t stopped the “fans” from doing it anyway. That tells you how much they respect the author’s wishes unless it serves their interests.
“You do realize that the people who write fanfiction ARE indeed the ones who watch the shows and movies and read the books, right?”
A tiny fraction of the audience. You have an overblown sense of how much you matter in the scheme of things.
I think it’s safe to say that 99% of the people who enjoy a book or TV show don’t run out and write fanfiction, read fanfiction, or even know that it exists.
Of course, that argument could also be used to counter the claim that fanfiction hurts the commercial prospects of the original work.
It doesn’t diminish the ethical argument, however, that the fanfiction writers is infringing on the creative and intellectual property rights of the creator.
“J.K. Rowling doesn’t have a problem with HP fanfics written in good faith, Lee, and however vexed you might possibly feel about her letting the side down, please reconsider labelling *all* hobby writers as thieves.”
I’m a long time reader of this blog. Lee has frequently said that he has no problem with fanfiction if the author condones it. He also has no problem with it being done as a hobby or learning tool as long as it is not distributed/published without the original authors permission.
But I have seen his words taken out-of-context or the opinions of others attributed to him, as they are now on Fandomwank.
“Absolutely right, Nicky! And please note that it’s mostly writers who have no fanfic written about their works at all who cry, “Theft!” the loudest.”
Tell that to Anne Rice. Or many others. You don’t know what you are talking about Kete. You don’t have to be a victim of an injustice to fight against it. If we followed your logic, only minorities can criticize bigotry and racism.
So, Snoot, what’s your take on fiction derived from sources whose creators are dead, and who are thus unable to give or deny permission? Is this unjust and unethical?
(I’m not asking what the legal situation is with regard to copyright, incidentally. I’m asking about this ethical argument you’re putting forward.)
I think you’re taking this a bit too seriously. No one who writes fan fiction actually believes they own the rights to the characters or worlds that they are using. They even disclaim it at the beginning of their stories. It’s merely people enjoying themselves and the shows they watch or books they write. In a way it’s a new form of literary discussion. Instead of being debated about in academic circles, the “fans” of a work discuss what they like by putting it into story form.
OR they are nothing more than teenage fantasies. And really what teenager, male or female hasn’t fantasized about being with the heart throb of their day. The only difference now is that with the internet they can share their fantasies with other people.
Yes, there are people out there who take their fan fiction a bit to seriously, but that’s the case with any sort of fanatical fan. Most realize that it’s just playing around. A way to express their interest and wish their way into a favorite world. It’s just like kids pretending that they’re Jedi or Superman but without the physical aspect. In a way it’s a new form of “dress up” and “Make Believe” for these people who have been forced to become adults before their time by advertising and the culture around them.
Do I agree about these people who want to make fan fiction “legitimate”? No. But making such a big fuss over it is also silly.
As a final note, Fan Fiction is rather like tie in novels… except people get paid to write tie ins.
J.W.,
For the most part, I agree with you. But with all due respect, I think you’re mistaken about the sense of ownership fanficcers take in the characters and worlds that they “play in.” You write:
“No one who writes fan fiction actually believes they own the rights to the characters or worlds that they are using.”
But clearly, Naomi Novik and her fellow OTW members disagree with that. They believe that by merely writing about characters they don’t own and didn’t create, they have transformed the book, TV show, or movie into something that is theirs and deserves legal protection from, among other things, commercial use. This belief is embodied in the first two lines of their mission statement:
“We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge.”
They want us to respect their “ownership” of the fan work they create when they have no respect whatsoever for the “ownership” of the characters and worlds they are using.
I obviously see and accept the similarities between fanfiction and tie-in work. I’d be a fool and a hypocrite if I didn’t. Both are new stories derived from a pre-existing media property.
The key difference between tie-in work and fanfiction is not that the writers are paid for their writing but that it is done with the involvement, oversight and consent of the creator and/or rights holder. The creators have complete control over how their characters and worlds are used and depicted…and how those derivative works are distributed to an audience. (Do I think I have “transformed” Monk into something that I should own? Hell no. It belongs to Andy Breckman and I, like the other writers on his show, write about Monk at his pleasure).
The OTW, as one fan put it, would like to see the rules of ownership and copyright rewritten “on fandoms terms.” That goes beyond simply “dressing up” or playing “make believe” with someone else’s characters…or a literary discussion of someone else’s work.
I know you agree with that. You write:
“Do I agree about these people who want to make fan fiction “legitimate”? No. But making such a big fuss over it is also silly.”
Not to the people who write the books, TV shows and movies that the fanficcers believe they own simply because they read or watch them. It’s always important for writers to protect their artistic work, creative rights, and financial future from people who infringe upon or threaten those things — why do you think the WGA is on strike?
Lee
J.W.Cart : No one who writes fan fiction actually believes they own the rights to the characters or worlds that they are using.
Tell that to the Organization for Transformative Wank. They believe that their work would be on equal footing with that of intellectual property holders and they are willing, wanting and waiting to go to court to prove that.
Wait. You could be right! The Organization for Transformative Wank probably is a bunch of nobodies.
Ash,
You wrote: “J.K. Rowling doesn’t have a problem with HP fanfics written in good faith, Lee, and however vexed you might possibly feel about her letting the side down, please reconsider labelling *all* hobby writers as thieves.”
You’re right. I am often too broad in my criticism of fanficcers.
As “Snoot” points out, I have no problem with fanfiction if the author or rights-holder authorizes it. JK Rowling encourages fanfiction but she draws the line at sexually oriented stories about her characters. And that line is routinely and blithely crossed by fans anyway. The OTW says that’s not only fine, but it should be protected from Rowling’s cease-and-desist orders. That’s my problem with the OTW and people who support their mindset.
Lee
Snoot,
I glanced at some of the Fandom Wank stuff today and I absolutely agree with them — my brother Tod is way cooler than me.
Lee
Snoot: “It doesn’t diminish the ethical argument, however, that the fanfiction writers is infringing on the creative and intellectual property rights of the creator.”
That’s not an ethical argument; it’s a legal argument. Intellectual property rights are there to protect the creator’s ability to profit from their work. In order to show that fanfiction infringed on that right, you’d have to show a loss to the copyright owner – which by your own argument is unlikely. FWIW, I think you’re correct that very few fans are fanfiction readers, and still fewer fanfiction writers.
The ethical issues are quite different: did you know that until quite recently, creative work was not seen as ‘real’ unless it used someone else’s as a basis? The Aeneid was based on Homer’s work, King Lear was Geoffrey of Monmouth fanfic and so on. That changed, I think, somewhere around Shakespeare’s time, but that people go back to such idea which have existed since time immemorial shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
That some of those stories – even many of them – are sexual shouldn’t surprise anyone over the age of about ten.
LG: “The creators have complete control over how their characters and worlds are used and depicted”
I’d disagree. Copyright holders have control over how the works they own are sold. That may be someone other than the creator, who may be dead – for example, Tolkien, whose works are still copyrighted though the creator has been dead for quite a few years now and surely beyond worrying what’s being done with his characters.
Nor does a creator (or a copyright holder) have any control over how his creations are used *by the audience*, only over how and in what package they and I mean here specifically the creation alone, rather than derivative works, parodies or criticisms, are sold.
I think you’re conflating the legal rights of the copyright holder with the experiences of the audience.
I know we’ve discussed before on your blog the ‘death of the author’, by which, as I understand it, literary critics mean that once a work has left the author’s hands and been published, the readers then interpret or reinterpret it in a way which only _may_ be what the author intended. The original author, still less a copyright holder who is not the original writer, has no control over reader interpretation – and that’s how it should be.
Fanfiction is one method readers have of engaging with the text. Literary criticism is another. Discussions around the water cooler is yet another, and so on. Unless they believe their copyright is actually being infringed *and* they are prepared to back up that assertion with expensive lawyers, it is not in the gift of the author to decide what methods of engagement with a text are legitimate and which are not. Even then it probably isn’t except for very narrow prohibitions.
“So, Snoot, what’s your take on fiction derived from sources whose creators are dead, and who are thus unable to give or deny permission? Is this unjust and unethical?”
No, it is not. That is why those arguments about “Wicked” and “Seven Percent Solution” are irrelevant. Those characters are in the public domain, Harry Potter and Captain Kirk are not.
Lee, I do actually sympathise with you and others in making generalisations about fanfic, for the simple reason that the numbers do back up the generalisations — there *are* way more bad-faith stories than good.
The thing is, the numbers being so large overall means that even if, say, 90% of stories are executed in bad faith, that still leaves 10% that are not. And when you translate those percentages into actual people (using very, very conservative numbers), you’re looking at something like 90,000 bad-faith writers, 10,000 good-faith writers. (And I include anyone like the OTW that is trying to take legal liberties as bad-faith writers, regardless of the quality of their material.)
Of the 10,000 good faith writers, you’re looking at maybe 1,000 who are producing decent stories — not great, but modestly good stories that show a spark of talent in construction, characterisation, even editing to a small extent. Constructive criticism from fanfic readers helps this group improve their writing skills because, like any other writer, they crave positive reinforcement, and if they get called to task for lack of characterisation, poor editing, plot, whatever, then they can become motivated to do better, just like with any other community writing group.
Compare these 1000 people, then, to the approximately 1500 currently active professional speculative fiction writers in the world today (that number was quoted to me recently by Jack Dann in a writing workshop).
When you look at the numbers like that, just that small end of the fanfic genre where harm is not being perpetrated and stories are approaching decent first-draft quality, you’re seeing a world-wide population of amateur writers that somewhat mirrors the magnitude of professional SF writers.
Many of these amateurs are content to be hobbyists, others will aspire to publish original works. It is this objectively large (1000 people), but relatively tiny (1%), subset of fanfic writers for whom it would be lovely, just once, to hear a kind word from the industry. That kind of positive reinforcement from the industry may even inspire a trickle of people in turning away from bad-faith writing and instead trying to be part of the good-faith 10% and then the decent-writing 1% and then to even exit the genre and add to the ranks of the 1500 professional SF writers.
I’ve yet to meet a professional writer one-on-one who has not been empathetic, encouraging, and inspiring. Good writers have soul, and they, as experienced, empathetic people, can help fanfic writers turn into good writers more successfully through encouragement than censure. I’m not saying that 90% of fanficcers do not deserve censure, but censure clearly isn’t succeeding in stopping them from self-publishing harmful rubbish.
If your wish is for bad-faith fanfic to die, then maybe a different approach is needed, a different way to inspire fanficcers to turn away from producing sensational tripe. I’m not suggesting you read any fanfic, or mentor any fanfic writers, but if you, as a successful professional writer, composed your own ground rules, not motherhood statements but specific boundaries and objectives that, if diligently observed, could qualify the fanficcer as a decent, good-faith writer, then that is something an amateur writer can aspire to. Your list might start, as all good lists do:
1/ Do no harm …
P.M,
You write:
“I’d disagree. Copyright holders have control over how the works they own are sold. That may be someone other than the creator, who may be dead – for example, Tolkien, whose works are still copyrighted though the creator has been dead for quite a few years now and surely beyond worrying what’s being done with his characters.”
You are confusing two separate issues. Let’s deal with the first one.
As a writer, I chose whether or not to sell the copyright of my work to others … and how many rights I will retain in that transaction.
For example, Andy Breckman, the creator of MONK, doesn’t have the copyright to his work…NBC/Universal does. But he retained certain rights. As a result, the studio can’t commission books or sell certain other ancillary rights without his approval. He has the power to veto those sales and to oversee how his character is used in those other mediums. But even if he didn’t, he’s made the choice, as the creator, to determine how many rights he wishes to retain to his original work and which rights he wishes to sell.
The creator and/or copyright holder, whether it is the creator or not, is legally entitled to decide how the work is sold AND used…and therefore, to some degree, the manner in which it is experienced.
For example, you can’t make a movie based on one of my books unless I grant you that right. You can’t make action figures based on my characters unless I grant you that right. You can’t create a line of clothing based on my characters or use my prose in your own book.
There are many, many ways I (or the copyright holders of my work) can legally control how what I have written and created is, or isn’t, exploited by others. How you experience it, for the most part, is yours.
Now let’s deal with the second issue.
You write: “I think you’re conflating the legal rights of the copyright holder with the experiences of the audience.”
On the contrary, I think you are engaging in hypothetical argument over whether an author’s wishes, or those of a copyright holder (or heir), should have the same legal and ethical weight. The fact is the law makes no such distinction. As long as the copyright is in force, the copyright holder enjoys all the benefits of the copyright, regardless of whether he is the original author or not.
It doesn’t matter whether James Bond’s author is still alive or not. The copyright is still in force and the owner of that copyright control how Ian Fleming’s work is sold or used.
You write: “it is not in the gift of the author to decide what methods of engagement with a text are legitimate and which are not.”
Yes and no.
Yes, an author can’t control how a work influences another person emotionally, spiritually, etc. Or how you discuss it with others around the water cooler, analyze it in a classroom, etc.
On the other hand, by controlling the method by which a work is delivered, distributed, packaged and/or repackaged, to some degree an author *can* decide by what means you *initially* engage his work.
Which means JK Rowling can decide, for example, whether she wants her audience engaging with Harry Potter and Snape as student and teacher or as lovers.
It’s one thing for a reader to imagine it, fantasize about it, or to discuss it…those are activities that are protected (as they should be) and that Rowling can’t control (nor should she be able to).
However, it’s another thing to write fiction about Snape and Harry having sex and to distribute it on the Internet. Rowling can allow it, or she can prohibit it as an infringement of her copyright. The OTW would like to deprive Rowling of that right.
Lee
Traditional writers, critics and readers alike feel threatened by this kind of fanfic because they didn’t invent it, can’t make money off of it, and don’t comprehend it intellectually or artistically. In retaliation, they seek to control it.
Just a point here on the above opinion. There are some authors who view their characters as more than just pieces of text on paper. When one has spent however many months of their lives writing in great depth about a character, fanfic can be taken more personally by an author. One gets that vibe from Anne Rice about her Lestat character. I write my own characters, and while I’m rather close to them, I have no objections to fanfic.
I just thought that it really wasn’t fair to say authors who stop fanfic only do it for the bucks. Some are connected to their characters very strongly, and it’s a crass insult to play with those characters.
For the author, it isn’t always about the money. Now for the publishers, I would say yes.
I’m of two minds, fanfic doesn’t generate money nor does it warp the original work or cost the publishers sales. If an author doesn’t mind fanfic, it’s perfectly all right to right. However, I do believe when the author says no fanfic, that should be respected. The characters and world that was built belongs to the author. Even the publisher is only ‘borrowing’ for a certain length of time to make money from it.
“They want us to respect their “ownership” of the fan work they create when they have no respect whatsoever for the “ownership” of the characters and worlds they are using.”
As far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s that they want to retain ownership of the particular story they’ve written and not that they want it to suddenly challenge the canon of the world they’ve written in. They don’t want J.K. To use such a common example to suddenly say that Draco and Harry get together, they just don’t want to get prosecuted for writing a story where that does happen. This is a big difference, I think.
“The key difference between tie-in work and fanfiction is not that the writers are paid for their writing but that it is done with the involvement, oversight and consent of the creator and/or rights holder. The creators have complete control over how their characters and worlds are used and depicted…and how those derivative works are distributed to an audience. (Do I think I have “transformed” Monk into something that I should own? Hell no. It belongs to Andy Breckman and I, like the other writers on his show, write about Monk at his pleasure).”
Tie-In writers are different because they get paid for their work. Look at Star Trek, for example. They often take on stories on from fans and publish them. Thus those stories are no longer fan fiction but instead actual tie-ins. Peter David has often said that one of the reasons why he likes writing Star Trek is because they’re paying him to write fan fiction. He even has his own fan fiction series, the New Frontier. The difference between him and some other Star Trek fan? He’s a published author.
Again, I don’t think that the OTW is even representative of a majority of Fan Fiction writers who are probably mostly tweenagers busy writing stories about having sex with Legolas (Have you seen the ages of most writers?) and that most of them will grow out of it, or become actual writers.
The page you quoted with their mission statement says they are doing a wiki about the history of fan fiction. I am confused. Is http://www.fanhistory.com/ their wiki?
Lee, here’s is the Wiki about you at fanhistory. Have you seen it? They purposely twist your repeatedly stated positions on fanfiction.
“Lee Goldberg is the American author of television novelized tie-ins and has written episodes of several television shows including SeaQuest DSV.
He has ranted about fan fiction several times. This includes weighing in on the incident involving CousinJean, Harry Potter fan fiction, Fanthropology and cartoon sex fan fiction. His attacks go after the legitimacy of fan fiction, starting in 2004, as a genre due to its participants not getting paid for their work. Because his current income is derived from writing tie-ins to television shows like Murder She Wrote, many members of the fan fiction members consider him a hypocrite. His position in the fan fiction community is not helped in that many of his supporters on his blog are little known professional authors.
Lee Goldberg’s rants are the most likely reason that some fan fiction writers have written Real Person Fic/Real Person Slash about him, pairing him with authors who support his position on fan fiction on his blog or people who loudly dissent with him on his blog. Most of these stories have been posted in the comments of Fandom Wank.
In December 2007, he weighed in on the Organization for Transformative Works.”
You can find it here http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/Lee_Goldberg
They say that you say it’s all about whether you get paid for it or not. That is their argument not yours. They don’t mention that you have always said that it comes down to the permission of the authors or copyright holders. They don’t care about presenting an accurate view of your position.
They also try to downplay your credits. You’ll notice they don’t mention that you were the producer of a bunch of TV series including “SeaQuest.” They want to portray you as only a tie-in writer instead of a TV producer. You should have them correct it.
They also try to diminish the credits of the many authors and screenwriters who participate in your blog discussions.
They want to make you and the people who add comments to your blog seem as insignificant as they are. It’s pathetic.
J.W.,
You wrote: “Tie-In writers are different because they get paid for their work. Look at Star Trek, for example. They often take on stories on from fans and publish them. Thus those stories are no longer fan fiction but instead actual tie-ins.”
STAR TREK is a unique situation. And even though Pocket has occasionally published some fan work, the vast majority of the STAR TREK novels are commissioned by the publisher and tightly controlled by Paramount, which thoroughly and rigorously vets the proposals and manuscripts (under the supervision of my old friend Paula Block). There would be no NEW FRONTIERS or other STAR TREK off-shoots/spin-offs being published without Paramount’s approval as the copyright holder.
Paramount is also the prime example of a copyright holder who turns a blind eye to a lot of blatant copyright infringement of their media properties. But that could change in a nanosecond if the OTW tries to claim in court that fans own the fiction they write based on Paramount properties.
Snoot,
Are you really surprised? I’m not. What would shock me is if they’d accurately presented my credits and opinions.
Lee
As an author of original fiction, I understand the desire of a creator to protect his or her creations. However, I know that if my work is ever published and fanfiction is written about it, I would feel very honoured. To me, fanfiction is an expression of interest. The writer obviously cared enough about the work to craft their own piece relating to it.
I admit I wouldn’t be too enamoured of works that twisted my plot and characters into something I hadn’t intended, but I hope I would be open-minded enough to appreciate the fanfiction author’s interest in my work… if not the actual results of that interest.
You could also look at fanfiction as a field to train a new author’s creativity. Within the realm of fanfiction, an author can hone their writing and plot development skills in a world that has already been defined with characters whose personalities and histories are already known. It’s easier to concentrate on just plot development and writing style than it is to have to worry about those aspects on top of creating a world and defining characters. I know a few writers who have started their writing career in fanfiction until they felt comfortable enough with their own writing style to branch out into original writing.
In the matter of fanfiction by another author being actually published, I’d like to draw attention to Jean Rhys’s novel “Wide Sargasso Sea,” which I recently read and enjoyed. The novel is essentially fanfiction, a story written about Antionette, the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre.” Having read both “Jane Eyre” and “Wide Sargasso Sea,” I can honestly say that Rhys’s work in no way diminishes Bronte’s. In fact, “Wide Sargasso Sea” goes a long way towards bringing more depth to “Jane Eyre” by explaining Antionette in a way Bronte’s book never did.
While I can’t support the publication for monetary gain of all fanfiction (because some stories are truly awful and destroy the original work), shouldn’t authors get the chance to contribute their own ideas to another author’s universe? And yes, most fanfiction efforts should never be published because the creator of an original work should retain all the rights to that work. But sometimes – and only sometimes – there are works like “Wide Sargasso Sea” that might really add something to the original work.
Peter L. Winkler said; I have a series character I would dread to see corrupted by fan fiction, and would regard such efforts as actionable.
Anne Rice said the same, and fans tend to respect her wishes. You won’t find much Ricean material out there.
(that’s my respectful response; the snark in me wonders if your character is interesting enough to fic about…)
Snoot…fanhistory.com has nothing to do with OTW.
Though it’s a wiki, it’s actually largely the work (if I remember rightly) of one person and reflects largely her views. She doesn’t speak for fandom as a whole. If it matters to you that she’s presented Lee’s view inaccurately, tell her.
Fandom_wank has a wiki of their own, and that also has nothing to do with OTW.
Fandom isn’t one small group but a large number of different ones, all of whom have mores and traditions of their own and none of whom speak for ‘fandom’ as a whole. OTW is just one of those groups.
Until you grasp that, you’re going to end up continuing to make blanket statements which look idiotic to the fandom-insider.
“you’re going to end up continuing to make blanket statements which look idiotic to the fandom-insider.”
But who cares if you look idiotic in the eyes of a bunch of sexually repressed, dysfunctional nerds? Doesn’t that probably mean you’re actually pretty smart?
“the fandom insider”
How big of a mouth breathing dork do you need to be to become a fandom-insider? And how awful must life be if you actually felt bad about looking idiotic to a fandom insider?
OTW members knew about the wiki? It is a wiki. Anyone can edit it. OTW is driven by an agenda. One assumes that OTW will be no better than fanhistory.com, with their history about how sports fans watch original works and are largely female. (I spent more time than I should reading the comments on their news posts on LiveJournal. The contortions they engage in to define sports fans are part of media fandom are amazing.)
I can’t wait to see their history. Lee Goldberg, with his influential status in fandom, will be Leeane Goldberg. Xing Li at FanFiction.Net will be some female name. That is if these two influential people in fandom matter because they happen to be male. So fantastic!
They can’t edit a wiki to make it more accurate but they want everyone to believe they are capable of being totally historical themselves!
Ah, OTW. Please disappear into the hole from which you emerged.
I can’t imagine anyone caring about how they might look to a “fandom insider.” Thank you for my biggest laugh of the week. Though I have to say that the comment about “non-body-normatives” and “non-heteronormatives” was pretty funny, too (and obviously written by a fandom insider. What a pitiful thing to be).
That was John Scalzi replying to me; Elfwreck is firmly in the pro-OTW camp.
And also firmly of the belief that 90% of slashfic is parody, in the same way that The Wind Done Gone is, and therefore legal.
(I mean, Kirk+Spock? Harry+Snape? The very idea is ridiculous! … which is pretty much what “parody” means.)
It’s odd that authors object to serious fanfic and alternative interpretations of their stories on what they think are valid legal grounds… when they know that vicious mockeries are entirely legal.
But are “serious fanfic and alternative interpretations” “vicious mockeries”? Doesn’t that refute the whole premise of this latest discussion, which is that fanfic is serious and worthy and respectable and all the rest?
Whether or not it represents a copyright infringement, it’s hard to accept most fanfic as parody. That rejects the spirit of the whole enterprise, which is supposedly done out of love and respect.
For godsake – fanfiction should be fun and light, something to enjoy and play around with. I hate it when people take these things this seriously. It’s just a bit of harmless fun.
But Wide Sargasso Sea takes Jane Eyre in a completely different direction–and Bronte’s not around to protest. The Flashman series of comedic novels also take a minor character and turn him into the central character. Both those examples are beyond fan fiction, because of the skill of the writers in “fleshing out” a minor character. But to use an author’s creation of a fully realised main characteras your starting point seems lazy and unoriginal. If you can’t think up your own magical schoolboy, then why muck around with Rowlings’s Potter?
Lee,
I’m curious on your opinion of an alleged reverse copyright violation: http://www.sweetney.com/001944.html
Wherein, apparently, a corporate media company took someone’s creative work, altered the original slightly, and then used it in one of their programs, all without the original copyright owner’s permission or acknowledgment of their ownership.
As an aside, the person to whom it happened does not appear to have any connection to fandom.
The story was also covered on BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/25/fox-helps-itself-to.html
I don’t buy the premise that tie-in novels are akin to fan fiction. The only similarity I see is that the writer is writing about characters he or she didn’t create. But by that logic, any TV series episode not written by the series creator, or any movie adapted from a novel, would be analogous to fan fiction. How is a MONK novel Lee writes any closer to fan fiction than the MONK TV episodes he’s written?
TD & Gary: I don’t make insulting assumptions about you based on your comments here.
If you want your views taken seriously by anyone, don’t indulge in childish name-calling; saying “You’re silly and you smell!” isn’t a reasonable response to anything anyone’s said in a discussion for anyone over the age of six.
“But by that logic, any TV series episode not written by the series creator, or any movie adapted from a novel, would be analogous to fan fiction.”
Yes. It’s all playing in someone else’s sandbox. You can with justice say that it is discourteous, even crass, to do so without the sandbox owner’s permission – and all the more so if they’ve posted a ‘keep out of my sandbox’ sign in the sand. But, yes, I absolutely agree that any TV show/comic/spinoff novel/movie adaptation that is rooted in a source text you did not create yourself is analogous to fan fiction.
I may not be very informed about much of this, but I do agree that this OTW is violating the one greatest unwritten laws of fanfiction, and that is that fanfictions have no rights save for its right to be written (unless stated otherwise by the author/owner of the original work.)
And I also agree that the underbelly of fandom should not be brought into light, as it would do little to help its cause.
After all, a decent amount of fanfiction is porn written for the sake of porn.
But, even if less then ten percent of fans actually write fic, I would be willing to bet that all fans with internet access will eventually read one. (God grant them mercy in which fanwork they stumble upon.)
I do not believe fanfiction should be able to be copyrighted, or given any rights besides its current one (to be able to exist), but the internet is the virtual Wild West. Lord knows what will become of it.
And on the point of most fanfictions not describing the characters, I must repeat a sentiment I have heard elsewhere,
‘What fanfictions have you been reading?”
-cough-
Oh. And the remark about writing fanfiction being like raping a woman made my day. Wait. No it didn’t.
… I never knew I was a sexual predator. How do I sleep at night?
Oh. I kind of don’t, since I’m up at like… three typing this.
El O’
Lee, even though I don’t know you, I think I love you. Not only for pointing out the obvious idiocy and hypocrisy of these people, but for doing it so clearly and concisely. I fail to understand why fanficcers are so mulishly stupid as to continue believing they have any rights whatsoever in anything that is still protected by copyright, or that they might win a legal battle to profit from the works of others.
It’s amazing – all they have to do is google “copyright office fair use” to find this link: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
which lays out the criteria pretty clearly, including noting a list of uses that might be considered “fair” – “such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.”
Hmm…somehow, I don’t think fanfiction really resembles any of those things…
“fair” – “such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.” Hmm…somehow, I don’t think fanfiction really resembles any of those things…
Hm, *my* fanfiction does. I usually write re-tellings from a different POV of whatever it is that takes my fancy and comment/criticize/parodize that way. And it’s still fanfiction. But I’m pretty sure I’d win any lawsuit cast my way.
hate to break it to you, mate. Movie tie ins, like the ones you write?
They’re fanfiction.
hate to break it to you, mate. Movie and TV tie-ins, like the ones Lee writes?
Not fanfiction.
I support fanfiction but I’ve got to side with Lee on this one. Tie-in work is officially approved by the creators (like Joss!) and is canon. Fanfiction is not.
*laughs* Oh man, seriously?
This is just a little ridiculous.
I’m a fanfiction writer, and have been for four years now. I enjoy what I do, and I truly do believe it has taught me a lot about writing – lord knows the stuff I write now is a lot better than the drivel I started off with. I don’t think it hurts anyone, and, in fact, I think it has the ability to bring completely different people together over something they enjoy.
But this is going too far.
In my heart of hearts, I truly don’t believe fanfiction is copyright infringement – and before anyone says anything, no, I wouldn’t mind if someone used my characters for fanfiction – as long as it follows certain rules. Not being for profit is one of them. Fanfiction is a hobby, not a job, and thus is fine, in my opinion, if no money is made. However, as soon as someone starts making money for fanworks, that’s an entirely different story and that’s a huge infringement on rights.
Secondly, it also means that a fanwriter can’t copyright fan materials. That’s ridiculous. It’s like taking a bottle a Coke and pouring some into a glass with your name on it, then saying, “This liquid is of my own creation, and I’m calling it Ekoc. It’s totally different than Coke because it’s in my cup, so kiss my ass!”
No.
Thirdly, if an author asks for people to not write fanfiction about their stories, then people should not write fanfiction about their stories. Deal with it.
What I’m trying to say is basically, fanfiction is fun and harmless under most circumstances and that some original creators should lay off a bit. HOWEVER, there is a line between having fun and stealing, and this way crosses that line. If we want original creators to respect us, we have to respect them too.
The O.T.W. Wants Your Copyright
Novelist and First Amendment attorney Julie Hilden argues that authors and rights holders should be very concerned about the Organization for Transformative Work’s proposal to extend copyright protection to fan fiction. She writes, in part:Does fan fic…
Holy fuck Lee get a life…
Your writer friends don’t own the world. I loved the ” DUE SOUTH Masturbation fics” my friend mysticdreamer32 runs a rec page for DS,
and I really love the stories.
Grow up and move on man.
I would have to say it’s up to the original authors to decide whether *they* are bothered by fanfiction and up to the fan community to respect their wishes. Anne Rice has no jurisdiction over stories about Kirk and Spock, and fanfiction.net does respect her right not to have *her* work included as a basis for fanfics. I think it would be a very sad day indeed if fanworks were shunted from existence.
Just respect what the writers say. That’s the key. And Disney trying to claim copyright of Grimms’ Fairy Tales — ?!?! *That’s* insane.