We will agree to disagree. I fear we may be talking across each other, in agreement but focusing on different things within the same topic.
Being pro-active and involved with your fandom does not mean passing public judgement on them.
Supporting those fans that have both the ability and the desire to grow further into an author or game designer does not mean publically critiquing them… although if you contact them privately, and they agree to work with you, the experience of doing so, may change their lives for the better. This applies equally to those critical of your work and those admiring of your work without critique.
It happened to me personally – I’ve worked with some very talented people, learning from them as much as I could and when I got a chance to be published because of that, it was a good thing, not a bad thing.
Eric Flint, to my knowledge has only provided positive support and interaction … and I think that is a great thing to have.
If you borrow my own universe to your own ends. I have the right to give my opinion. My universe, my characters my right to operate about what people are doing with them. I haven’t to keep a positive anything. It is mine, I am being gentle enough to allow fan fiction.
I’m inclined to agree. I can understand feeling anxious at the author actually reading and commenting; I had a similar instance the other day when I reached out to one of my writing idols expecting to just talk to his assistant, only to have her tell me he’d be reaching out himself. It was both exciting and incredibly unnerving, to a point where I briefly regretted saying anything at all (that didn’t last, though). However, it’s the height of absurdity to gate off an author from something that literally wouldn’t exist without them. Being nervous about author attention is understandable, but there’s really only two acceptable options for a fanfic writer in that situation:
Love it (as in, swallow the discomfort and keep going)
Lump it (which in this case would be to flee in terror, never to be heard from again)
There should not be a third option where a unrealistic level of ownership over your fanfic causes you to push out the person responsible, however indirectly, for its creation.
I would lump those in with Lump It in this regard, since they would all involve basically running away from the writer’s attentions, but I would agree that these are at least somewhat less confrontational options.
But that person is Grabbing that authors Property. Intellectual Property is as property as the car I own. If someone is driving my car, I will of course, give my opinion about how someone else treated it.
I think that the public that complaints doesn’t consider Intellectual Property as Property.
You are appropriating the world of someone else. I do fan fic but first ask the author and. make clear that is not mine nor the characters, nor the universe.
And the owner has allright to judge it and erase it. The author is making you a gift, letting you use his material.
This simply isn’t true, at least in the United States.
According to current United States copyright, copyright owners have the exclusive right “to prepare derivative works based upon [their] copyrighted work.” A derivative work is any work, including fanfiction, based upon one or more preexisting works. In the case where a copyright owner chooses to exercise his/her exclusive right to prepare derivative works against a work of fanfiction, s/he can sue the fanfiction writer for copyright infringement. To prove infringement, an owner must present evidence establishing that the accused has copied protected elements of the original work. The possible remedies available if infringement can be proven include an order to cease sharing and/or to destroy the work (known as an injunction), or monetary damages.
All authors have exclusive rights to derivative works of their writing, including fanfiction. According to copyright law, they and they alone (currently) have the legal “right” to creating fanfiction of their own work.
They can choose to not exercise that right in allowing fanfiction writers to write fanfiction of their work; but they still retain that right and can exercise it at any time. They very much have a say in it, and fanfiction is still absolutely their “property” in the sense of what they exercise their rights against when it’s based on their original copyrighted material.
So they can sue for infringement at any time, whether or not the fanfiction is online and whether or not it’s making money, so long as they can prove infringement. Whether or not the case goes well for them, however, is a different matter, because the fanfiction in turn can be protected by “fair use,” which is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and for which there is no solid legal precedent. Fair use includes assessing the purpose of the fanfiction, how transformative it is, how harmful it could be to the original source material or its sales, and etc. Fanfiction cases in court have gone any which way, but if we’re not talking about the outcome of those cases alone, an author technically has the right (in the US) to sue a fanfiction writer at any time, because they have exclusive rights to their property.
Again, that’s not saying that the court will agree with them and then punish the fanfiction writer. But I want to dispel this idea that (in the US, anyway) authors have no say if you make a fanfiction of their work…
If an author explicitly gives fans the go-ahead to make fanfiction of their work, they are saying they are choosing not to exercise their rights to their derivative works at this time, and fans can do whatever they want. If an author says “no, do not do this,” they believe they are exercising an exclusive right that might be taken away if they don’t exercise it; and it’s not just a “oh they say this but I can just ignore it,” it’s a potential opening yourself up to very real legal issues if the author ever chooses to crack down on it (which some have).
I don’t see any issue with fan work, either, and generally think fandoms are a great thing to keep an author’s work alive and in the world. But I want to make sure everyone is aware of an author’s exact legal rights in the US, and what it means when an author like Eric Flint generously “forgoes” his rights for his fans, and what it means when other authors don’t…
The world isnt the USA alone. 2) I did say UNLESS…UNLESS it’s online. If I’m writing a fanfic about MArio Bros, or any of those guys who are against fanfic. How would they know if it just sitting in my room ? How?
well yeah . But again, the discussion here was about IF the owner want to do something and IF again the writer who wrote the fanfic try to benefit from said fanfic.
But outside of legal issues, there is no way in hell an author can know I’m in my basement making Darth Vader smooch Luke Skywalker .
Sure, the chances of an author actually finding out about you doing this are close to zero, lol. But interestingly, some authors even forbid DnD campaigns and the like from being run based on their games, even though those campaigns would presumably never leave the room in which they were being run. It’s always up to the fanfic writer in question to take that gamble if they decide to share their work with anyone–online or not–but if the copyright holder has forbidden it, it’s still technically violating “the law,” haha.
yeah I know that. But the way Mara phrased it, it sounded as if the author could sue you…cose OMG! You were thinking of my characters!!! inside your head! That’s copyright!!!
I’m aware that if you write a fanfic and put it online, and unless you did your homework and the author has a green light. There is a risk.
My question now is : how come fanfic.net is up and running?
Honestly, I know other points were being made but I wasn’t even going into the legality of denying an author the ability to comment or take action about a fanfic based on their creation. I was just coming at it from the standpoint of how incredibly entitled and rude it would be to say such a thing to the person who gave your idea form in the first place. Ignore the fact that fanworks basically exist through the original creator’s implicit or explicit permission and just think about how it is to take someone else’s building materials to build your own house and then accuse them of trespassing if they set foot on your property.
This was an interesting read, especially for someone with a slightly ballooning fandom…
As someone who is pretty active in their own fandom and actively has tried to bring it together, it’s a ride. When the fics started dropping in I read them, because I was so curious to see what others made of my world and my story. As they increased in numbers (holy crap, just looked and there are 593 on Ao3 right now, and that’s not counting all the tumblr specific ones) that quickly became impossible. Do I still read some? Yes. There are a few authors I follow, talk to, is excited about and occasionally feed with behind the scenes spoilers if they ask for it. Their stories are heading different places than mine, so it’s all good.
There are some RIDICULOUSLY good writers out there that I look forward to hype the hell out of once they release original content.
I do realize that a lot of people are a bit intimidated at being noticed by the author, but I try my best to be supportive. I love to see people playing in my sandbox and what they come up with. There’s a certain energy when the fans collectively decide a thing,and then it becomes a truth of sorts. Will I still sweep the legs out from under them with new facts? Of course.
I think maybe my inspiration is a bit older, what Michael Moorcock did when he allowed other authors to play around in his universe.
That being said, I know this might be unsubstantial if there would be actual big money involved. Then some people get strange. But for now, I’ll enjoy being in the middle of this ever growing mess.
It is sad how Fanfiction is viewed in such a negative light I personally have read some fanfiction from some old fandoms i used to be apart of. NOT ALL OF THEM ARE BAD! i think it is cool how some people can take something they love and makes something different with it. Of course we should respect the wishes of the creator since they have the right to do what they want with what they created but i think it just shuts the door on how creative their fans can be …
I personally have read some fanfiction from some old fandoms i used to be apart of. NOT ALL OF THEM ARE BAD! i think it is cool how some people can take something they love and makes something different with it. Of course we should respect the wishes of the creator since they have the right to do what they want with what they created but i think it just shuts the door on how creative their fans can be …