Ownership, Creativity, and What Fans Do

First, I am just astonished that among the top stories on CNN are Ahmadinejad’s comments at the UN (which are so bugfuck scary shitass motherfucker holy shit that I splutter), and news about Clay Aiken coming out of the closet and Nicole Kidman drinking water to become pregnant. Jesus fucknuts. Juxtaposition of WTF, much?

Second: a rather curious but happy byproduct of the Twilight empire: the actual town of Forks, WA, is receiving a huge tourism boom – which their economy is most happy about. I love that the town is totally into it, from organizing a blood drive from the “Cullen’s” house, to marking a spot for “Dr. Cullen” in the hospital lot. More power to ‘em. May their fire trucks be shiny and new, and their residents happy and mellow.

Now here’s a big question, and each artist has to, I think, answer it on their own, because it’s really a question of ownership and property of art – one that comes up in the court system over and over again. The town’s embracing of their role in Meyers’ series is one manner in which the subject of a creative work adapts to the attention because of it. But consider the artists’ perspectives, and the wide variations of reaction in how their art is used.

In this corner: Suzanne Vega discussing the remixes and interpolations of her song Tom’s Diner (duh duhduh duh, duh duhduh duh, duh duh duhduh na duhduh na…) and how she’s embraced them, even released compilations of various artists’ versions of the same song:

15 years later, “Tom’s Album” continues to sell. People think it is a bootleg and sidle up to me whispering, “Have you seen this? Someone put this together.”

“Yes. That someone was me.”

However, it was a logistical nightmare to administrate. I had to go back to all the people who had taken the song without permission, and ask their permission . . . to use their version of my song!

While still a defender of copyright protection – Vega met with the original remixers of the song, DNA, and arranged for a flat fee agreement after DNA had remixed the song in 1990 and sold it out of a corner store – her perspective is interesting, particularly in the context of isolation in which she wrote the song itself. (Also, the part about Vega’s role in the invention of the mp3 is freaking fascinating.)

And in this corner, we have Annie Proulx, who is pissed as hell about fanfic regarding her characters in Brokeback Mountain, particularly when they send her the product of their fanfic labors. Her response is rant-tastic, because she’s horrified that readers would rewrite her story with a happy ending, stating that:

There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story….

Most of these ‘fix-it’ tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men’s children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, ‘I’m not gay but….’ They do not understand the original story, they know nothing of copyright infringement—i.e., that the characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property….

Proulx then states that she thinks that the fanfic rewrites are motivated by the male writers’ feeling that they can write the story better than she, a woman, could. I don’t know about that, as it seems like a huge leap of guesswork to assume the motivations of a fanfic writer, but her perspective as to the ownership of the characters and the ending of their story is different from Vega’s eager collecting of variations, covers, and remixes of her song. I’d love to hear a debate with the two of them discussing intellectual property, and how fans interact with their artistic creations.

What do you think? Would you be irritated with someone taking your characters and writing fanfic about them? Do you think someone who seizes your characters and rewrites the ending is “exploring their fantasies” in a manner which you find objectionable? Or would you collect them for your own amusement? Where do you fall on the Vega/Proulx continuum?

Thanks to Karen and December for the links.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments are Closed

  1. The Diving Belle says:

    I’m confessing to very mixed feelings about fanfic as well—despite my disclaimer (“but some of my best friends”) and despite my scouring the web, looking for my latest ‘ship “fix”, but then again, I’m not a writer.

    What I am is an actor, and what gives me pause is seeing other actors’ faces/bodies reproduced (and sold) as fan art or photoshopped into layouts that never existed outside of the fan’s imagination.  This can be, to quote “Serenity”, mighty creepifyin’.  My face—such as it is—is my fortune and to lose control over where and how it appears is very disturbing stuff.  Not talking paparazzi pics here, just your average working actor doing what he or she was paid for and often not knowing where or how those images are appropriated by fandom.  Yes, I know, it’s a tribute to the actor’s work and the calibre of their portrayal but some of that work goes to very dark and unintended places.

  2. Marsha says:

    As I signed off my last comment to get back to work I had a thought that I *think* isn’t too tangential.

    What about authors who tolerate or even encourage the use by fans of third parties’ creative efforts to express their fandom?  I’ve seen recently book “trailers” wherein an author’s fans mosh up movie or television clips using the scenes to create something altogether different that purports to give clues to the upcoming book or tease the reader with what’s about to be released.  In at least two cases that I can think of off the top of my head the “trailers” were endorsed and promoted by the authors.  (To be fair, I don’t know of the fans who created the trailers sought or received permission from the creators of the visual images that were used – it’s possible that it’s all on the up and up.)

    I also know of a few authors’ official message boards that allow fans to create avatars and signature files featuring snippets of others’ work to express devotion to the author’s stories.

    I can think of one author who allows and encourages both of the above activities and who has a view of fan fiction that isn’t in keeping with her enthusiasm for her fans to use other people’s in adoration of her own.  I’m not putting this out there as a tattle-tale thing, but I think we need to keep the source in mind when evaluating enthusiasm for or objections to fan fiction.

  3. Corrina says:

    I think the analogy is like this. You have a group of friends and you adore them all.

    Some of them do not care in the least if you sleep on their couch and borrow their clothes. Others wouldn’t dare let anyone sleep on their couch or borrow their clothes because they can’t take the intrusion into their personal space-but they’d do anything else for you.

    Writers are going to fall along the spectrum of either not caring about their clothes or not wanting you to even go near their closet. Most writers I know fall into the “okay, write any fanfic you want but, no, I don’t want to see it for legal reasons” and some don’t want to see it because it would drive them nuts.

    I don’t think either Proulx or Vega’s position is wrong. It comes down to how comfortable they are sharing their personal space. I do think fans should probably respect the wishes of the writer and if the compulsion to fanfic is overwhelming, then share it privately among friends.

  4. Chicklet says:

    I actually never knew about that “rule” of fan fiction.  I mean, it makes perfect sense and all, I just never imagined that such an endeavor actually was governed by a generally accepted set of principles.

    There is a loose set of… I hesitate to say rules, because it’s not like there’s a central authority regarding fanfic. Let’s say “community standards,” which are communicated by more-experienced fans when someone steps wrong. Some of the standards are:

    1. Do not send fanwork to the original source.
    2. Do not try to pass off another fan’s work as your own.
    2a. Acknowledge in a disclaimer that the characters are the property of authors, producers, studios, etc. and that you’re just having fun.
    3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.). If you go pro, it needs to be entirely your own work.
    4. Have your work beta-read to avoid bad characterization, poor grammar, copious typos, etc.

    I’m sure there are others; I have a hard time articulating the specific behaviors because I’ve been in fandom so long—they’re just automatic to me now.

    I do remember when some young woman wrote a Potter fanfic that was as big as a book, and she got a book deal out of it. I remember being rather peeved at that. The characters were already there. She didn’t create them, and that’s a huge percentage of what it takes to be a writer. I have no idea if that gal’s career went anywhere or not.

    You might be thinking of Cassandra Clare, who parlayed some fannish notoriety into a YA trilogy that began with City of Bones. I made it halfway through the first book before I had to give up in the face of badly-glued-together pastiche. Apparently the trilogy is doing all right without my readership. *g*

    Which is not to say that fanfic writers turned profic writers are bad—I know of at least one who’s really good. (But I’m not going to tell you who, because it’s bad form to connect a fan’s pseudonym or online handle to her real life identity unless she says it’s okay.)

  5. Chicklet says:

    Oh, and it just occurred to me that if you have questions about fanfic and other fanworks, a place to start looking for answers is the Organization for Transformative Works, a non-profit organization started by fans. They just posted their first issue of an academic journal about fandom and have an archive in the works.

  6. Karla says:

    I can understand Proulx’s point but her reaction the fic leaves such a bad taste that I really don’t care how she feels.  She doesn’t respond to this fic question elegantly or politely.  There is absolutely no reason for her to give such a fly off the handle belittling response to it.  Quite frankly I’ve never understood the appeal of either Proulx’s story or the movie.  Ms. Proulx seems to have a habit of reacting badly when things aren’t going the way she wants just look at how angry she was when Brokeback didn’t win all the Oscars she thought it should.

    The other thing that really annoys me about Proulx’s reponse is that her fandom isn’t all that strange.  Joss Whedon, JKR, Gaiman, Twilight, Kripke, etc. have fandoms with much much strange fic and fans whose actions can be considered beyond creepy.  I can help wondering what Proulx would do if her fandom was one of the ones where incest threesomes were common.  She could have taken her cue from any of those creators in regard to dealing with her fic-writing fans.

  7. Keladry says:

    I like Joss Whedon’s attitude about fanfiction: after canon (plots, stories, characterization, and such that the original creator has come up with) is closed, fanfiction keeps the fans active in the universe that he’s created.  Tamora Pierce is okay with fanfiction, too, but since she’s still writing, she emphatically declares to all that she won’t read any of it.  That way, there’s no doubt that anything in one of her books belongs to her and her alone.

    As a writer of fanfiction, I don’t see it as improving or fixing the original universe.  It’s more like seeing canon as a starting point, but what if one character turned right instead of left?  Or it can be an exploration of what might have happened when the character who narrates the books (like Bella in Twilight or Harry in the Harry Potter books) is somewhere else.

  8. jo bourne says:

    Some authors encourage fanfic.
    Some seem to ignore it.
    Myself—I think I’d be perplexed and distracted and try to ignore it. 

    But if an author gets snitfizzled and annoyed and downright stroppy about derivative creations,  he doesn’t have to justify himself.  It’s his story. 

    Not all writers are ‘nice’ children who yearn to share their crayons with everyone at the table. 
    Not all writers are ‘good sports’. 

    I can think of no conceivable reason why they should be.

  9. If someone wants to turn my stuff into fanfic and celebrate all the enchanted worlds I create, Yey! I’d love to meet one of my dragons! Or one of my heroes, especially the one who cooks and cleans.

    On the other hand, I never won the Booker Prize. I might take myself more seriously if I were more like AP.

  10. B says:

    I don’t care for authors whose problem with fanfiction basically amounts to “I wrote this perfectly and fanfiction is a reader who didn’t get it trying to fix what was already perfect.

    And those do exist. To me, Proulx’s complaints sound a bit like that. Unless she’s producing e-mails from people that state explicitly that they wrote those stories to “fix” her work, that I don’t know if that’s anything more than an assumption on Proulx’s part, rather than the actual reason said fics were written.

    And well, we all know what they say when you assume, right?

  11. Marta Acosta says:

    I think it’s fine to write fiction with a complete rewriting of the endings.  I believe that writers frequently make TERRIBLE MISTAKES in their stories.  In fact, I’m redoing:

    To Kill A Mockingbird – Atticus doesn’t shoot the mad dog and the dog bites everyone in town and they all become brain-eating zombies who rest between gorging in chiffarobes.

    Romeo & Juliet – The kwazy kids ldon’t die, but get married and have kids and argue all the time.  Their neighbor, Larry constantly comes in asking to borrow gardening tools and Juliet’s always screaming, “My mama told me not to marry a Montague!”

    Lolita – Humbert Humbert only wounds Claire Quilty in their confrontation.  Feeling guilty, he moves in to care for his fellow pedophile and they become roommates.  But Humbert is fastidiously neat and Claire is a beer-drinking slob.  Wacky hijinks ensue when they both get jobs at a private grammar school!

  12. To Kill A Mockingbird – Atticus doesn’t shoot the mad dog and the dog bites everyone in town and they all become brain-eating zombies who rest between gorging in chiffarobes.

    Romeo & Juliet – The kwazy kids ldon’t die, but get married and have kids and argue all the time.  Their neighbor, Larry constantly comes in asking to borrow gardening tools and Juliet’s always screaming, “My mama told me not to marry a Montague!”

    Lolita – Humbert Humbert only wounds Claire Quilty in their confrontation.  Feeling guilty, he moves in to care for his fellow pedophile and they become roommates.  But Humbert is fastidiously neat and Claire is a beer-drinking slob.  Wacky hijinks ensue when they both get jobs at a private grammar school!

    Oops. I laughed so hard I had an accident.

  13. Ishfet says:

    I think that if someone wrote fanfic of my work, I would not, on balance, be flattered. It does carry with it the implication that you’ve not done it right, particularly if you write back into the canon. If you write A and B together, but all the fanfic has C with B then it can be very disconcerting to see the characters you’ve sweated blood and tears over being carved up by someone else to make them fit their idea of what should happen.

    Why should Proulx be pleased when someone sends her fanfic which says she did it wrong? She had an artistic vision which she brought to fruition and then someone else criticises it.

    That’s the point that people are missing here. It’s not flattery, it’s not a compliment, it may be attention, but it’s critical and undermining of what she wrote.

    Now, I write fanfiction, but that doesn’t mean I expect the author to be flattered at what I’ve done to her characters. I’m sure she’d be horrified. ~shrugs~

  14. Brandi says:

    Can a woman be a misogynist?

    Two words: Ann Coulter. (Admittedly, the jury’s still out on her species, never mind her gender…)

  15. MS Jones says:

    I was always amused at people making Brokeback Mountain out to be a great Gay Romance when it is a tragedy that involves one Gay man in denial and one depressed bisexual pretending not to be involved with each other.

    Let’s face it, not everyone understands the Rules of the Romance Lexicon, which include the mandatory HEA.  As Jenna pointed out,
    these are the same people who think Romeo and Juliet is a romance, and probably includes the deluded men sending Proulx their happy endings, not understanding that there are Fanfic Rules.

    w

    hat if one character turned right instead of left?

    I’d be annoyed if someone wrote a Brokeback Mountain ending that had Ennis turning into a right-wing Christian nut and renouncing his homosexual ways. But the solution is to not read it. Trying to control fanfic is futile.

    And while I hesitate to interpret Proulx’s words, I agree that “emotional ignorance” that includes “an almost innocent expectation of a RIGHT to be loved and to be happy without earning it” is not realistic, and I would argue that in a good romance the characters have to earn their HEA.

    If Jake and Ennis came out of the closet, moved to San Francisco, got married, and lost friends and family in the process, then they might have been entitled to a HEA. That’s the point of Brokeback Mountain. They weren’t true to themselves so they weren’t happy.

  16. Barb Ferrer says:

    Two words: Ann Coulter. (Admittedly, the jury’s still out on her species, never mind her gender…)

    My turn to have an accident.  *g*

  17. Leah says:

    The silly thing about condemning fanfiction is that it’s been around forever and is not going to stop. Many works are based off of other works are based off of other works. I mean, any book that takes ‘characters’ from the bible should count as fanfiction, in a strange way. There’s some good bible slash out there. “In Principio” by Thamiris comes to mind.

    And every book that has been written has interconnecting pieces of other people’s art in them. Even if an author doesn’t say “I was thinking of this character from this film when I was writing my hero” it happens all the time.

    Ownership is meaningless in the long run, and only applies now because our culture has forced us to put dollar signs on art.

    I wish I was more knowledgeable about it so that I could give more concrete examples, because I know there are thousands of cases of well-respected or ‘classic’ (etc) writers unabashedly taking pieces of someone else’s art to incorporate into their own. Before copyright laws, it wasn’t even much of an issue. This whole idea of the ‘purity’ of someone’s own world/characters is ridiculous. Everybody builds off of something already created in order to create the shiny new things.

  18. Tina says:

    3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.).

    In the last few years many of the fanbooks being made in Japan have been short story collections and novels. [nearly all the fan stuff made for shows like Oz, 24, and Prison Break are printed fiction collections].  When my circle began creating for Gungrave, none of the other circles were making fan-comics; it was all novels doujinshi.  So that’s what we did – we printed and bound fiction anthys and traded them [sold some here to cover the cost of printing the trade-offs.]  However, all these fics are available online, so its up to the fan if they want to read for free or buy a bound copy.

  19. The point isn’t that Proulx should be flattered or pleased by fanfic, or that she should allow it. She can feel however she likes about it, and that’s her prerogative. She can complain about it all she likes; she can sue their pants off if she wants to give that a go (although, as the fanfic in question is simply mailed to her and not sold or posted online, it could be argued it’s not a violation at all.)

    I just believe there’s no need to be rude, degrading and cruel. I don’t think most people deserve that kind of treatment, and especially not those who are trying, however stupidly, to indicate that they were touched or affected by one’s work.

    Is it okay to walk into a store and order the employees around as if they’re slaves? To cut in front of others in line at the movies? To reply to a stranger’s “Have a nice day!” with “Go fuck yourself, moron!”? No. Because as people we should treat each other with at least a modicum of respect.

    As writers we put our work out there to the general public and ask them to let our words into their minds and hearts. We ask them to feel something or to think something or to reconsider their views on something. To turn around and attack them for doing what we wanted them to do because they’re not expressing it in the way we think correct is a lousy thing to do.

    No, all writers don’t have to be sweetness and light, just like we don’t expect every stranger we meet to be sweetness and light. But when they’re not at least polite, at least somewhat respectful of their fellow human beings, we’re still allowed to think they’re shitty people.

    And Proulx’s remarks don’t make her a bad writer, just a shitty person.

  20. B says:

    As writers we put our work out there to the general public and ask them to let our words into their minds and hearts. We ask them to feel something or to think something or to reconsider their views on something. To turn around and attack them for doing what we wanted them to do because they’re not expressing it in the way we think correct is a lousy thing to do.

    No, all writers don’t have to be sweetness and light, just like we don’t expect every stranger we meet to be sweetness and light. But when they’re not at least polite, at least somewhat respectful of their fellow human beings, we’re still allowed to think they’re shitty people.

    I’d stand up and applaud, only my family already thinks I’m weird enough as it is. I’m sending my mental applause across the pond.

  21. Fanfiction is the natural evolution of a process that is thousands of years old.  A storyteller comes to the village, takes a story of a hero slaying a dragon for the sake of the beast’s treasure.  He collects his coins, and leaves, and the next winter a farmer tell the story to his kids, except the dragon is now three-headed and the hero is now trying to rescue his lost love.  Take collected works of Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm and compare the Table of Contents.  You will find two different versions of the same story.

    Fanfiction can’t be stopped, shouldn’t be fought against – it’s futile, and will persist no matter what authors/publishers do.  You can try to shut it down, like Anne Rice, but really right now someody is probably writing it somewhere.

    That said, it’s the height of bad manners to send your story to an author, saying, “Hi, I fixed it for you.”  No.  You didn’t fix it, you nitwit, you wrote a version of the story that you personally liked by infringing on the author’s copyright.  As long as you don’t make money off of it, no harm is done.

    As an author, I don’t mind if people write fanfic.  I won’t read it, I won’t look at it, because I don’t want to be sued later, but if it inspires someone to sit down and write, please go ahead.  But please don’t email it to me.

    I once had an email from a person that said, paraphrasing, “Hi, I wrote a story.  Here is the thing, it’s kind of based on your world.  Here are some elements I borrowed.  Could you please look at them and tell me what you consider yours?”

  22. handyhunter says:

    I like Joss Whedon’s attitude about fanfiction: after canon (plots, stories, characterization, and such that the original creator has come up with) is closed, fanfiction keeps the fans active in the universe that he’s created.

    Yes. If nothing else, it’s good advertising. I think most readers/viewers understand that fanfic is NOT the original work and is not necessarily reflective of the quality of said original work. It just means people are interested enough to continue talking about it.

    I think of some fanfic as another way to discuss the story, much like writing meta posts about it. This is sometimes different from writing wish-fulfillment or PWP fanfic. Some fanfic exists to fill in the gaps in canon or to smooth over plot holes, etc (Supernatural, I’m looking at you).

    The fanfic I like to read tends to be well written and stays true to the tone of the show and/or voice of the character. And it’s more the scribbling in the margins type than long, plotty fics or stuff that branches off from canon into its own alternate universe. Though PWP is also enjoyable sometimes. I stay off fanfic.net and most other fanfic hosting sites; I wait for fic writers I like to write their stories or for stuff to get recommended. Not unlike how I look for new books to read.

    1. Do not send fanwork to the original source.
    2. Do not try to pass off another fan’s work as your own.
    2a. Acknowledge in a disclaimer that the characters are the property of authors, producers, studios, etc. and that you’re just having fun.
    3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.). If you go pro, it needs to be entirely your own work.
    4. Have your work beta-read to avoid bad characterization, poor grammar, copious typos, etc.

    5. Respect the wishes of the creator (or copyright holder, I guess). If they’ve said they don’t like fanfic, don’t send it to them. Maybe even keep it under friends-lock or something if they’re the type to go after fan-sites.

    I wonder, though, if the difference in opinion between, say, Whedon’s tacit (or outright) approval of fanfic vs other authors’ disgust/disdain/dislike of fanfic has to do with the medium in which they work?  I mean, personally, I don’t often find myself looking for fanfic of books; I also don’t often get hugely fannish about them the way I do certain TV shows. It seems to me most TV creators are more tapped into fandom, if not involved with it too, and support it, for the most part, or just don’t care that much, while a number of author’s opinions I’ve seen on this subject has been to disapprove of fanfic/fandom or have no idea what it is, if they even have one. Or maybe it’s simply the people whose work I like who are like this.

  23. I should add, for full disclosure, that I’ve written and sold what amounts to a work of fanfic.  On Spec, a Canadian magazine, just bought my short story “The Last Wendy,” which features Peter Pan coming back for a descendent of Wendy’s in the modern day.  (I sold it in Canada because I cannot legally do so in the U.S., where the original work is in a very murky copyright mess.)

    I am damn proud of that story, because I absolutely think it lives up to the kind of thing derivative works can do: it’s critical commentary on problems I perceive in the source.  And there are legal works like that out there; what is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead but a whacked-out piece of Hamlet fanfic?  So to argue that fanfic is somehow inherently bad or disrespectful is to attribute way more force to IP law than I think it deserves, as if somehow a derivative work is dumb sixty-five years after my death, but it’s okay after seventy-five.

  24. Barb Ferrer says:

    As writers we put our work out there to the general public and ask them to let our words into their minds and hearts. We ask them to feel something or to think something or to reconsider their views on something. To turn around and attack them for doing what we wanted them to do because they’re not expressing it in the way we think correct is a lousy thing to do.

    Word with a spicy side of word sauce.

  25. EmmyT says:

    I found Proulx’s responses to be condescending and misogynistic. (Can a woman be a misogynist?)

    So I went and read the interview with Anne Proulx and what came across to me is that she doesn’t hate women, she hates men. She thinks that women are treated as second class citizens (I got the feeling that she thinks most women are deluding if they consider themselves equal). What took my breath away was when she says “beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can.”

  26. Chicklet says:

    It seems to me most TV creators are more tapped into fandom, if not involved with it too, and support it, for the most part, or just don’t care that much, while a number of author’s opinions I’ve seen on this subject has been to disapprove of fanfic/fandom or have no idea what it is, if they even have one.

    This is what I’ve seen, too, and why I was asking the authors on this thread about it above. I’m not a writer, but my guess is that TV production is so collaborative, that TV creators don’t have as much of a sense of ownership of the characters, and that leads them to being more accepting of fanfic. Although as far as groups of TPTB being accepting of fanfic goes, no one beats the first-season cast of Lost, who used to read fic aloud to one another at group dinners—if the story was about your character, you read it aloud to the group!

  27. Lissa says:

    WOW – learning new things all the time. 

    I often drive long distances over very empty roads and will admit to reworking a storyline from a novel in my head – mostly inserting myself into the story to entertain myself on the boring drive – I had no idea that people actually wrote an alternate version of an authors work, AND THEN SENT IT TO THE AUTHOR.

    That just floors me, in some ways it is flattering, in others, it is quite insulting, especially if the letter/email begins with “you didn’t get this right” or something along those line. 

    Regardless of how the author feels about fanfic – the author should be flattered that her work has obviously touched something within that fan.  And she should behave accordingly.

  28. handyhunter says:

    Although as far as groups of TPTB being accepting of fanfic goes, no one beats the first-season cast of Lost, who used to read fic aloud to one another at group dinners—if the story was about your character, you read it aloud to the group!

    Heh. The Supernatural people are rather encouraging of it too. Although Jensen Ackles (who plays Dean Winchester) bringing up wincest at a convention was rather a o.O moment. And apparently Jim Beaver (Bobby) wore some sort of slash shirt (as in [character]/[character]), though I don’t recall who the characters were. I think it was Kim Manners (director, formerly of the X-Files) who clued them in?

    And I’ve never seen a creator try to please his fans more than Eric Kripke. If “to be Jossed” means you get the unexpected, then “to be Kripked” means you get almost exactly what you expected. And it’s still awesome, usually; though the writing on SPN is no where near the quality of writing on Joss’s shows.

    [quote=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin]Is it still fanfic if the creator is writing it?

    (RPF, too! Though not RPS.)

  29. handyhunter says:

    Oops. That should have been a link, not a quote tag:

    Title: A Meeting of Obama and Bartlet
    Author: Aaron Sorkin
    Characters: Jed Bartlet, Barack Obama
    Fandom: The West Wing, real life
    Rating: Gen
    Summary: Obama seeks advice from Bartlet on his campaign.
    Disclaimer: Jed Bartlet was created by Aaron Sorkin, though I think he’s still owned by NBC (Bartlet, not Sorkin). Obama belongs to himself. No profit is being made, no harm is intended.

  30. SonomaLass says:

    Three words.
    Marion Zimmer Bradley.

    I believe she had to kill the Darkover series, which was a universe open to fanfiction, because of legal battles over who created what.  A fan sued, saying that one of Bradley’s own stories was too similar to fan created fiction.

    This is the main reason why authors cannot read fanfic.  The minute you start to look, or admit to looking, or are too helpful or supportive, you create the possibility that someone will come back and sue you for stealing your own work.  And the irony that it could happen in a world where you are God and creator?

    Makes my head explode.

    MZB is a great object lesson on the issue of fanfic/derivative work.  She allowed and even encouraged other writers to write stories set in her world; although she didn’t consider them canon, she edited quite a few anthologies that contained one or two stories of hers and a bunch of other people’s.  That stopped in 1992.  Here’s her version of what happened:

            “. . .While in the past I have allowed fans to ‘play in my yard,’ I was forced to stop that practice last summer when one of the fans wrote a story, using my world and my characters, that overlapped the setting I was using for my next Darkover novel. Since she had sent me a copy of her fanzine, and I had read it, my publisher will not publish my novel set during that time period, and I am now out several years’ work, as well as the cost and inconvenience of having a lawyer deal with this matter.

            “Because this occurred just as I was starting to read for this year’s Darkover anthology, that project was held up for more than a month while the lawyer drafted a release to accompany any submissions and a new contract, incorporating the release. I do not know at present if I shall be doing any more Darkover anthologies.

            “Let this be a warning to other authors who might be tempted to be similarly generous with their universes, I know now why Arthur Conan Doyle refused to allow anyone to write about Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to be more accommodating, but I don’t like where it has gotten me. It’s enough to make anyone into a misanthrope.”

    So yeah, if you’re an author, don’t read fanfic based on your stuff.  And if you mean your piece of fanfic as a complement to the author’s original work, don’t put her in a difficult position by asking her to read it.  (Or him, of course!)

    To be accurate, MZB did not have to “kill” the Darkover series; she just couldn’t get that particular book published, and she stopped doing the anthologies.  She did outline a bunch of her unpublished story ideas to a couple of co-authors, who finished the books and published them after MZB’s death, under both names and with full permission of her estate.

    MZB never would give permission for a Darkover-based role-playing game, but that’s another story….

  31. Robin says:

    No one can control the private feelings of authors about fan fiction—obviously.  If one case involving one author serves as a substantial deterrent for authors, well, maybe they wouldn’t be easily persuaded to feel friendly toward fan fiction to begin with. 

    Where I start to get frustrated is when authors proclaim that fan fiction is inherently IP theft, that it patently violates copyright, or when authors promise that they will legally pursue fan fiction writers.  SOME fan fiction will likely be found to infringe copyright, but that’s not a universal and it’s not a guarantee.  But even if some ff does infringe copyright, some of that subset of work might be deemed Fair Use if challenged.  Because Fair Use recognizes that infringing is not necessarily a bad, unethical, immoral, criminal, go straight to hell “theft” of intellectual property. 

    Authors may *feel* that fan fiction is stealing.  Hey, Shakespeare may be spinning in his proverbial grave because of all the adaptations that have been done of his work over the centuries.  And who knows what Jane Austen would think of the liberal use of her characters (let alone the broader ways in which her book has been translated through myriad genre Romances).  I think it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable for authors to be squicked out by the idea of someone else riffing off their work, that it’s part of the proprietary impulse people have toward what they produce and want to see as special and unique in all the world.

    But I think it’s important to keep personal feelings separate from the very serious threat of legal intervention and from patent assertions about copyright (or trademark) that may or may not be true or applicable.  That these things are often smushed together may seem logical and even reasonable for those who have strong feelings about fan fiction.  And certainly they have overlap for many people. 

    But I think the conflation confuses an already incendiary issue, imbuing copyright codes with a moral sensibility they just don’t possess, and substituting legal principles for moral and ethical values that deserve their own terms.  Which IMO makes it difficult to really look at the diversity and character of fan fiction in terms of its own cultural and literary production.  Like we spend so much time debating whether it’s bad or good, allowed or prohibited, that we don’t really look much at what it is or isn’t as actual work.

  32. Chicklet says:

    Like we spend so much time debating whether it’s bad or good, allowed or prohibited, that we don’t really look much at what it is or isn’t as actual work.

    Thank you, Robin. I’m always impressed with the clear thinking you bring to these discussions.

  33. Alex says:

    I’ve written fanfic—actually, enough that I have an incomplete novel I’m stalled out on.

    I can tell you that sometimes, I just get an idea I want to see on paper, and want other people to see. So I start writing it. I can’t draw worth a flip, so if I want to show someone a character, I have to describe it. I’m a little tonedeaf, have a horrible singing voice, and have never been played in music. I’m pretty uncoordinated. But read some of the stuff I write on a good day and I can make you laugh, I can make you cry, I can make you bloody well fall in love or start to hate someone.

    But the motivations of fanfic’ers…well, for my ‘novel’ (it really just seemed to have grown as I went along), I really enjoyed the setting, the characters, and, oh god, I loved the plot of a video game called Tales of Symphonia. So the story ended, and I started thinking about what could happen afterwards. Then my encyclopediac knowledge of the game kicked in, and a year after I first played it, I had a plot drop into my head, all at once. So I started writing it. I write in respect of the source material, and try to keep the characters, well, in-character.

  34. I don’t have a problem with fanfiction as a concept. It becomes a problem to me when it gets posted on the internet. Why? Because, as we know, the internet is forever and who knows what will still be out there ten, twenty or more years down the line. It’s possible that some of this fanfiction will become cross-pollinated with the original work, and there will be no way to know what’s the original and what’s the addition. That’s a nightmare scenario for me.

    If someone wants to take my characters and do with them what they will, I don’t really care (as long as there’s no profit), but the minute they put it online, then yes, I’ve got a really big problem with it. 

    Wow, your spamfilter IS psychic. using24.

  35. BlueBow says:

    This has always been a hot-button issue for me. I see no reason to put unreasonable restrictions on your fans if they aren’t doing anything to hurt anyone or actually taking money out of your pocket. If I ever wrote something that someone was enough of a fan of to want to write about it, draw pictures, make music, or anything fan-like, I think I’d consider it an honor.

    I’m soured against authors that stand against fanfiction, it just seems like such a slap in the face.

    Seems to me those most concerned with the use of their ‘intellectual property’ feel they dearly need to hold on to it because they don’t have a lot of intellect to begin with.

    … As far as Annie Proulx goes, unless her original short story was drastically different from the movie that I saw… Well, anything’s bound to be better than that massive bore.

  36. Ros says:

    I’d definitely be flattered if people identified with and cared about characters I’d created enough to want to write their own stories about them.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to read them though and I don’t think I’d be thrilled to find people rewriting the ending of my stories.  I just find it bizarre that people send their stuff to Annie Proulx – what response are they expecting when they’re basically saying, look I know you’re this famous, well-respected, prize-winning novelist, but don’t you think I can do it better than you?  So rude.

    I don’t have any problems with fanfic being shared online for free (and I’m sure that in some cases this has actually helped promote the original – I started reading Lois McMaster Bujold because of a story I’d read online, and the Harry Potter fan world has grown out of all proportion at least partly because of the fanfiction) but I certainly think it’s wrong for anyone other than the original author to be making any money from it.

  37. @Chicklet. I suggest Foresmutters before I ever direct anyone to OTW.

    @HandyHunter, that was great. And there are Lion in Winter allusions in it!

    @Marie Brennan: Have you encountered the Lost Girls Pirate Academy and the Wendy Trilogy yet?

    @Emmy:

    What took my breath away was when she says “beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can.”

    Why does it take your breath away? She’s accurate. I find that assumption quite common among men, and especially among male fans. Something about believing that possession of the Penis makes them infinitely superior to mere women.

    I used to write fanfiction. A lot of it. In 24 different fandoms. Books, movies, TV shows.

    Some of my pro-writing is still technically fanfiction. I have one that’s a thinly disguised Star Wars/Persian Boy crossover. And I just submitted a transgender Robin Hood reworking.

    But for the most part, I’m too interested in playing in my own universes these days to play in someone else’s.

  38. handyhunter says:

    It’s possible that some of this fanfiction will become cross-pollinated with the original work, and there will be no way to know what’s the original and what’s the addition.

    Do you really think viewers/readers are that stupid that they won’t know the difference between fanfic and the original work? Or is it that the fanfic might be better or have greater longevity than the original fic?

    Is it that much different from, say, Laurie R King writing Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes stories? I can tell the difference between her Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle’s. Ditto the cameo of Lord Peter Wimsey, though I haven’t read any Sayer books.

    I’m sure that in some cases this has actually helped promote the original – I started reading Lois McMaster Bujold because of a story I’d read online,

    Yep. I got into Supernatural because of fanfic; it crosses over well with other shows. Also Slings & Arrows, a bunch of comic books/graphic novels, Bones (after giving up on it in season one; I am enjoying it much more now), Sports Night…

  39. Wryhag says:

    “beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can.”

    Proulx obviously has failed to notice that many BbM fanfic writers are women.  Moreover, some of the “rewrites” aren’t all that mangled.

    I completely agree, however, with the unwritten rules of fanfic posted earlier.  At the very least, give a nod to the source . . . and then leave that source alone.

  40. Ms Manna says:

    I’ve had people write fanfic of my fiction, and I like it when people let me know about it.  I don’t read them any more, though.  Not because I’m worried about being sued (as it’s small-press published, they’d be wasting the stamp), but because it started getting uncomfortable.  People wanted to know what I thought about their stories, and even wanted me to give it some kind of stamp of authorial approval as being in character, etc.  I fundamentally don’t think that’s the point of fanfic.  I don’t want to have the power to tell people ‘you’re reading it wrong’, even if they ask me to.

    I was so bemused by the first mentions of Annie Proulx being sent fanfic, but when she said it was mostly from men it made more sense.  Virtually anyone who’s come up though media fandom would know better than to do it.

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