Anti-fanfic bingo, Line Three

[elfwreck]

Fanfic Bingo, Round Three: Five issues: Raping the characters, MZB, ickyslash, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and immorality. Worthy of five essays, or one big one that ties in threads of ethics and legalities and the conundrum of our court system

Comments

[ainsley]

Thank you for this.

[elfwreck]

Much welcome.

Figured it was about time for an essay that wasn't about dry legalisms. The only way we're going to get public support (and we need public support, in the long run, to combat corporate financial interests) is to have an answer ready when they ask, "Umm... so what? Why does it matter?"

[ivy03]

Here from otw. Oh, I so agree. And it's not just fanfic that's damaged by the Mickey Mouse copyright laws, it's the creations themselves. Think of all the classics that are available because they're public domain so a dozen publishing houses have editions of them. Then think of all the books from the beginning of this century that will never be public domain if Mickey Mouse has its way and will never be classics and will never be read or remembered at all.

I sing in a choir and a few years ago we performed a song cycle by Fuchs that was settings of Robert Frost poems. Fuchs, being a grad student at the time he wrote these, did not get permission to use the poems (oops!). When we tried to perform it, we could not get permission from the Frost foundation to do so. They didn't even respond to us. Now this could be a simple matter of not checking their PO Box, but is this really a good system? To not be able to read a poem in public if somebody doesn't check their mailbox? As a result, we could perform all but two of the poems in the

[elfwreck]

The nasty part of me would want to put a bit in the program about "the remainder of this song cycle could not be performed, in accordance with the wishes of the Frost foundation." But that detracts from the feeling of the presentation, and adds icky gossip to what should be an uplifting performance.

The issue of copyright lasting too long is often overlooked in these dicussions--as if any length of time were reasonable, and people should just wait for that to be inspired by someone else's work.

Allowing 20 years, or even 40 years, for profit is a way to encourage public creativity by allowing some public controls. Allowing life+75 isn't about profit; it's about censorship.

[elfwreck]

I tend to think you had a contract, if only a verbal one... he gave permission, you did work based on that permission, then he revoked it: you could potentially sue in small claims court for the value of the work.

And this kind of mess is why we need copyright reform--whatever rights an author has, those need to be understood before other people base projects on them. And they need to be understood in a way that makes sense to a layman, because we now have a culture & tech abilities for a casual performer to produce hundreds of copies at will; the answer to these problems shouldn't be "well, you should've gotten a signed contract first, that detailed exactly what you could do with his works."

I don't like the growing movement towards more and more paperwork verification requirements in everyday life. (How long before a day-care worker needs a permission slip to sing Disney songs to the kiddies after lunch?)

[lil_shepherd]

Hmmm. In UK law, copyright exists in the original media and therefore if you write a song about a character in a book or a film, unless a name is protected under trademark law - and to do that it must not be words in common usage, so under UK trademark law, the words "Star Wars" or "Dr Who" are not protected, only their logos - you hold the copyright in that material not the person who wrote the original book or film or TV show

[elfwreck]

U.S. copyright law includes "derivative works," the definition of which varies drastically by mood of the judge. (Oh, and some case precedents, which are so whackedly inconsistent, the judge might as well be flipping a coin to decide.)

I doubt this one had any legal standing... but the possibility of lawsuit was enough to quell any widespread distribution of the song. Knowing that Yarbro would file in court even if she had no chance of winning was enough to prevent filk publishers--which work on slightly less than a shoestring budget--from picking it up.

I didn't know about the Jedi/Rebel issue, but the recorded version & published lyrics to "Banned From Argo" have pirates; the live versions always have Klingons.

[mmoneurere]

It's not just the law that's different between the US and the UK; the attitudes involved also seem to have been pretty divergent in the past (though perhaps less so now in the post-McLibel world).

here from metafandom

[starlady38]

Yarbro agrees with her publisher's draconian attitude, if you check the FAQs on her website. Incidentally, it heartens me that you didn't think the books were that great either, since that was my reaction. But the song sounds beautiful, and I agree with what you say about copyright laws and such.

I can't help but wonder, is all of this going to change in the age of "new media?" I hope so...

[carmarthen]

These laws are supposed to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution). And they have failed. They are not promoting progress, not of science (which is hampered by patent laws tripping over each other, and inability to quote relevant papers because of copyright concerns), and not of the useful arts-they are handing an economic stranglehold on creativity to whoever's lawyers have the biggest stick.AMEN

[elfwreck]

...it's about what copyright should be.Yes