I suppose it's certainly true that if you're dying to prevent people from writing certain things (I imagine J K Rowling, for one, must avoid noticing fanfic trends like the plague, because damn HP fandom), a blanket discouragement of fanfic in general is probably going to be the only logical way to attempt it (rather than, say, prohibiting anything centred around the BDSM world, or whatnot). Though it's never going to completely stop it, of course. But while I do understand what you're saying about particular authors' aversions to certain aspects of fanfiction, I personally am going to stick with telling them to suck it up and ignore it. If nothing else, they need to consider that pretty much anything that can appear in fanfiction can also appear in general discussion, and there's no way to outlaw thatAs for copyright, it's hard to tell with the internet involved (every country has different laws, obviously, so it's going to depend which countries the people in question originate from). But, though I'm not a copyright lawyer, I'd be
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But while I do understand what you're saying about particular authors' aversions to certain aspects of fanfiction, I personally am going to stick with telling them to suck it up and ignore it. If nothing else, they need to consider that pretty much anything that can appear in fanfiction can also appear in general discussion, and there's no way to outlaw that.
I generally agree; my point was just that there are other reasons for the decision to prohibit fanfic besides "I musn't let my fans visit my sandbox; they might build a prettier sandcastle than mine." (I've never read the authors you mentioned on your post; you could be right about their motivations.)
On the other hand, as I said on my own journal, something that went as far as demanding money for the work or similar would be a very different issue indeed, and one that should be treated far more seriously than posting something to LJ or FF.net or whatever.Right. I just think that some authors (particularly older ones, who were successful and published before the "fanfic" wave
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There should always be a devil's advocate. ;) But the people I think might need defending here are perhaps the ones that express doubt about the idea of fanfiction, or the specifics of it when applied to their material (e.g. in some fandoms, particularly those where canon is focused at children, it would be fair for the creator to have all sorts of censorship concerns at the very least, though that's really sort of another issue). I absolutely believe that it's logical to have misgivings about such a thing. It's clearly a complicated issue. But there's also clearly a reason why, despite decades of fanfiction being popular in one form or another (more so recently with the internet, of course), authors haven't banded together and claimed copyright to stop it. If there was any kind of risk to their own interests that was more than fleeting, you can bet they would have acted en masse. Instead, most of them are content (or at least grudgingly willing) to let their fans do as they will in this matter, as long as we don't escalate the issue
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From just a personal perspective, it's kind of weird to have someone write your own characters, moreso in writing as opposed to other things like TV, I think. It's just. Weird.
The whole legal department is terribly tricky and murky and a lot of different authors go about different ways of dealing with it- Mercedes Lackey used to (might still?) have a form that you could use to submit fanfic and there was some sort of thing to go through with it. Other authors just acknowledge that it will/does exist, and therein, just ask politely that it not be placed in their immediate view. Then there's the ones who write fanfic of other stories themselves.
The Marion Zimmer Bradley case was really singular, since she almost actively partook in fandom as a whole, so that was just messy in of itself.
Actually, ASoIaF fic has always been around- people were very careful about where they posted it and making sure that it wasn't too easy to find. Now it's just a little easier, since the TV fans don't always go to the books, and by extent, the
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I generally agree; my point was just that there are other reasons for the decision to prohibit fanfic besides "I musn't let my fans visit my sandbox; they might build a prettier sandcastle than mine." (I've never read the authors you mentioned on your post; you could be right about their motivations.)
On the other hand, as I said on my own journal, something that went as far as demanding money for the work or similar would be a very different issue indeed, and one that should be treated far more seriously than posting something to LJ or FF.net or whatever.Right. I just think that some authors (particularly older ones, who were successful and published before the "fanfic" wave ( ... )
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The whole legal department is terribly tricky and murky and a lot of different authors go about different ways of dealing with it- Mercedes Lackey used to (might still?) have a form that you could use to submit fanfic and there was some sort of thing to go through with it. Other authors just acknowledge that it will/does exist, and therein, just ask politely that it not be placed in their immediate view. Then there's the ones who write fanfic of other stories themselves.
The Marion Zimmer Bradley case was really singular, since she almost actively partook in fandom as a whole, so that was just messy in of itself.
Actually, ASoIaF fic has always been around- people were very careful about where they posted it and making sure that it wasn't too easy to find. Now it's just a little easier, since the TV fans don't always go to the books, and by extent, the ( ... )
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