[research] Piece in TWC: Why we should talk about commodifying fan work

[unjapanologist]

The new issue of Transformative Works and Cultures was published last month and includes a symposium piece by me:

Why we should talk about commodifying fan work

Summary:

Comments

[calicokat]

Long time no chat, but good to see you're still in business! Personally I'm firmly behind the idea that work/actual words produced is what should be marketed, because ideas and characters simply don't belong to any one person. It's impossible not to create derivative work. There really are no special snowflakes or original ideas out there and copyright has ripped storytelling from the broader social milieu it used to inhabit.

If it's a marketable product, then the creator should be able to market it. How much real person slash...sorry, "historical fiction" gets published out there all the time? And, of course, Star Trek and Star Wars novels, etc., are official fan fiction...almost always by paid male writers. Wtf. The ghettoization of women's fiction, indeed.

Great article, too! :3

[unjapanologist]

Hey there! Yeah, definitely still in business, though I've really drifted away from LJ -I use it mostly for commenting and participating in comms now. *checks* Oh wait wow, I think I took your LJ out of my RSS reader when I subscribed to your DW and somehow totally failed to notice that you weren't updating there anymore. Sorry! *groan*

And yeah, all that. It's so frustrating, the way this copyright=holy scripture mindset has somehow managed to infiltrate everybody's brain. It's so very obvious that practically nothing that gets published is completely original, and that letting a legal tool like copyright determine which creations are valuable, ownable, protectable and marketable just makes no sense. But try telling the general public that when no big popular news outlet even wants to touch the subject of copyright with a ten-foot pole. Among other problems. We've a long way to go.

Glad you liked the article! :)