FIC... Pull-to-Publish Arguement far from Supported
I wish quote something Anne Jamison says in her book Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World that I found through Google book.
“The recent explosion in published fanfiction has occurred because publishing companies came to realize-very publicly, and on a large scale-that “fanfiction” was not a synonym for “derivative.”
I'm going to have to call her on this one and flat out say that if a work is not derivative then it is not fanfiction and the write shouldn't be publishing it as fanfiction in the first place. Yes... these works originally used the names of copyrighted character, and the characters may look like said characters, but they are not the characters. The personalities were changed to the point the characters were OoC and the world it was taking place in did not resemble the original world. (It should be noted here that OoC doesn't mean simply out of character, it means out of character without a reason to explain the character being out of character.)
The reason writers in the Twilight fandom were able to pretty much get away with this practice is because they were dealing with a fanbase that primarily are not readers. Yes... they happen to read the words on the paper, but they do not choose to participate in one of the other fundamental importance when it comes to writing, the act of actually taking in what they read and choosing to comprehend what is actually said. There are some who have low reading comprehensions and others who choose not to comprehend.
It's also pretty bad that she is quoting Heidi, who is known for some of the inaccurate things she has said in the past which includes saying that what Cassandra Claire did was not plagiarism used the argument that credit was given. (It should be noted that credit actually was not originally given.) Another argument used to defend Cassandra Claire that may or may not have been used by her was that it wasn't word for word.
However, plagiarism.org says otherwise. I use this page because this is the standards actually used to determine whether something is plagiarism or not. “ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ARE CONSIDERED PLAGIARISM” includes “Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit” and “copying so many words or ideas from the source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not”. The last part includes how much you use of another persons work as well as that does not fall under fair use. “The more you've “borrowed,” the less likely it is to be considered fair use. On top of this the amount that falls under fair use for creative writing is far, far smaller then what is considered fair use for non-fiction.
The quote used from Hiedi is about character copyright and it really doesn't sum up copyright for characters like Mark Fowler does here. Characters are not as unprotected as Heidi likes to claim they are. Chilling Effects also does a far better job of explaining the issue of copyright in regards to fanfiction here and how it regards characters here. It's not as simple as a character being detailed as a world being detailed also brings a character protection. Mind you, this may be another reason why these writers targeted the Twilight fandom... the world is not distinctive nor are the characters.
I'm also going to come back to the argument that if a work is not derivative it is not fanfiction even if the writer tries to pass it off as such. You can't label it fanfiction simply by saying a fan wrote the piece. For example, I've seen a lot of writers post their original fiction pieces into the Anime section because it contains Anime elements like magical girls or shonen type fights. Some even do it because their characters have weird hair colors and that is the only connection to Anime. The difference between fanfiction and original fiction is whether or not the ideas used are copyrightable ideas or not.
This being said, the names of characters do fall under some level of copyright, though its the whole name that is copyrightable and not simple names like “Harry”, “Ichigo” and “Aubrey”. This though is not enough to “make” a story fanfic. If you can change the names in a fandom that is very distinct and not see traces of what makes the fandom distinct it is not fanfiction but original fiction. The writers are taking advantage of the readers. In some cases the writer is honestly not being fair to themselves, but in light of finding out that some writers are doing it on purpose knowing they can retool the work.
Well, let's just say these writers lack ethics. I'm not saying the writers who decide after the fact to pull a story for retolling are lacking in ethics, but the writers who do plan on marketing the work later as original work are being unethical. We the readers are not your “free” beta service and treating the other fans as if they are a “free” beta service so you don't have to pay people to be your beta service is not right. Hands down that is the way they are treating fandom.
I'm going to add that the “'bad old days'” of multiple cease-and-desist orders” has nothing to do with pull-to-publish. The whole cease-and-desist actually involved writers ordering that absolutely no fanfiction be published online in relation to their work. The whole pull-to-publish wasn't on any of the published writer's scopes, but it also may very well cause some writers who are fine with fanfiction to pull their support or even voice that writers are not to use their work as testing grounds to launch published works. The idea behind allowing fanfiction for writers is that writers don't use it to make eventual profit.
I also don't like how the whole issue is down played. The people who pull-to-publish are treated as if they are in the absolute right here, but the people complaining about the whole pull-to-publish are in the wrong. Ignored is the fact many readers don't like finding out that they have to now pay for a book they know they read as a fanfic. Ignored is the fact many pull-to-publish writers have been caught plagiarizing other people and some of this is transitioned over to the pulled-to-publish work; aka the writer took the plagiarized material and retooled it with a simple name change without removing the plagiarized material and published it for profit.
There is also the issue that pull-to-publish writers... a good deal of them... think that their readers owe them something and they're willing to take advantage of people. As I've said... fandom pretty much provides a free Beta service for these writers. While it is true that these readers received the work for free, it isn't as if the writers weren't payed in some manner for their services rendered.
Those who offered critique that helped the writer improve aren't paid for their services while an actual editor would be. (Of course... these writers also seem to be beyond criticism. To them what does it matter if the work is low quality so long as it sells.) Even for those who don't critique, they spent time reading and reviewing the work which in turn let the writer know it would be marketable. Some of the writers also pull without letting their readers know and people find out because the bought the published version.
If the pull-to-publish writers wish to make better their argument that they are doing nothing wrong then they need to find some manner in which to repay their reviewers accordingly. They also should be honest about pulling-to-publish, but if they did they know they would receive a backlash and if the writer is going in knowing at the very beginning that they are planning on pulling to publish they know that they would automatically get less people reading the story.
Fact of the matter is fandom is not meant to be used for profit. The reason it is not meant to be used for profit is because copyright belongs to someone else. The places it is used for profit are places where the copyright holder does in fact get compensated as they are due.
It also seems that the “it's AU” argument is also brought up by Jamison, the argument being that there are “complaints that AU fic 'ruins' or 'isn't really' fanfic”, when in reality the argument is that AU is not “anything goes”. I say this as someone who actually writes AU fanfiction and spends a lot of time planning the ones I do write so they actually are fanfiction. A proper AU follows the rules of AU, which is pretty much probable cause and effect. People try to take it to mean any possible effect you want. I really wonder how many of these people understand that AU is a sci-fi concept. If they did, perhaps they would understand the rules for writing AU better.
I also notice that she plays up A03 like many other people do. While I honestly do appreciate some of the things the people at A03 does for the fanfic community I also think that some of the things they try to do aren't helpful. At one point... and I'm not sure if this is still true... the site advocated that a writer has no right to forbid fanfiction written for their series. As I said... fanfiction is derivative. The only reason most writers over look fanfiction is because they know it helps give them free publicity and because people don't make money off it.
Actually... playing up is a good word for what seems to be going on as she actually brings up a book called “The Longest Night” by Kara Braden which is yet to be published and there is no strong knowledge as to how people would react to the release of this particular book. Maybe Kara Braden will break the trend of having low quality works from pull-to-publish works, but she may not either. One of the reasons pull-to-publish end up being so easy to pull-to-publish is because the writers didn't bother to keep to the rules of writing fanfiction. So why would they care about the rules for creative writing? What matters is being able to sell, sell, sell.
(Note: I actually don't have a problem with Kara Braden as much as I do other writers who pull-to-publish. She's made it clear that she's trying to make ends meet. It wasn't a simple, “hey... I make tons of money off of this” like some of the others seem to be.)
I also found this quote as well. “J.K. Rowling did take her mystery book title The Cuko's Calling from a Christina Rossetti poem. Maybe it is catching on.” Jamison is actually comparing a trend that has long been a norm... taking titles from works that inspired you... to the act of pull-to-publish. Not only are these two different things, but this isn't new. Or let's try this instead.
I think I should also note that Kindle Worlds is not the same thing as pull-to-publish as well as fanlib either. Kindle Worlds is in reality the new way to do something called tie-in-novels, works officially sanctioned by the publisher. There is no worry about being paid for copyright because you've actually got permission and you know the original copyright holder is getting their dues.
Of course, I'm also going to say I think some of the confusion about Kindle Worlds comes from the fact some people really do believe its as black and white as Jamison is trying to claim it is. I've read places that say that Jamison hasn't a clue about the Anime and Manga fandoms, but if she had done her research... well, we pretty much have something similar to fanzines... works that pretty much paid for themselves, but if the work gets very big it becomes like Kindle Worlds.
That's pretty much the chapter on pull-to-publish works. While Jamison says she is rather neutral, I find it hard to believe. She also doesn't seem to have done proper research before she wrote this work. I know that she says it isn't academia writing and since it wasn't authorized by her univercity or printed through it's press it doesn't count as academia, but the fact is any non-ficiton work whether it has the chance to be published by an academic press or not has to be well thought out and researched and if you don't your work is fair game to criticism. Not to mention many of the rules that apply to academia apply to any non-fiction piece.