- Fanfic Bingo!

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Inspired by the discussion of OTW at John Scalzi's blog, Ithiliana, Half Elf Lost, Kitsune13, and Cofax7 created the Anti-Fanfic Bingo card.

They have kindly permitted the OTW to use the card, and we'd like to ask all of you to come up with responses for the objections to fan fiction. Serious responses, funny responses, rude responses, heart-felt responses. Prose, poetry, icons, banners, art, vids -- any response at all! We ask that you stay on topic, but our hope is to create something fun and, well, educational.

You can see the entire Anti-Fanfic Bingo card here, but right now, let's focus on the top row:



How would you respond? Tell ComRel!

Graphic by the wonderful Ciderpress.

-- femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, bethbethbeth, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

Comments

[allyndra.livejournal.com]

You have to ask the writer for permission!

In more active fandoms, there are thousands of fans worldwide engaged in the writing of fanfiction and the creation of other transformative works. If each of us contacted the original author for permission, she/he would be overwhelmed and unable to process all the requests. It's really much more polite of us not to inundate the author with such requests.

[fairestcat]

more to the point, active fandoms are most often TV series or movies, in that case who is the "author" whose permission we need to ask?

Who is the author of Stargate: Atlantis? Is it the show-runners who oversee the seasonal arcs? Is it each individual writer who has penned an episode? Is it the actors who inhabit the characters week after week? Is it whatever Stargate: SG1 writer first envisioned the City of the Ancients and put it on screen? Is it the screenwriter/s who penned the original movie? Is it MGM, who carefully guards their writes to the Stargate franchise? Who is it? Who are we supposed to ask for permission to play with these characters?

And if the answer is MGM -- as they would almost surely argue -- the ultimate "owner" of the franchise? How does that match up with the stated defense that asking permission is the polite and courteous thing to do. Do I owe "courtesy" to a media conglomorate? What kind of respect to their artistic purpose and emotional investment do I owe to MGM, the stockholders of which I doubt have ever even seen an episode of SGA?

[serrana.livejournal.com]

In a universe where David Hewlett makes what amount to Rodney McKay fanvids...well. There's a limit to the guilt I think the rest of us need to take on.