- 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

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

It's illegal! - Laws don't kill me people, people kill people Laws don't make people, people make laws. Sometimes the world changes and new laws are needed / old laws need to die. Prior to the changes in the real world getting recorded and registered in The Law, there is always a moment where a fraction of a population is "committing illegal acts".

(doing one at a time, taking breaks from work, yes?)

[cdaae.livejournal.com]

For 1 and 2 - the internet is international. Fanfiction is not illegal, or copyright infringement, in all countries. It's not illegal in the UK, where characters themselves are not counted as copyrightable works. (I can provide sources for this if anyone wishes.) This also covers 3, really.

[twistedchick]

Nobody can say anything about my characters but me, the original writer.

Once you've published, your story is open for people to think about it. Their thoughts may not be the same as yours. Their view of the characters may not be the same as yours. This is the way the world works. No two people have exactly the same thoughts, viewpoint, or story.

[spideyj.livejournal.com]

For 4 - They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. One would not create fan fiction if one were not a fan; in fact, fan-fiction is one of the many ways fans express admiration for a work. How can admiration be an insult?

[scribblesinink]

I love that bingo card!

1 + 2: Says who? AFAIK, there hasn't been a court decision either way concerning fanfic yet. Until there is, it's open to debate in which there are as many opinions as there are people (not to mention: different countries, different laws).

3: For what, exactly? Writing a story set in their verse and posting it publicly on the internet? Writing a story posted in a member-only archive? Writing a story and e-mailing it to a couple of friends? Post it in IM during a chat with a single friend? Write it and put the file in my desk drawer never to be seen again? Write it in my head? Where do we draw the line?

4: That's up to each individual writer to determine, whether they feel insulted, isn't it? One person's insult is another's compliment. And if I did insult any writer with my fanfic story, sincere apologies, that wasn't my intent.

5: Guess we better not talk about your story in any way, then, had we?

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

1 and 2. This has not been proven to be true. And anyway it is not copyright infringement, it could be trademark infringement. You cannot copyright ideas. You can copyright how those words are strung together in their entirety, but as much as Warner Bros would like to have a monopoly for all time (or at least until the copyright runs out) on all stories dealing with magical people, sorry. The trademark issue needs to be battled in court. That day will come, undoubtedly.

3. I think this a courtesy and nothing more. Personally, if someone had a insane aversion to it, I would probably honor it out of respect. However, NO critic asks permission to evaluate a work, now do they? And authors like J. K. Rowling readily love fanfiction writers because it improves their marketability and SALES! Go to a Harry Potter convention and see what people buy.

4. This again is an argument that is really nothing more than whining. Ask the authors themselves. Are you insulted? Ask them. Flat out. Personally, I am a minor published writer and if someone wanted to take my measely mystery novel and write fanfiction about it, I would be damn curious and not the least be insulted. In fact, I would be THRILLED and flattered beyond belief.

5. This is ridiculous. This is saying that literary criticism should be banned because the author is THE be all and THE end all of whatever they write. sorry, no author is god. They have strengths and weaknesses and if those characteristics are open to literary criticism I really do not see that their characters aren't vulnerable to interpretation by fanfiction writers.

[macey-muse.livejournal.com]

5. oh. So, you want us to stop reading? Stop discussing? If you're going to enforce that one, you have a rather large number of proffessional reviewers to prosecute, not to mention editors. Go on, chop chop! I'm sure you'll have time to sue us after you've locked up all those illegal charrie-nappers.

[rm.livejournal.com]

5 -- If this is true, I guess you don't want reviewers to say anything meaningful about your work and also somehow consider your work above the analysis of critics and academics. Way to make friends and influence people there. Also -- sales, hello?

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Nobody can say anything about my characters but me, the original writer.

Tell that to the literary critics. Tell that to the newspaper reviewers. Tell that to the idiot who panned your book on hackwriting.com. Tell the guy who writes the blurb for your book, who's never even read your book. Tell that to the teacher who explains to her H.S. class about your psychoanalytic imagery, and how Jack is clearly expressing unresolved longing for his mother. Tell that to the hack your estate hires after you're dead to continue your series. Tell that to the screenwriter you had no voice in selecting, or the spin off-writer, ditto. Tell that to the writing team who actually scripted most of the episodes after you sold the pilot to television. Tell the woman who did all the rewrites and punched the dialogue. Tell that to the guy who plays Jack in the mini-series, who "took him in another direction." Tell that to the woman who edited the footage. Tell that to the guy who sculpts the action figure based on that photograph the art team took of the actor who plays Jack, who's been posed by a director and has had his hair and makeup done by Shelley. Tell the kids who are playing Jack and Jenny with water pistols in the driveway of their house. Tell that group of people standing around the water cooler. Go on and tell me about it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

[fairestcat]

*standing ovation*

That is a beautiful paragraph.

[tabaqui]

I read a very interesting post about how fanfic was encouraged by writers at the turn of the century and earlier because it showed how popular the characters where, and that tons of people did it... Damn, i wish i knew where that article was. I 'll do my best to find it. I know that Dickens was sited as well as a few others...

To all of these - since the very first bard continued the adventures of a hero for an attentive audience, we've had fanfic. It's human nature.

[tabaqui]

This isn't the article, but it says what i wanted to say...
http://crescentblues.com/3_5issue/editorial2.shtml

You can't call it a new phenomenon. For most of recorded history, people only wanted to hear twice-told tales. Originality lay in the details. And despite societal strictures and the pressures that kept them anonymous, women played an important role in redefining and shaping the legends that form the basis of early modern literature. For example, some scholars believe bored upper-class medieval women wrote much of the massive corpus of anonymous Arthurian literature in imitation of official, mostly male historians and poets.

But these anonymous Arthurian writers didn't imitate their models exactly. They introduced new characters -- "Mary Sues" for "canonical" Arthurian heroes to fight and fall in love with. These writers obsessed over pageant, character emblems and emotional motivation. They even flavored their stories with not-so-discreet hints of homoeroticism, coming as close to Slash as possible in the time B.K/S. (Before Kirk/Spock). In other words, these women wrote fan fiction, and no modern Arthurian retelling -- from Tennyson's to Marion Zimmer Bradley's -- could exist without them.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

This is one of the things that boggle me. It's like, do these authors think that if people aren't writing horrible misinterpretations of their characters, that they won't still be misinterpreting their characters? People are going to misinterpret what you've tried to say, whether they write stories based on their misinterpretations or not.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

You're insulting the writers whom you claim to love!

Hey, writers, I'm sorry you take my thoughtful, heartfelt engagement with your universe and your characters as an insult. I really am. I hope you'll believe that it was never my intention to hurt your feelings by falling so in love with what you created that I started to have my own ideas about it.

It's like this: you created a signature dish, and I was lucky enough to taste it. (Thanks again, by the way; yum!) And then I came home and created a version that includes olives, just for kicks. And maybe you hate olives, and you're mortally offended that I had the gall to put olives in your recipe. But here's the thing: my making a version with olives in it? doesn't change your version. It happens that you inspired me, and I cook it this way for the friends who like to eat it. Those who don't like to eat it -- you included -- don't have to join me. And maybe next time I cook it, I'll try almonds, even if you're allergic. Or chocolate. Or using a little less salt. That's not meant to be disrespectful; it's just fun.

If you can't see it that way? I am really, really sorry you're distressed, but that isn't my fault, and it's not going to make me stop cooking in new and creative ways.

My responses

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

It's illegal! and It's copyright infringement!

The legal standing of fanfic is as yet undetermined. There has never been a case in the courts regarding not-for-profit fanfic. We can argue about how a case like that would be decided, but until one is decided, we must assume that fanfic is legal and noninfringing.

You have to ask the writer for permission!

If fanfic falls under fair use, we most certainly do not. Saturday Night Live does not have to ask the Tolkien estate for permission to parody The Lord of the Rings, even though that work is still in copyright -- because parody is fair use. We insist that fanfic is fair use, and we therefore recognize no legal obligation to seek authorial go-ahead.

As for an ethical obligation, my thoughts are mixed. It is of course most courteous to avoid offending someone, and many authors are offended by transformative works based on their creations. However, their offense generally stems from the idea that transformative works somehow harm or threaten their original work -- an idea we reject entirely. The characters in Harry Potter are not real people. They are not even objects that must be "borrowed." They are ideas, and my interpretation of an idea has nothing to do with yours.

You're insulting the writers whom you claim to love!

I don't claim to love anyone I haven't met personally. I'm sure J.K. Rowling is a very nice person, and I get a great deal of enjoyment from her work, but I recognize no emotional connection or commitment to her that would require me to place her feelings and wishes first. Maybe that's unkind. But we all put our own agenda above the agendas of others.

Nobody can say anything about my characters but my, the original writer!

Any prominent writer who sincerely believes this is going to have a tough life. First of all, critics will say lots of nasty things about your characters. Secondly, parodies, which are fair use, will make a mockery of your work. Third, as stated above, "your characters" are merely ideas, and anyone can transform ideas as s/he sees fit. Finally, people are already "saying things" about your characters. They're discussing your work with their friends, family members, colleagues, and classmates. Isn't that what you want? Or would you like to hire a Water Cooler Patrol to shut down any discussions you don't like?

[cdaae.livejournal.com]

Exactly. A good deal of fairy tale literature stems from the women of the 17th century French salons - some of their stories were then published by men like Perrault, who gets credited with being the "author" of tales which were largely part of a long oral tradition.

I once came across someone in an internet discussion who believed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was created and owned by Disney. I nearly cried... and what a perfect example of how the organizations most inclined to crack down on others for copyright infringement are happy to profit from the public domain works of others.

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

if someone had a insane aversion to it, I would probably honor it out of respect

I'd honor it out of fear. Anne Rice is a scary lady, dude.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Nobody can say anything about my characters but me, the original writer.

So...that would mean every literature class that examines a work by an author should cease and desist immediately?

Sorry. Don't get that argument.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she really is sort of scary (not to mention bat-shit insane!).

[stepps.livejournal.com]

You're insulting the writers whom you claim to love!

Why yes, that is a fanfic authors' intent! We hate the way that the Original Writer has written the character(s), we hate their scenes, the background story, the world in which they live. They are awful, awful creations (hardly worth publication!) and our intent, our goal as fanfic writers is to Do It Better Than They Have. We see the tragic characters in their tragically written worlds and get this undeniable urge to create a better world, better characterisation, better plots! That is why we devote hours to reading the books and watching the television shows and movies: To see How Not To Write These Characters. It has nothing to do with love of the characters, connection with them, understanding and interest in their situations and worlds. It has nothing to do with entertaining ourselves during canon downtime (waiting for the next book or season or movie) with What Ifs, and everything to do with how we loath those books, tv shows and movies, and how we, as students, cafe workers, teachers, lawyers, journalists, mothers, checkout operators, retail specialists, nurses, fathers etc need to give the writers of popular entertainment a nice big F**k You Very Much in the form of fanfiction. Fan is short for fanatical, and it's not the created canon of books and media that we're fanatical about, but our own efforts to give the creators the Big Finger.

[tabaqui]

Ah, gods. I wrote something using the Peter Pan book, and man - so many people were just 'the Disney movie isn't the *real* story'??

It's just...horrifying how little people know.

And Disney quite frankly makes me so angry that i could spit. Gah.

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

This is lovely! I'm saving the link and forwarding to the others. Thank you so much!

[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?