Fan Fiction Explained 134
ContinuousPark writes: "Alternative narratives of Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Files, Buffy, Xena, Starsky and Hutch! Whole seasons never filmed can be read on the Web!
The thriving fan-fiction world has been revealed to me in this Slate Magazine article which raises some interesting questions: Who owns the characters? What can be done to them? Who owns the plots if they were posted on some official TV series' Web site? Could I, say, put together a book of these stories, how about a play, a videogame?" The wierdest stuff I've heard is fan fiction writers trying to sue the show when bits of their stories turn up on the show ... I bet someone could write a pretty good generative x-files plot generator to write a few hundred x-files plot synopses, and then just wait until their big chance to score :)
Fan fiction (Score:1)
Ownership (Score:1)
Plots I'm not as sure as, espically if someone wrote a story using characters I own. Does the author still have a right to the plot even if it was written using unauthorized characters.
So, good or bad? (Score:1)
It would be nice if some of the fan fiction out there were acctually filmed at some point. I've read a few really good SW writings.
Anyway, these are my opinions. Just as faulty as anybody elses.
prior art (Score:5)
Well, If we see natalie portman pour grits down her pants in "Star Wars Episode II" /. has a case for prior art. ;)
Remember folks, you heard it here on /. first.
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Who, indeed? (Score:3)
I see fanfic as the reverse of Disneyfication: The Great Banal Mouse likes to take common folktales and appropriate the characters. (Go ahead, just try to make an animated movie about Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin. These were part of the culture long before The Great Banal Mouse seized them.) Disney takes what is common property and fences it off as its own.
Fanfic does the opposite. It liberates fenced-off IP, moving characters and settings out of the realm of the few and into the hands of the society at large. Sure, most fanfic -- way more than Sturgeon's famous 90% -- is crap. But some are gems, and all of it is meaningful, to the author if no one else. People might be hackney writers, but they aren't hack writers. As such, the characters are freed from their status as a revenue source. Fanfic authors, in general, don't expect recompense, at least not in money.
In this gruesome, corporate, consumerist world, there's something beautiful about that.
Facist Technique (Score:2)
In fact, I'm making the show more popular. I don't make money of of the stuff - it just hypes the show. It's the same way with fan fiction.
Add to that the fact that the actual scripts aren't very impressive. Taco might have been jokin, but you literally could write an xfiles plot generator.
shhh... I'll give you the secret xfiles formula!
monster commits a crime/murder. scully and mulder argue about coming to investigate. they come anyway. someone gets killed again. they argue about whether it was a monster or a person. before the next person gets killed, they figure it out and save them. the details of the monster are vague. it could go either way.
it's a really stupid formula. a couple times a year, they actually show the interesting government conspiracy plot. it's like two different shows - carter blew it.
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Who owns the characters? (Score:3)
Of course, I'm not addressing the fan fiction issue at all.
Fan fiction. (Score:1)
1. It makes fans happy.
2. It creates more art in the world, even if 90% of it is destined by Sturgeon's Law to be crud.
3. It allows budding writers a chance to practice their craft.
Any writer who gets mad at someone using their characters is very insecure. If you're really a good author, you won't be worried about some random person writing something with your characters - you'll just do what you want and move on.
Likewise, fan authors who get pissed at the original authors using ideas that they thoguht of should be ashamed of themselves! They're benefiting from sharing, so the author should to. To make an (probably poor inappropriate) analogy, it is like proprietary developers who get pissed that they can't refuse to share GPL'd code.
ST TNG (Score:3)
Copyrighted? A lot. (Score:3)
You cannot just write a book or story containing the characters from the series. All of the names of the primary cast, as well as most of the regulars, have been carefully trademarked.
Even if you were to write fan art without any of the existing characters, you'd still build upon the (copyrighted) works and pre-established (and often copyrighted) events that shaped the universe in which your saga takes place. Your work can never be truly original and will therefore always be derivative.
Of course, "Beam me up Scotty" is common speech now, but AFAIK there are trademarks on "Make it so!", "Captain Picard", etc etc.
When it comes to Paramount taken your cozy Star Trek idea and implementing it.. since your work is derived from theirs, they would have a proper claim on most of the copyrights, especially since: a) when you submit it to them personally, you probably encountered one of the many statements that say "we don't take scripts, but if we do, you grant us all rights" or b) they take it from your website, which means you published a work that infrings on their original copyright of the Trek saga.
Just because copyright enforcement is not always that easy on the Internet and often bad publicity (hence the countless fan sites), doesn't mean the copyright doesn't exist.
Noone will sue your favourite Linux distribution for including a few Star Trek fortunes. If I were to OCR the "Star Trek: Quotable" book and publish it as fortune file though, I *would* probably get in trouble.
Not that hard... (Score:1)
Fan Fiction (Score:1)
Legalities of FanFic... (Score:5)
I've got alot of background dealing with copyright and storyline use, but, IANAL, so consult one if you need official advice.
Fan Fiction fits the definition of "derivative work" in copyright law almost to a T. Despite what the article says, it's pretty clear that all fan fiction (by definition, almost) uses the settings, characters, and plot histories of copyrighted works. I don't care if they go into places that the original never imagined. In fact, that's irrelevant. What is relevant (in the eyes of the courts) is that you are using a well-known character, with defined background and references, that is owned by someone else. Sorry, but that's a derivative work, period. Honestly, I can't see that Fair Use comes into this at all - I think that the studios have a solid claim that "publishing" on the Internet is well beyond the scope of Fair Use, and thus, any protections thereunder are void (the fact that people are making no profit off it is immaterial).
The thing here that studios are afraid of, is that derived works are a two-way street. That is, the new author has to get permission to use the original work in order to publish, but that doesn't mean that the original author owns the new work. What the studios are afraid of in this scenario is that their scriptwriters accidently (or maybe not-so-accidently) use a plot identical to one found in a fanfic story. Oops! Now, the fanfic writer has ownership of that, and you get into some nasty situations.
Basically, I don't have much of a problem with the copyright owners policing their fanfic followers. They are well within their rights to do such, and in fact, it's probably really necessary to protect the integrity of their original works. However, the manner in which some do this is far too heavy-handed, as fanfic is beneficial to the original author. It's a fine line, but, in my opinion, one which the original author has all the right to determine where it should be drawn w/r/t his or her works.
Think of it this way: suppose I write code that I decide to GPL (for whatever reason). Giving fanfic true, unencumbered legal status would be about the same as letting recipients of my GPL code use it in their product, and change the license to something they wanted instead. ( I know this isn't a perfect example, but you're all smart - get the analogy?)
-Erik
oohhhhhhh (Score:3)
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Re:Ownership (Score:1)
So I could write a great story about a Federation starship crew that gets flung into another galaxy, and so long as I'm not stealing material from existing Star Trek Voyager episodes I'm fine.
A fine line (Score:4)
On the other hand, the copyright holders know that fanfic is inevitable for anything with a fan base. To stop fanfiction save in the case of misrepresting *childrens characters* would be the same as trying to stop kids from making up their own stories to use when they play with GI Joe or Transformers. As the article states, most fanfic authors are not in it for the money, they are trying to improve their writing and get commentary back. So as long as fanfic people do not put their work as 'official' or benefit any more from it, I see no reason for copyright holders to get involved.
That said, there are a few isolated cases of fanfic that crosses these rules. Obviously some ametures try to make money off the fanfic, which is in poor taste. Some go beyond reasonable: sure, a slash Buffy fic might not appeal to everyone, but its still considered fair use, but on the other hand, if one used the fanfic to slander and libel the producers, there's call for action.
While lawsuits regarding the MPAA and RIAA and Am. Broadcasters Assoc, and a whole bunch of other people that feel they are in charge of lawsuits, fanfic have been skimming underneath all this trouble. It would be helpful or potentally problematic to have a once-and-for-all legal ruling on fanfic, but the risk is high; fanfic protection is not 100% guarenteed.
Hopefully, the IP producers will release that fanfic is not losing their business and in fact can help it, and thus continue to encourage it. Some go a bit too far; the starwars.com site mentioned in the article, as well as WB's Acme City; post your fanfic and it becomes their. Sure, they encourage it, but you lose all their work for it. I certainly don't hope that the IPs don't try to push the model that fanfic is only valid if it is off their site (and therefore their property).
Fan fiction gives fanes what they want (Score:1)
How many Star Trek fans long for 20 minute sequences of starship combat? The shows tend to stay away from this, but the fans crave more and more of it.
The basic concept of fan fiction does find some respect in publishing circles. For example, look at the Man/Kzinti War series. The orginal concept of Man/Kzinti wars was written by Larry Niven. The eight volume series of books written by other authors based on Niven's concepts are popular with Niven fans.
Personally I love some Heinlein fan fiction. John Barnes is the second coming of Heinlein, but he lacks Heinlein's military perspective.
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Fox goes after Buffy sites? (Score:1)
How to write a Trek episode (Score:4)
Second segment--get review of Star Trek equipment and personnell--Hah, let's go down to Engineering and see Scotty. I wonder if that ol' bastard will ever go out of fashion.
Third segment--"what's that on the screen, Captain, it appears to be a Giant Plot Complication, and it's headed our way."
Fourth segment--$spacecraft gets nearly destroyed y GPC and crew figures out why this GPC is different from all other GPC. I believe, however, that all GPC's are the same, just with a different look on the outside. Maybe they use a GPC skins repository and just change them for each show.
Fifth segment--the 7th person on the landing party gets eaten by the GPC. Hint--he's the new guy introduced in segment 2.
Sixth segment--somebody at the last second pulls a fix-all out of their backpack/posterior and neutralizes the GPC. Hint--he's one of the regular characters that we spent an unusual amount of time checking into in segment 2.
seventh segment--weak crew members say goodbye, and our anti-climax procedes. We say goodbye to new life form/world and get a good Space Stillshot as the $spacecraft pulls away to wander yet again.
Eigth segment--buy our merchandise. Get a model of $spacecraft. Go to a convention. Spend money buying uniforms and makeup special effects to make you look like a new life form.
Hey, if my non-writing ass can come up with the formula, anybody can write their own Trek-derivative story. Go for it. Make lots of money.
x-files erotica (Score:2)
I did a quick search and came up with an X-Files Erotica [ez2.net] page, although there aren't a ton of stories. I also found an X-Files choose your own adventure story [demon.co.uk] (here's another [aol.com]).
-- Diana Hsieh
Paramount owns the Trek characters (Score:2)
So I guess that answers that question, at least from a legal standpoint. I know Paramount has gone after people writing porno stories about Counselor Troi getting raped and stuff like that, but I would imagine they don't want to stifle independent stuff too much because it's what keeps the "legend" alive.
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Re:Copyrighted? A lot. (Score:1)
> the (copyrighted) works and pre-established (and often copyrighted) events that shaped the universe
> in which your saga takes place. Your work can never be truly original and will therefore always > be derivative.
Just a thought: what if someone were to write a prelude trilogy to Star Trek? (Or to anything that hasn't a detailed history between real-now and fantasy-then.) The first part would build on real history, and successive parts would converge into the Star Trek timeline of 24th century (or whenever). When would the trilogy change from Original into Derivative, if ever? As the first part only hints in the direction of Star Trek, it could be considered as Original work. The sequels would, naturally, have more concrete aspects of the Trekversum, but it could be argued, that Star Trek builds on them...
Starsky and Hutch! (Score:1)
That's scary.
Coming soon... (Score:4)
Re:Who, indeed? (Score:1)
It can be, and is done. I saw a non-disney animated Aladdin movie in "Stuff: the high-tech junk store." It was bizarre - it looked very similar to, yet subtly different from, the disney version. weird...
How are these "interesting questions"? (Score:2)
I'm seeing alot of... (Score:2)
While it may be unfortunate (this is more of a moral/ethical issue) that the popularity of a product has nothing to do with the rights of the author, it is nevertheless the case. If I write a song, or a book that becomes so popular as to inspire a new genre of film or literature or whatever else. It is still a fact that i own that book. The rights to it are mine and it is through my own benevolence that i lease artistic license to any other individual wishing to use that art in some other fashion.
What i'm trying to say here is that, while indeed it is good that we have hundreds of Star Trek or Star Wars based books to choose from, even socially beneficial, it does not decrease the rights of the original authors. Those books are allowed to be published and reproduced because the creators were "nice", so to speak. I believe that if they allow you to make money off of that fact, then it is a mutually beneficial situation. If they DON'T allow you to make money off of the creation of something based on their work...I'm sorry, but you don't have a legal leg to stand on. - If you recreate a novel based on the characters created and trademarked by Gene Rodenberry and try to sell it without express written permission of [his wife now i guess?] - then we're honestly talking about trademark infringement. You may argue that it should be otherwise, that everyone's creations should be public domain, etc. etc. - well then you're living in the wrong country...the wrong planet for that matter. It's capitalism, and it's going to be around for a while.
FluX
Re:Ownership (Score:1)
How to be a Karma whore (Score:1)
Siggnal 11 is a good one.
Read lameass story posted on Sunday nite. Post redundant comment closely based on previous, +2 comment.
Fill it with the stupidest, most pedantic and moronic comments possible. Use plenty of abbreviations.
Wait until stupid ass post is moderated up as funny.
Re:Legalities of FanFic... (Score:1)
> is that their scriptwriters accidently (or maybe
> not-so-accidently) use a plot identical to one
> found in a fanfic story.
Then why does George Lucas only go after erotic fanfic? Is he planning on having Obi-Wan and Jar Jar getting a little close in Episode Two?
This may be a reason why slash and erotic fanfic in general is so popular - there's zero possibility of the work being stolen, because it would be inconceivable for the studios to actually make television and movies out of such things.
On the other hand, I imagine most fanfic writers wouldn't mind their writing being used by the studios, even if they didn't get credit, because at least they and their friends would know about it. But maybe I'm an optimist.
Re:Ownership (Score:1)
Meta comment on article: Slate rocks (Score:2)
That was, unquestionably, the most respectful coverage of a subculture I have ever seen in popular media. It was also thereby the most interesting and informative.
I'm not a fanfic writer, but I do belong to other subcultures (even in addition to being a geek). Even self-portrayed "enlightend" media such as salon.com don't seem to be able to transend the urge to present subcultures as consisting as freaks and feebles. I am astonished and delighted they managed to write that piece without a sneer, a wink or a nudge.
Kudos to Slate. salon.com should take note.
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Re:Not that hard... (Score:1)
can it be published without breaking any laws?
and
does putting it up on the web count as publishing it?
I would guess that most slashdot readers would say that it would indeed be against the law to create a story with trademarked characters that you haven't licensed and then publish it in a book. I would also guess that most would say that it's alright to put it up on a website.
This exemplifies an odd kind of conflict--we want the internet to be taken seriously. We want books published on the web to be given as much credence as real books. At the same time, we don't want the unpleasent, often petty constraints of the real world to come upon the internet.
Re:Ownership (Score:1)
"Fair Use" Doctrine... (Score:2)
It's not just about fair-use doctrine, it's also a first-amendment matter--a very valid point could be made that the right of free speech outweighs intellectual property claims in such cases, and that fan fiction is protected speech. This at first might seem quite odd, but look at it this way: much of fan fiction is artistic or even political in nature, and hence protected speech. Just look at the "slash" genre mentioned in the article--it could be argued that portraying well-known fictional characters as gay is a form of political, pro-gay-rights speech. If the use of someone else's character is "fair" use, then there isn't even an issue here.
Even if a very clueless court decided that using someone else's character doesn't fall under "fair use," it could perhaps be argued on more general principles that such use is legally protected: the entire system of copyright and intellectual property is founded on one simple notion, that copyright law exists to "promote the advancement of arts and sciences." That's not an exact quote, but language to that effect exists in the language of the Constitution when it refers to the right of Congress to grant exclusive rights to certain works to their creators. Therefore, if use of a character in fan fiction is promoting the creation of new "literature"--and rest assured many intellectuals would refer to fan fiction as a sort of populist literature--then it would go against the very spirit of IP law to forbid the practice.
On a personal note, I love fan fiction. There's nothing like going to alt.sex.stories and reading stuff like "7th Heaven's First Orgy" or "A Very Brady Gangbang," or my personal favorite, "Star Trek: Deep Space 69."
Stop justifying... (Score:1)
No, these characters are not "in the public domain" because stuff involving them was sold. If someone were to take gcc, and start violating the license agreement and sell it, you'd be pissed, but the same argument you use to give yourself "rights" to Captain Kirk gives the hypothetical abuser that right.
It's not fair use. It's a copyright violation, and it's rude.
It's not "free advertising". It's theft.
Now, if you don't mind that, go ahead and write fanfic, and you're probably not gonna get sued. But don't pretend it's legal. It's one of the most disgusting things the fan community does; do something authors have asked you not to do, and invent new legal ideas to justify it, because the existing ones don't work.
Re:Facist Technique (Score:1)
Main Entry: fascism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis
bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti)
that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized
autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social
regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
- fascist
- fascistic
- fascistically
X-rated fan fiction (Score:2)
Heh, this month's Brill's Content had an article on the phenomenon, specifically how female writers were approaching it, complete with an illustration of Spock and Kirk making out. <SHUDDER> I haven't read it yet, so I don't know if it's an entertaining read or not, but it's on their web site here [brillscontent.com] (http://www.brillscontent.com/features/slash_0500. html).
Re:Fan fiction (Score:1)
Re:Facist Technique (Score:1)
Kinds of fanfics/copyright infrigement? (Score:1)
Re:your sig (Score:1)
I think your post just proved him right.
Why don't we disable the message boards then?
Because, I wouldn't get my cheap thrills watching idiots like you put their foots in their mouths.
Re:Copyrighted? A lot. (Score:1)
>the other examples]
>You cannot just write a book or story containing the characters from
>the series. All of the names of the primary cast, as well as most of
>the regulars, have been carefully trademarked.
>Even if you were to write fan art without any of the existing
>characters, you'd still build upon the (copyrighted) works and
>pre-established (and often copyrighted) events that shaped the
>universe in which your saga takes place. Your work can never be truly
>original and will therefore always be derivative.
Not so fast. Take a *GOOD LOOK* at the fanfiction created by Anime/Manga fandom, especially "Undocumented Features" (http://www.eyrie.net) This pretty much is a fanfiction series that takes elements and events from series like Star Trek,Star Wars,Japanese Anime and Manga series with a lot of orginal stuff thrown from left field into the mix by the people writing the series whom have created a universe with it's own history from the pieces. The vast majority of fanfiction created by Anime/Manga fandom is not what you are trying to claim here. Another example of this is the fanfiction series which can be found at (http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/1810). This stuff is pretty dammed orginal,and like most fanfiction created by anime/manga fandom is set in a alternative universe, not the copyrighted one.
Re:Paramount owns the Trek characters (Score:1)
__________________________________________________ ___
Re:Facist Technique (Score:2)
Re:Stop justifying... (Score:1)
Sure, if I were to violate the GPL and make some proprietary changes to gcc, sell it, etc., that would be bad. Similarly, if I were to take a Star Wars movie and resell that as my own, that would be bad. But creating porn from the characters of Star Wars is in a completely different arena.
A better analogy would be if I were to create porn from the "characters" of gcc. For example:
auto_demangling had a lustful look on its face as it eyed maximum_field_alignment from across the room. mfa was married, but she'd caught her husband, field, in a very comprimising situation with DECL_NAME(). She'd been looking for a way to get revenge. She'd always had a thing for cse_basic_block_end, but he was static, and thus did not have external linkage. Who knows what would have happened if they'd been in the same translation unit, but I guess it was not to be. Then again, there was that fuck-fest with warn_pointer_arith and unary_complex_lvalue.
That would probably not be in violation of the GPL.
BTW sorry for implying that all fanfics are porn. Those are only the good ones (*groan*).
Re:Ownership (Score:1)
deja vu: brill's content article (Score:1)
Moral issues exist, not just the legal. (Score:4)
Anne Rice, for example. I find her works to be incredibly moving, the characters wonderfully broad, and so on. She recently posted a comment about fan fiction to her site (www.annerice.com [annerice.com]):
To Anne, her characters are a part of herself. For someone that's not her to write situations and events involving those characters that for all we know may completely destroy the chracterization set up for them is almost like abuse.Are they going to come after you with a team of lawyers if you write something using the characters? Maybe, maybe not. I'd hope so.
Would you disappoint, dismay, and disturb the author you're supposedly paying homage to with your ripoff? Almost certainly.
It's really not that difficult to make up your own characters within the genre, if you really want to write fan fiction. It allows for far more breadth and development...you can choose where the path leads, not someone else.
Sometimes the debate is more than just laws. Sometimes you have to consider the people who poured their souls into their characters...and how the person might be affected.
--Tsu
Doujinshi? (Score:4)
My examples are going to be from anime/manga, that's what I know...
Not all companies out there take a dim view of fanfiction. How many of you out there are familiar with doujinshi (sp?), the fanfic comic zines put out by comics/animation fans in Japan? They're considered free promotion and a breeding ground for new talent (e.g. CLAMP, who since created X, Rayearth, and CardCaptor Sakura - coming soon to a TV set near you! - etc.). They're left alone by the lawyers there, and if anything are considered an art form of themselves and a natural part of the scene. The mags that cover the comics industry devote pages to doujinshi, and even allow advertising for them. I wish the North American entertainment industry was that far-sighted. I have no doubt that the popularity of Sailor Moon here, or many other anime series, has far more to do with fanfiction and fan websites than any promotional efforts on the part of the show's producers.
Meanwhile, if North American companies had any idea what kind of shenanigans happened in some of those fan comics with characters from Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, etc. they'd have a coronary. But the companies can't launch a lawsuit on someone here who makes or distributes such naughty stuff without acknowledging publically that, yes, Pokémon porn does exist (*shudder*).
There's also the issue that many of the writers are minors, and the stuff they write is an extension of outgrown make-believe play, crossed with adolescent fantasies. (The Sailor Moon cast has assembled a frightening number of Sailor Suns, Sailor Earths, and magical boyfriends of American extraction) Isn't this what they want kids to do - to get caught up in the characters and make their own stories? Didn't we all write Transformers or She-ra or such stories when we were 7?
Yes, the companies own the characters. But while they have every right to tightly control the characters' images in merchandise and in canon, I think that trying to restrict people's imaginations to non-distributed media is pretty self-damaging, and practically impossible to boot.
Re:Fox goes after Buffy sites? (Score:1)
Re:Copyrighted? A lot. (Score:1)
Scuttlebutt has it that something along those lines is exactly what Paramount is considering for the successor to Voyager. (At least that's one of the ideas they're considering.) I first heard of it, IIRC, through the Sci-Fi News slashbox within the past couple of weeks, so you might want to check their site.
I've been waiting for a post like this for ages... (Score:1)
<i>"Does anybody know what happened to the tv-series Nowhere Man?"</i>
And does anybody have scripts to stuff after they finished making the movie? I think it was an incredible series (in the style of The Fugative) - I didn't see it all because it got axed from production just when it was getting really amazingly good (he was beginning to work out who he was..)
Is there any good fan fiction on it? Pllleaaase answer me back on this!
Producers & Fan Fiction (Score:2)
Also, most producers and writers of TV shows refuse, for legal reasons, to read fan fiction. Steven Sears, ex-writer and Co-Producer of Xena, was asked consistently at conventions whether he read fan fic, and his answer was always that he wouldn't, because he wanted to play things completely above-board.
What About RPGs? (Score:1)
Re:X-rated fan fiction (Score:2)
Kirk plus Spock as an "item" is one of the oldest forms of "slash" (which can be loosely defined as.. instead of "Simon and Simon", we have "Simon in bed with Simon"). Some producers object -- LucasArts chased it all underground (George Lucas being a class-A prude, there is NO sex in the Star Wars universe -- straight, gay, or even imaginary) and to this day you will not see any openly published Star Wars slash. Conversely, Star Trek slash is probably the single largest fanfic genre. And in this case... well, Leonard Nimoy's son tells this (factual) story on the Trek family:
Leonard Nimoy discovered K/S slash very early, and thought it was hilarious fun. He turned Bill Shatner on to it, and Shatner got really into it and amassed a huge collexion. When Shatner and one of his former wives split the sheets, the property division proceeded amicably UNTIL it came time to split up the slash collexion, and then there was a fight!
As to who owns fanfic, those who state that the characters and ALL derivitave works are the legal property of the copyright holders are not only correct, but there are already legal precedents to this effect set by cases brought by LucasArts and Paramount. Most owners of popular characters recognise that fans will do this sort of thing one way or another, so it's better to wink at the copyright infringement (so long as there is no serious profit involved) and regard fanfic as free advertising. They do NOT object to fanzines being sold, since normally the price barely covers the cost of photocopying and mailing.
Re:A fine line (Score:1)
>(at least, B5 fanfic that was trying to be canon)
>until after the series completed
Not quite fanfic, but someone on GEnie did once toss out an idea on one of the message boards that was just a little too close to a planned story, causing JMS to delay using it.
If memory serves, the fan basically sent a notarized letter saying he claimed no ownership, wouldn't sue, and was terribly, terribly sorry about the entire affair.
There was also that Doctor Who/Star Trek fanfic that some idjit actually grabbed off the 'net and published, landing the poor fanfic author in court with Paramount and the BBC.
Anyone care to research those events, and post URLs with more info? Free karma, baby...
Some fan fic's are actully quite well done... (Score:1)
Only once have I ever found a fan fic to be so well done that it deserves to be read: Neon Genesis Evangelion: R. Anyone who has ever seen Evangelion would know how deep the show goes, yet Eva:R manages to hold the quality up to a standard comparable to the originals.
While I rant Eva: With all the Dragon Ball Z stuff going around here at
Do yourselves all a favor and check it out.
Can't belive I forgot the URL http://www.eva-r.com (Score:1)
Hey, I only just got up
Re:Moral issues exist, not just the legal. (Score:2)
It never pays to alientate your fans.
When you release something for public consumption, you invite others to view your creations; their ideas and specific points-of-view change your characters for themselves, even if they did not write down a single word of it on paper. If you don't want "the unwashed masses" to interfere with the pristine nature of your characters, then maybe you should pull a Dominique from Rand's The Fountainhead, and burn the manuscript before a single pair of eyes other than your own sees it.
It's really not that big a step between saying, "I really would like to see more of the relationship between Louis and Lestat," and writing it yourself, particularly for an already creatively-minded person.
I cannot imagine what type of Scrooge would want to see Fan fic writers punished for what they love to do. If there's an aspect of fandom out there that helps extend the influence of the subject and perpetuate enthusiasm moreso than fan fiction, I don't know what it is.
Re:Stop justifying... (Score:2)
Since I'm not making money off it, I'm not stealing. Additionally, the reader base for fanfic is lilliputian compared to material published through the larger media outlets.
Furthermore, the legality of fanfic seems to be in favor of the authors. The Slate article discussed how fanfic most likely falls under "fair-use" laws.
So I think its safe to say fanfic is not theft, nor illegal.
Fanfic is evil (Score:1)
Your characters take on aspects of yourself, your life, your experiences. Maybe one of your characters faces a life crisis that matches one of your own. You work through your turmoil by writing for the character.
Imagine that you grow as you write this character. He becomes so fleshed out, so real, that you can see your emotional development mirrored in his..
Imagine how it must feel when someone takes your character and puts him into a situation anathema to you.. guess what, your character was actually gay, and has wild, anonymous sex in bath-house orgies. Or maybe he is actually an axe-murder- a psychopath with homicidal tendencies, standing knee-deep in the blood of children.
Or he's actually a fundamentalist preacher on the side, baptising sinners in the blood of the fold. Or he's a republican. Whatever.
What a horror it must be to imagine a person that you identify with defamed in such a way. What a travesty!
What right does someone have to toy with the work that you have done, to define this character. You are in the mind of the character. Part of this character _IS_ you. You are the _ONLY_ person qualified to say 'He would do this.', or 'He wouldn't do that.'
It's unthinkable to most authors to see other people take what they have worked so hard on, and turn it 180 degrees.
One other note.. If you create your setting, and it is not based on reality, it cannot be used by another author without permission. Therefore, you could write a story set in the same area as Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire (so long as you don't use her characters), but you couldn't write a story about Starfleet, or the United Federation of Planets.
Re:Doujinshi? (Score:2)
Konami, for example, has heavily surpressed any doujinshi related to the Tokimeki Memorial dating simulator computer game (Konami has the Japanese copyright on that game). The same applies for Nintendo--they are VERY protective of the Pocket Monsters (neé Pokémon) copyrights, also. I should know--an online friend of mine (Yoshitaki Ishigami) is one of the managers of Komiket (the largest convention of doujinshi in Japan--it attracts about 550,000 patrons in two days!); he told me that a few companies in Japan are protective of their copyrights, as the examples I cited above.
But you are right--many famous manga creators started in the doujinshi field. Besides CLAMP, Keniichi Sonoda (of GUNSMITH CATS fame) also started as a doujinshi creator. In fact, many professional manga creators often do doujinshi under assumed names to supplement their income (famous manga creators in Japan like Leiji Matsumoto, Akira Toriyama, Osamu Akimoto, Naoko Takeuchi, Rumiko Takahashi, and a few others are very unusual success cases--most manga creators don't really make that much money).
Just imagine... (Score:1)
Re:X-rated fan fiction (Score:1)
AFAIK, the reason there's "NO sex" in the Star Wars universe is that Lucas was trying to emulate the style of old movie serials, albeit with *much* better special effects.
Heh. (Score:2)
Yah know, I've always thought it would be justice if BBC sued Paramount's balls off for that.
Jellybaby?
----------------------------------------------
Fanfic, Paramount, Babylon 5, etc (Score:1)
I had not seen any DBZ (or other, deeper anime) before I started reading her manuscripts. Now I'm one of those people who goes around looking for good anime (my parents think I'm wierd for watching dubbed or subtitled Japanese cartoons, but they're old school).
I see this as a very similar situation to the Fan Nazis (or is this now Sienfeld fanfic?) from Paramount. If you can't live with your fans, you sure as h-e-double-hockey-sticks can't live without them. JMS of B5 fame explained this to his suits at WB, and as a result, there has been a tremndous level of grassroots support for all things B5. I mean, how many spinoff games can you name that people have created a game studio themselves to try to save from oblivion? Probably just one (if you have heard the latest on B5: Into the Fire).
(Incidentally, JMS stayed/stays? in rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated to keep away from any fanfic in the non-moderated newsgroup; that way their could be no question that he did not pull from fanfic stories. It seemed to be a good plan, and I dare say it worked wonderfully.)
Sure, there will be abuses, and if something gets out of hand, a company may sue, but by no means should a company take the Paramount-style "kill all supporters" route. I find it difficult to believe that someone is going to read a bad Voyager fanfic and stop watching the show because of it (some would say that if that were the case, the show would have alienated its entire viewership already, and without fan intervention).
Basically, we're stuck with yet another instance of the same dilemma -- plagiarism versus fair use -- where do you draw that line? Open source/free software people tend to side strongly to fair use, usually with the stipulation of giving credit; closed source people tend toward considering fair use nonexistent (lumping it all with plagiarism and theft). Somewhere a balance exists (the LGPL and BSD licenses being evidence of the fact that a balance likely does exist); with luck we may find it before the closed people start burning O'Reilly books.
"Insightful"? Come on! (nt) (Score:1)
Re:Not that hard... (Score:1)
Sure, pasting copyright notices on everything may discourage some people from stealing your work, but it's not necessary.
So a company who publishes a book or movie, but doesn't trademark every character is still protected. You could not write a derivative work. It's copyright that protects that, not trademarks.
FanFic is over 30 years old! (Score:2)
The only time that Paramount has been real iffy about FanFic is the whole Kirk/Spock (now known as "Slash") fiction. I'm not sure about it myself, but if it turns your crank, and no one gets hurt, it is O.K.
ttyl
Farrell
Science Fiction and STrek fan
Quantum Leap (Score:2)
Quantum Leap was banal? Sure banal describes every Scott Bakula movie I've ever heard of, but Quantum Leap was a great show. I can even see how its episodic nature particularly lends itself to fanfics (even though personally I think fanfics are lame as hell).
I mean what other show has a holographic quasi-angelic lecherous former-Vietman-POW, who's constantly yelling at a sentient computer named Ziggy?
Well at fanfic is not E-books (Score:1)
Http://www.eyrie.net A mix of Anime, X-com and American College life.
please excuse the spelling and grammer if i were to spend the time correcting it i'd never write anything at all.
Re:What About RPGs? (Score:1)
Re:How are these "interesting questions"? (Score:1)
Now, what the article should have delved more deeply into is the "Uber-fiction" of the Xena fanfic community. Those use original characters based closely upon Xena and Gabrielle in a completely original setting. Some people have even published for-sale books using their Uber-Xena characters. I'd like to see a breakdown on the legality (or illegality) of that.
Slash puts a whole new light on slashdot (Score:1)
Legalities of FanFiction (Score:1)
However, way back when the world was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I ran a Catalog [iupui.edu] site that linked to numerous story site, including fanfic, and looked up quite a bit of the law on fanfic and copyright protection.
It's interesting, and mostly precedent rather than law, which is one reason why studio are cautious about going to court on fanfic - there are precedents either way. However, most precedents that I found when researching actually err in favor of the public.
Just a few highpoints - Plots cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. Even if Shakespeares works were still under copyright today, the play West Side Story, while an obvious updating mof Tomeo and Juliet, is an original work, not a derivitive work.
Characters and names are trickier. You can't copyright a name, or even a title (The words 'Star Trek' are not covered by copyright for instance), however you can trademark them. However Trademark law is much looser than copyright law in what you can do with a trademark, so long as your not devalueing or dissipating the trademark. I can use a trademark in a story if it's either A- obvious that I'm not talking about the trademarked product (N/A to fanfic), say I'm talking about the 'Star Wars' Satellite Defense System from the 1980's - I don't even need a discaimer . . . or B- I'm using the trademark in an obviously non-competitive manner that doesn't devalue the trademark. This is why fanfic is normally found to be okay - it can't be considered to dilute or devalue the trademarks.
Unfortunately, as is SOP in this stuff, a studio can afford to harass people with threats, even when they have no real likelihood of winning, and there are precedents on both side, so even then, it's always iffy. I also have no idea how the DMCA affects things, but I doubt it's a good effect. I'm also putting stuff out from when *I* got interested, several years ago. IANAL, I could be misremembering, or even just plain wrong.
trademark law: an overview [cornell.edu]
World Intellectual Property Organization [wipo.int]
Re:your sig (Score:1)
<br><br>
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you. I haven't seen *you* use logic to defend *your* viewpoint, so I just figured I wouldn't waste the time/thought.
<br><br>
However, you have asked for my reasoning, so I will give it. Just to show you *one* of us can be logical.
<br><br>
My point is that you simply said that the sig was asinine. No reasons *why* they/you thought it was asinine, no logic behind the accusation; the sig was asinine.
<br><br>
Therefore, your response to his sig, was in fact, asinine. You didn't/couldn't defend your point, and therefore you proved his point: the smartest
<br><br>
Of course, this is the same accusation you level at me: I didn't show my reasoning. And by not showing my reasoning (just like *you* didn't), *I* have proved his sig true. Just like you have.
<br><br>
The difference now being I have shown my reasoning. You haven't.
<br><br>
And, please, close your mouth.
Re:I'm seeing alot of... (Score:1)
Furthermore, the only definitive word on the subject in the US is that Congress _can_ grant copyrights, if it wants, but that they are:
1) of limited duration
2) only granted to promote the useful arts and sciences
So I get really upset thinking about modern copyright laws. I'd much prefer a return to older forms of the law, wherein copyrights expired rapidly. IIRC the original copyright law had a 14 year duration. After that, your work was public domain. Sounds good to me - otherwise what incentive is there for people to keep creating new works, when they can ride on an old but popular one for their lives, plus another 70 years or so?
Disney's wasted Mickey Mouse for decades, and changed the law so that he wouldn't end up in the public domain. What good is that? (particularly when we could get back to the original Mickey Mouse, who was pretty crude)
Re:Moral issues exist, not just the legal. (Score:1)
"I do not allow fan fiction. "
Well, she certainly is in no possition to do anything about it. She has no authority over me, and if I want to write something based on her works, I'm going to.
"The characters are copyrighted. "
If she copyrights her characters, then she only has a flat thing that can be defined, not dynamic. Oh, sure, she might have that Lestat (c) fellow's name copyrighted, but, in reality, a character (SHOULD BE!) is more than a name, and the attempt to copyright an attempt at a real person only makes me think she's more in it for the money than art.
Anne Rice says:
"It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. "
I would agree, mostly, but what she does is very standard fiction. If I want Lestat (c) and Kenny from South Park to meet one night and Kenny bites off Lestat's (c) head and drinks his blood, well, then that's my perogative, and, like Bobby Brown, I can rape culture for samples and so on to do what I want to do in my art. (Oh yeah, anyone that wants the above storyline can have at it.)
Anne Rice says:
"It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."
Or what? You'll cry, Anne? Get over it. Once you release what you have to the world, people are going to read it and come away with different things. Some might have a great storyline for that one whore that Lestat(c) killed one night. It might be on her fall into prostitution or whatever . . . other people vomit, it's usually the same thing.
"To Anne, her characters are a part of herself."
Ah, like a method actor for writers. I have one character that is based loosely off myself. One. Singular. There's a reason for that. Otherwise, all the remainder bare little resemblance to me. They're all tools. Even me.
"For someone that's not her to write situations and events involving those characters that for all we know may completely destroy the chracterization set up for them is almost like abuse. "
So what? What does it matter. They're not real, and no-one's ever proved to me that she [Anne Rice] is either. I've been to New Orleans, and I'll be damned if that city doesn't reek of falseness all around, but I digress. Regardless, my argument above still stands. Her intentions are irrelevent to a story or characters.
"Are they going to come after you with a team of lawyers if you write something using the characters? Maybe, maybe not. I'd hope so. "
You'd hope they'd attack with lawyers, or you hope not?
"Would you disappoint, dismay, and disturb the author you're supposedly paying homage to with your ripoff? Almost certainly. "
I beg to differ. I'd be honored if someone took my work and tried to use that in their creative endevors. Scratch that, I have been honored. It's odd, really, but it's empowering.
"It's really not that difficult to make up your own characters within the genre, if you really want to write fan fiction. It allows for far more breadth and development...you can choose where the path leads, not someone else. "
Yes, but is there the same effect if your character gets killed by a plain ordinary vampire or Lestat (c) (the famous one from all those books!)? No, of course not. What one belongs in a story? Well, that I can't tell you.
"Sometimes the debate is more than just laws."
Agreed. There's art there, somewhere, maybe, maybe it's just pop-art, who knows?
"Sometimes you have to consider the people who poured their souls into their characters...and how the person might be affected. "
Why must I consider them? What about the art, man, what about the art? Feelings are vital and irrelevent to artists. If I want you to be angry, I'm gonna fucking do it and I'm gonna beat up your mother to prove it, and if I want you to fall in love, you're going to sense yourself doing precisely that. You're going to look at someone's pale white skin and black hair and blue azure eyes and you're gonna know it. Your gonna feel for her, you are going to love her. And nothing, not Anne Rice, not Uncle Sam, not Jehovah above is going to stop me in doing that.
/me choaks on some pizza.
/me clutches his throat.
/me dies.
Art is a journey. If you don't like where some people might drive it, don't make the vehicle.
Thank you for your time.
Re:Moral issues exist, not just the legal. (Score:1)
Her characters are not copyrighted they are trademarked, and for good reason.
Fanfic is no more a violation of her rights than her works are violations of the right of the Stoker Estate, or Bram Stokers 'Dracula' is a violation of the 'rights' of the public domain vampire mythos. The works are related - yes. The universes are related. And quite fairly. her right to the works she has written are recognized and protected by Copyright law and the Berne convention.
Her 'rights' to her characters are protected by trademark law, and I think her attempting to expand upon those more limited rights as though they were protected by more than that is A-selfish, B-Hypocritical, and C-Just plain not legally correct.
Re:Fanfic is evil (Score:1)
I suppose that I think that there is something wrong with people creating fanfic based on Anne Rice books since she is apparantly vehemently against it. It seems incredibly disrespectful to defy those wishes, since her reasons are personal. On the other hand, I have much less of a problem with people writing Batman fanfic. The Batman character and mythos have been passed between so many different hands that there's no way anyone could complain on personal grounds. Warner Brothers has an interest in Batman, but it's purely financial. So, who really cares about an emotionless entity like Warner Brothers?
P.S. The law about 90% of anything, including fanfic, being crap seems to hold true. On the other hand, I'd have to say that only about 10% of Batman fanfic is worse than, for example, the movie "Batman and Robin". Arnold as Mr. Freeze!?!? He wasn't a very good choice. Still, we've all seen him pull off an emotionless, cold-blooded performance in "The Terminator" but he completely failed to pull that off for Mr Freeze. And... ruber nipples? RUBBER NIPPLES?!?!?! Gah! How could they possibly allow someone to direct a batman movie whose only knowledge of the character is the 50's TV series and the other batman movies? Can you see why the fanfic author's loyalties are to the characters first, the creator(s) second and the intellectual property owners (if these are different from the creator(s)) somewhere in one zillionth place.
Re:Fanfic is evil (Score:1)
What if the writers a friend of mine, and the characters based on me? I've had the good fortune to have that happen, and the gentleman was kind enough to ask for my consent.
What if he hadn't? Do I own the copyright/trademark to myself? I should hope so! How much right do I have? to my name? to my personality? to my description?
I submit to you, that so long as he accuses me of no crime, and does not imply (In Real life) something that would be libelous/slanderous if he simply came out and said it, that he does not need my permission to use his observations of me as a basis for a character.
If I don't have that control over myself, why should Anne Rice or George Lucas get more control over the observations the fans write of people that do not exist. Can I libel them? Can I slander them? Will I ruin their reputations? Break up Han and Leia's marriage perhaps?
No. The most I can do is dilute the trademark of the name 'Lestat'(TM). The protections of that Trademark are limited and explicit, and I see no reason they should be expanded to include all possible annoyances that might offend an author.
After all, they don't worry about what might offend me.
Re:Who, indeed? (Score:2)
I'd have to disagree. You may "feel" like you own them, but the specific characters are owned by those who created them.
Characters and settings take on a life of their own and, to an extent, pass beyond the control of the creators.
True to an extent. You're free to take any characters you want and write a story about them but just try and sell a story with Captain Kirk or any of the others without permission and see how far you get.
I see fanfic as the reverse of Disneyfication: The Great Banal Mouse likes to take common folktales and appropriate the characters. (Go ahead, just try to make an animated movie about Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin. These were part of the culture long before The Great Banal Mouse seized them.) Disney takes what is common property and fences it off as its own.
Again I disagree. It's the manner in which the story is told that is unique to Disney, not the story itself. I have read that every story ever written can be boiled down to a finite set of "plots". You could easily make an animated Snow White movie. Obviously it couldn't be set in a forest or have a wicked queen etc. etc. but just like West Side Story is an updated Romeo and Juliet, it could be done.
Fanfic does the opposite. It liberates fenced-off IP, moving characters and settings out of the realm of the few and into the hands of the society at large.
Umm, no. Fanfic is written by people who use their imaginations to create stories about characters that someone else has already created. They have found characters that they like and they put them in situations that they would like to see them in. This is much easier than creating your own characters from scratch. The "society at large" has no right to the "fenced-off IP" of "the few". Essentially they are doing the same thing as if I wrote my own lyrics to some song I heard on the radio. I'm certainly able to do that, but I also don't "own" the song. Nor do I own any character from the original if I choose to use them in a new setting.
Re:How are these "interesting questions"? (Score:1)
And, of course, profit isn't everything. As it has been mentioned, copyrights endow authors with moral rights as well as income potential. Take Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, for example. To this day, he has turned away untold millions of dollars in merchandising revenues by refusing to license any sort of Calvin and Hobbes paraphernalia (Those t-shirts and stickers? All bootleg.) In his view, turning his characters into consumer icons and corporate pitchmen would cheapen his work and creation. I'm sure he would hardly be thrilled with anyone, business or individual, publishing their own interpretation of his strip. Believe it or not, it's not always about the money.
Re:Just to be anal... (Score:1)
Re:Slash puts a whole new light on slashdot (Score:1)
I'm starting to see the Wizard of Oz in a different way.
Troops (Score:1)
I thought troops was a parody - a totally different animal, legally.
Re:Legalities of FanFic... (Score:1)
Clearly, you don't have much knowledge of copyright law. YOU CANNOT COPYRIGHT IDEAS!
You could try patenting them, but that won't fly unless you invented them. "West Side Story" has the same ideas as "Romeo an Juliet." If shakespeare tried to sue, (assuming he's been born a few years later
Please get a clue before postign on slashdot.
Re:I'm seeing alot of... (Score:3)
In a free-market economy, there wouldn't be IP laws, no such thing as copyright. It's the fact that we have a government that taxes the people in order to pay for laws, that gives us IP protection. That's socialism. Theoretically the government spending is for your benefit, like socialized medicine. It may not end up that way in practice, but then, we don't use live in a socialism, we live in a somewhat corrupt socialism.
Re:Facist Technique (Score:1)
Like This one [bris.ac.uk] perhaps?
Copyright not Trademark (Score:1)
In terms of fan fiction it is only the trademark rules that could be used and unless there is money being made or the mark is being diluted etc. there is no easy way to demand that it be removed as the copyright actually resides with the fan writers. They cannot however exploit it financially without permission from the trademark owners.
The standard disclaimer you mention actually specifically prevents what they have done from being interpreted as an attempt to gain some right to the marks in question. If this were not there then the lawyers would have a case for demanding either the removal of the material or obtaining such an undertaking.
Fan Audios (Score:1)
The legalities of fan fiction are highly dubious, but fortunately most of the copyright owners are clever enough to realise it's actually promoting their product rather than doing it any harm.
We do fan audio stories of Doctor Who at floorten.com [floorten.com], but have had more trouble from other fans than we have from the BBC! Actually the BBC producer bought one of our CDs!
Quite curiously we did post another group's audio stories on the web once without their permission, which they weren't too happy about - but nettiquette aside, it does pose the greater question - can fanfic productions claim any kind of copyright protection? I'm of the opinion that it hypocrasy to complain when your copyright is violated when your story already violates many copyrights and trademarks itself... but then I'm just an old GPL socialist at heart!
Anyway - stop by and have a listen to our stories. Love to hear what you all think of them!
Howard,
floorten.com.
Re:oohhhhhhh (Score:1)
Re:Copyrighted? A lot. (Score:2)
s/autometically/automatically/ (Score:2)
Re:A fine line (Score:2)
>produces think about the fanfic world and try to
>work with them (read MST3K
I'm glad someone mentioned MST3K. Everyone who's ever lurked in creative newsgroups knows that 90% of fanfics are crap, right? A lot of people give some of the worst ones the Mystery Science Theatre treatment, known as MSTings. If you're into anime, give SVAM [simplenet.com] a try. A lot of the stuff they do is screamingly funny. They're under reconstruction right now, but it's worth seeing when it's back up.
MST3K is FanFiction, itself! (Score:2)
Of course, there is a difference, since MST3K was a TV show, they had to be very careful about the rights. In some cases, old MST3Ks will never be seen again (wink, wink) because the use of the film by the MST3K creators was incorrect or expired.
Of course, you can't expect people who write free fan fiction to do this... eventually most of the content on the Internet created by fans will be destroyed. Fortunately, political screeds by demented political extremists (like my own Website ^_-) will be there to take up the slack! Oh, and don't forget the billboards, lots and lots of Internet billboards will be up too... a great future, eh?
Of course, some smart companies with small advertising budgets may take advantage of this and give fans the right to make limited, non-commercial use of their products. (Just don't expect any of those companies to be in MPAA...)
Re:Moral issues exist, not just the legal. (Score:2)
All I can say to an attitude like this, is "geez, get over it already!". There's no "natural" law enforcing copyrights - it's just a societal fabrication supposedly designed to increase the overall richness of the cultural landscape. Fanfics are a part of that cultural richness
A desperate desire to completely control ALL aspects of published stories or concepts is highly irrational (and controlling and/or selfish). Anybody who is _severely_ affected by such activity should probably check in with a good therapist to find out why he or she needs external validation through what are essentially figments of his or her imagination.
Re:Who, indeed? (Score:2)
My point is, fanfic is sort of the reverse of that. I recognize that, legally, ownership does not "dilute", that (say) Paramount retains legal ownership of Captain Kirk. But not all laws are good laws, and not all laws reflect the true reality of a situation. I am not encouraging IP theft, but I am trying to say that, in reality, Paramount has already lost control of that character. And, from my point of view, I guess I see that as a good thing.
Of course, the more money one tries to make off this, the less it can be argued to have passed in quasi-public, pan-cultural ownwership and the easier it is for Paramount to argue that your use of Captain Kirk is, in fact, theft. (Of course, you'd have to believe that intellectual property is property in the first place, but that's a whole 'nother flamewar...)
I might not have been clear, even by hedging my language as I did, but I was only commenting on the sociological reality, not the legal structure.
Re:Legalities of FanFic... (Score:2)
Now, of course the article is just the opinion of the writer, and not worth the electrons it's printed on until some judge reads it and finds its arguments swaying. (If any lawyers are reading this, I'd be interested to hear what you think of that article.) But it's interesting to take a look at the precedents involved.