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Originally Posted by DrNefario
I didn't think Harry's posts were insulting at all. It's a pretty strong statement of a position, but that's all it is. There are no personal attacks, unlike the responses to Harry's posts.
There is an awful lot of defensiveness in this thread, including some convoluted manoeuvres to try to claim fan fiction is completely legit. Maybe they'd work in court, but they seem to open the door for a number of less innocent things if they do.
My feeling is that it isn't really legal, but is tolerated. I don't see a problem there. Most sites and authors are probably prepared to pull everything if it ceases to be tolerated. (Although it's been on the internet by then; it's probably too late.) They are aware that they are not standing on solid ground.
I think the law is kind of inadequate, although I have no idea how to fix it.
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Part of the problem I think is that the law hasn't kept pace with the technology. I mean when most copyright laws were written in the 1st place there was no internet and the potential spread of a fan fiction of such like Star Trek for example was limited to a few fans who had mimeographed or photocopied copies of a story someone wrote. When the first adaptation of Dracula was made in the 1920's (i.e. Nosferatu) they forgot to get permission from Mr. Stoker's estate and his widow tried to have all prints of the movie destroyed. She failed of course as it still exists today, but the fact is there have been problems with copyright and what is and isn't covered for a long time. And no one really considered the possibility of something like the internet one day making it more complex I think.