[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ApK

Good writing is good writing and it may be hard no matter what, but starting with a successful, popular idea does nothing but make it easier.

I was talking art, not business, but you do have a valid point. Ability to create a good story is not directly related to the ability to make a living at creating stories, and the latter is easier for popular subject matter.

Now, show me a fanfic writer who was was perhaps the ONLY fan of an obscure forgotten property, and who's fanfic work MADE it into something popular, and I'll agree that person did the harder work.

I think that's an unfair challenge; copyright law makes it pretty much impossible for unauthorized fanfic to drag a work out of obscurity because it can't be sold without risk of ridiculous lawsuits.

However, there are cases of licensing of obscure works that allowed the fanworks to drag the original out of obscurity; the Cthulhu mythos is a great example. It was a little-known group of horror stories before Chaosium bought the rights to make an RPG out of it.

But as I said, that's all an aside. Copyright exists to give the creator control for a period of time. It's supposed to be a reasonably limited time, to encourage the production of work that will LATER be available to everyone, for all kinds of uses, but for the limited period of copyright, it's up to the owner as to how it's used. There's no reason for or defense of publishing fanfic from that point of view.

Depends on how much control the owner is supposed to have and how one interprets fair use and the transformative-vs-derivative debate. But mostly, yes; if copyright is working correctly, licensed sub-works for a limited time are a legitimate part of the creative works business. The terms for licensed sub-works are not expected to be as generous as those for original works.

The question of whether *these* terms are too onerous for most authors is a separate debate; I suspect enough people will sign up for them, at least initially, that someone will declare the program a success.

There's the solid possibility that some of the terms are unenforceable in Europe, where moral rights cannot be given up by contract. Kindle Worlds may get around this by just flat-out not accepting works from non-US authors.