"fan fiction "......

[crich70]

I think it comes down to a matter of permission and fair use myself. Some authors give permission for fan fictions (J.K.Rowling) and some request others not write fan fics (Anne Rice) and if someone writes fan fictions that violate what the author allows then they are in trouble. And as far as fair use I mean what the writer of the fan fiction gets out of it. They get to improve their writing skills and tell a story that uses characters that they enjoy reading about. If they attempt to sell their work derived from a published work (and all fan fics are derived from published works) and the published work is still in copyright then they can run into some real legal trouble. People wrote fan fics based on Star Trek for years and there are even some fan created video's based on the original series. Paramount doesn't object to the videos (which are available to download online last I knew) because the fans aren't charging anyone anything for them and they realize that the fan's just want to pay homage to a well loved tv series. If however they tried to sell the fan made video's I imagine Paramount's lawyers would be there before you could say "Beam me up."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

But isn't Wicked simply fan-fiction derived from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?

Well, yes and no because:

The Copyright status of the Oz books effects their use by non-canonical authors, imitators, and creators of fan fiction.

All of the books of L. Frank Baum have passed out of copyright protection and entered the public domain; their plots and characters are available for general use. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, first published in 1900, entered the public domain in 1956. The firm of Reilly and Lee, the publisher of all of the other "Famous Forty" Oz books, was able to issue its first edition of the original book only in that year. Baum's other thirteen Oz books entered the public domain between 1960 and 1986.

And the point of what I'm saying has to do primarily with the legality of it.

[andyh2000]

What about "Doon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon%27s_Doon) and "Bored of the Rings" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings)? Their source books are still in copyright now, let alone when the parodies were written.

Andrew

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

You are taking a rather narrow view of original here. Yes, in the broadest sense, there are only a limited number of plots (I think I read somewhere there were seven... man against man, man against nature, man against self, boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back... and those are just generic terms... you can swap genders and match them but I think those were the basic plot lines that are used in most fiction). That being said, there are tons of new ways to approach those plots and the elements that are used to make up the plot as well as what makes the characters tick, etc.

You are not making any sense. You say that I'm taking "a rather narrow view" but then you explain this position "in the broadest sense". Are you not aware that narrow and broad are antonyms (opposite in meaning)?

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

What about "Doon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon%27s_Doon) and "Bored of the Rings" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings)? Their source books are still in copyright now, let alone when the parodies were written.

Andrew

Parodies are legal under American copyright law.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Parodies are legal under American copyright law.

Parodies, by definition, put enough distance between the source material that no reasonable person would confuse the two even if the source is clearly recognizable in the new work.

There is a nice definition here:
http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/wri...avis/body.html

Parody is:

A new, copyrightable work based on a previously copyrighted work
to such an extent that the previous work is clearly recognizable
but not taking more from the copyrighted work than is necessary,
that criticizes or comments on, at least in part, the subject matter or style of the previous work, and is not likely to hurt the value of the previous work.

That last bolded clause is where the definition comes into play in court.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/wri...avis/body.html

Parody is:

That last bolded clause is where the definition comes into play in court.

Most slash fiction falls under that definition. Nobody would mistake it for the original, it has no negative impact on market value, it takes only names and sometimes a few phrases from the original, and it comments on the heteronormative relationship styles (among other things) in most mass-media productions.

A lot of Harry Potter fanfic deals with teen pregnancy and the problematic nature of spells as fix-it tools; those, again, are not easily confused for the original, seem to increase market for the source material, and comment on Rowling's worldbuilding, in which even very immature characters have access to a great deal of power, without the consequences we'd expect.

The growing number of Avengers "OT8" fics (if you don't know, you don't want to), again, aren't mistakeable for authorized stories, don't seem to slow down the market the tiniest bit, and posit what kind of relationships would be likely among a fairly-isolated group, all of whom are both talented and passionate, and all of whom have reasons to ignore society's normal social rules. They both comment on the gaps in the original stories by filling in details, and critique the prejudices of the people displaying those stories by pointing out plausible alternative behaviors for the characters.

"5 Things" fics show what aspects of character or storyline are interesting to fans, and how those topics might be addressed in the original. AU fics show how the characters' personalities would be identifiable with different histories and settings. Crossovers allow the writer to comment on personalities and worldbuilding from different sources through direct side-by-side comparison.

What-happens-next sequels show what the fanfic writer thinks are the most important details of the original and which relationships have what kind of enduring value, and comments on how the characters would grow and change over time. Sequels can also criticize the storyline by showing how unpleasant or implausible the future would be for the characters.

The only way in which fanfic can hurt the original market, is if the original is so popular that it's inspired tremendous amounts of fanfic *and* the original is so artistically bad--or has recently taken a downward turn--that most of the fanfic is of higher quality.

I can't see a TV producer being willing to say in court, "you must ban this fanfic because it's much more entertaining than our new season of epsiodes." Or a comic book company saying, "we fired all the good writers, so you must help us get the fanfic removed from public spots on the internet; if the fans want to read about Batman, they *must* read our comics instead of that well-written stuff."

Any argument that the fanworks affect the market for the original is saying "we produce crap; please kill our competition because we can't convince people to buy it if they're allowed to post that stuff for free."

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The growing number of Avengers "OT8" fics (if you don't know, you don't want to)

You shouldn't have bolted on that "if you don't know, you don't want to", because now I actually want to know. So spill.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Any argument that the fanworks affect the market for the original is saying "we produce crap; please kill our competition because we can't convince people to buy it if they're allowed to post that stuff for free."

Uh, no.
Stuff that might be confused with/substitute for the source devalues the brand, regardless of the quality.
Legally speaking that stuff is considered counterfeit.
http://newsismybusiness.com/britto-t...-counterfeits/

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...133583608.html

They don't even have to peddled under the original name.

The whole thing is tricky: stuff that defames the source is more likely to be legal than honest homage.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Uh, no.
Stuff that might be confused with/substitute for the source devalues the brand, regardless of the quality.
Legally speaking that stuff is considered counterfeit.
...
They don't even have to peddled under the original name.

The whole thing is tricky: stuff that defames the source is more likely to be legal than honest homage.

Fanfic tends to be tagged with disclaimers that say things like "All rights reserved to the author, artist and this publication. This is solely a not-for-profit fan activity, and in no way intends to infringe on copyrights held by Paramount, Deslilu, Filmation or other professional Star Trek agencies."

or
"Disclaimer: These are works of purely speculative fiction. It is not intended to infringe on any rights by and of the companies and/or individuals involved in the production of any series mentioned here."

or the more casual,
"Not mine; if they were, I'd have a lot more money" or "I don't own these characters; I just play with them sometimes."

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

You shouldn't have bolted on that "if you don't know, you don't want to", because now I actually want to know. So spill.

OTP stands for "one true pairing," someone's primary (or only) romantic interest in a particular fandom. OT3 started taking off when some people liked polyamorous trios more than pairings... Kirk/Spock/McCoy and Snape/Harry/Draco are sometimes OT3's, but fandoms where a trio is a common-and-large subject of fic are rare. White Collar is the only one I know of directly, but I believe there are others.

OT8 is (currently most often) Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, Jane Foster, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, and Pepper Potts, all romantically and/or sexually involved with each other. Sometimes the individual members get swapped out for others. It starts tame, sometimes. Sometimes it's less omnidirectional but still too tangled to sort into specific pairings much.

[Belfaborac]

Thank you kindly, I'm now a wiser man. A wiser man who feels slightly sickened, but nevertheless. With a little luck I'll get the Kirk/Spock/McCoy image out of my head at some point, in which case it'll have been...eh...worth it.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

Thank you kindly, I'm now a wiser man. A wiser man who feels slightly sickened, but nevertheless. With a little luck I'll get the Kirk/Spock/McCoy image out of my head at some point, in which case it'll have been...eh...worth it.

I promise you: I stuck to the tame stuff. Really.

At least, in the fanfic circles I hang out with, that's the tame stuff.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Uh, no.
Stuff that might be confused with/substitute for the source devalues the brand, regardless of the quality.
Legally speaking that stuff is considered counterfeit.
http://newsismybusiness.com/britto-t...-counterfeits/

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...133583608.html

It would be difficult to demonstrate that fanfic could be confused with the original.

The links don't demonstrate anything about fan fiction. These knockoffs look like the original, and even if they don't use the original's name, are clearly attempts to fool people into thinking that it is the original.

No reasonable person would confuse a Star Trek novel with a Star Trek fanfic.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

No reasonable person would confuse a Star Trek novel with a Star Trek fanfic.

Star Trek fanfic has another issue, though, which is trademark violation. The names of the main characters in Star Trek are trademarks.

[Yapyap]

I find it very hard to see how a fanfic posted on fanfiction.net under a random pseudonym, with disclaimers of the "I don't own these characters or this universe / the characters & settings belong to XX, thank you for allowing us to play with them" kind, could possibly be confused with the source or considered "counterfeit" in any way. I've read a lot of fanfic over the years and I've yet to see any I've confused with the source; it's really not that easy to take a Snape/Hermione fanfic on fanfiction.net for a new Harry Potter book by JK Rowling.

Substituted for the original... it's happened, I suppose, that for some people the source (especially if the source is an ongoing TV or book series) has "jumped the shark" at some point, but they still love the original ideas and continue reading the fanfic without watching/reading the original any longer. I don't think that devalues the original, though, or hinders the original creator's ability to profit from their creation; if a person has lost interest in the original material then if the fanfic didn't exist, the person would just watch/read something else instead.