Authors' moral responsibility (was Re: OOTP net book copy?????????)

[benevolntgoddess1]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Tim Regan" 
<timregan at m...> wrote:

> But in light of this, do fanfic authors have a moral responsibility 
> not to use children's book characters in sexual or violent 
> situations since they cannot control the distribution of their 
work?

On morals in the writing:
It's fun and we get to play a puppet show with the people dancing in 
our heads. But- FanFic authors are in a bit of a bind and the very 
existence of it is a moral conundrum. Writing the fic is illegal, 
immoral and violates more copyright laws and anti-theft ethos than I 
actually know the citations to. Period. *sighs*

That being said, I'm in the process of writing my own novel length 
fanfic right now and have been doing so with full knowledge of the 
complete illegality of it. So there. I put my adult characters in the 
hottest, steamiest, rather violent and incredibly depressing 
situations I can think of. I enjoy Padfoot torture just as much as I 
enjoy my Mary Sues. 

Morals of the posting:
I'm also the owner of a rather large erotica site When I first opened 
the site, I was absolutely against posting fanfic because of the 
possible legal problems associated with using someone else's 
characters. It was only until I read the decision concerning Larry 
Flint's cartoon of Jerry Falwell that I changed my mind 
(http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/hustler.html )Now, 
if I post fanfic, I do so with a very large disclaimer of my own, 
explaining what fanfic and slash fic are and why I think it's okay to 
post it. 

As an adult website owner, I have a nice big statement on the front 
page, that everyone who enters must click through, stating that they 
are 18 years of age. If someone is not, I have a couple great links 
for curious teens to go to. That way, my conscience stays clear of 
kids getting into my site. If a child does click through, then I must 
ask – where are the kid's parents and why aren't they supervising web 
time? As a parent, I certainly do – that is my moral responsibility. 

 All I can do, to prevent outright theft of a work that someone posts 
with me is to ask people, very nicely, not to. The only other option 
is not post at all. Every author, when posting something, anywhere, 
anytime is at risk of plagiarism or derivative infringement. The web 
just makes it easier. It is simply impossible to completely protect a 
published work, on or off the web – I've tried on my site – it isn't 
possible.  As authors and as archive owners we must exercise (please 
forgive me) "Constant Vigilance!" by reading what is out there and 
writing in clear rules for the posting of our fiction and the 
distribution thereof into the document. Unfortunately, if someone is 
going to be a jerk and copy work from a reputable author and archive –
 there just isn't much we can do, other than ask them nicely to take 
it down.

A big problem for an archive owner is when a copyright problem comes 
up. I've had it happen to me and it drives me batty. It means that I 
have to look at or read two works, comparing down the line and 
somehow get indisputable proof from the "original creator" that they 
own it, not the other way around. It's almost impossible to do. The 
only thing that I can and will do in that situation is just yank the 
entire thing. Morals or not wanting to hassle with it? Yes. 

For an author's own protection, I will say – if someone takes your 
stuff, write to the person. If you don't get the response you want, 
write to the site owner/webmaster. Generally the piece will come down 
because the owner doesn't want to deal with it. If it doesn't, write 
to the ISP, citing their own TOS and give a specific URL to look at 
and another to compare with. ISP's are very twitchy about such 
things. Thy, above all, have the most to lose in a lawsuit so they 
will be the quickest to respond. Most often, they will trash the 
entire site the work is on, so you'll have to consider the 
ramifications of that, too. 

After all that babble, the only answer is that each author has to 
make up his or her own mind about how it is to be published, 
distributed and what out-of-court (if they take it to court, then 
they have to deal with JKR's copyright) means they will go to if 
something is stolen. [/blabber]

psychic serpent – Barb, 
First, I'm so sorry that this happened to you! I hope the Karma 
Goddess gives the jerk venereal warts and webbed fingers.

As a former Kazaa user (Kazaa is evil), the options seem to be that 
you can write to Kazaa and expect nothing to happen. According to 
their EULA and FAQ, they care about copyright but aren't going to 
remove anything. However, you (or someone else) could upload your 
story, with proper title and author listed, with a note attached 
saying that this is the actual story and information on it, and the 
OoP listed is, in fact a fake and was stolen from you. 

BG