Re: Fan fiction in general was: MOVED from MAIN - "sequels" to the classics

[sistermagpie]

> >> Magpie:
> > That's interesting--why if you were writing a sequel or prequel? 
> Oh, 
> > I see--because of the Lackey thing. But that was a very specific 
> > situation that was a little weird iirc. As a fan you can sue the 
> > creator of any series if you have an actual case for something. 
> > (Think of that person who sued JKR claiming that she'd stolen her 
> > book that was written pre-HP--she wasn't a fanfic writer but 
still 
> > tried to sue for a similar reason.)
> 
> 
> Alla:
>  Bradley, not Lackey?

Magpie:
D'oh! I meant Lackey.

Alla:> 
> Yes, you could of course, just as anybody can sue anybody. But my 
> response to this would be that saying that **fanfic author** had an 
> idea which creator stole from him, is how to put it nicely? 
> Obnoxious to the extreme. Without author creating universe and 
> characters no idea about them would enter the head of the fan in 
the 
> first place.

Magpie:
Sure, I see your point. It's just as weird for some random person to 
claim that some famous author stole their idea--like that Larry 
Trotter person or whatever it was called. The fanfic community is 
very vocal against stuff like this--when some girl tried to sell her 
Star Wars fic for something on Amazon they were up in arms about this 
being a terrible thing. 

I once read all the stuff about what happened with the Bradley thing, 
but I think part of what was going on was that there was some contact 
between the two. That's why I've always assumed authors don't read 
fanfic--they can just say they've never seen anything anybody's 
written. 

Alla:> 
> Say, some sort of the idea - take LOLLYPOPS again entered the 
> creator's head and fan's head roughly at the same time. Do you 
think 
> fan's claim that he or she thought of this first should even be 
> entertained?

Magpie:
Nope--and certainly that happened. There were plenty of Lollipops 
stories pre-DH. It was nothing new. But the fanfic community didn't 
think JKR stole the idea, nor, I don't think, would any fanfic author 
have had a leg to stand on if they did. It wasn't a problem. As you 
say, you couldn't say who thought of it first. (Actually in this case 
you could, because JKR could probably show a lot of evidence that it 
had always been true for her even before she wrote the first book.) 
Somebody on HP4GU could have done the same thing, say they predicted 
Lollipops and JKR stole it.

Alla:
> And somebody who wrote FANFIC dares to sue the author? I dislike it 
> very much.

Magpie:
And the fanfic community is very quick to smack down anybody who 
tries to claim ownership of the canon. I would suspect the main thing 
that gave the Lackey person anything like credit was that this was 
something the author was officially involved with.


> Magpie: 
> > What authors don't do is *read* fanfic. If an author read a 
fanfic 
> > and actually took the story, they'd have lifted an idea and made 
> > money off it just as anybody else would. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> How do you know though that author does not read fanfictions? I 
hope 
> they do not otherwise I am sure at least some of fans would go to 
> court claiming that their ideas were stolen.

Magpie:
I've always heard they didn't read fanfic because of exactly this--
it's a bad idea legally to start reading fanfics. Much cleaner to 
just say "I don't read fanfic, period. Whatever anybody might claim I 
saw, I didn't."

Are we sure JKR was talking about (re: Harry losing his magic etc.) 
fanfic and not just speculation or things she's heard about? I can't 
imagine the woman's sitting around reading fanfic herself. Even 
without wanting to just keep it separate it doesn't seem like a good 
idea to start mixing your own version of the characters with other 
peoples' versions. HBP was full of fanfic cliches; that was part of 
the fun. But I don't think when anybody said "JKR's been reading 
fic!" they really meant it. It was more assumed that the fanfic had 
picked up on stuff already in the text.

Alla:
> The bottom line I agree that it is very hard to maintain control 
> over Interner, but I think she can do A LOT more things to restrict 
> fanfic to some degree.

Magpie:
Absolutely she could. I'm glad that she doesn't. Anne Rice just made 
a big point of publically saying she hated it. For the most part the 
fanfic stopped afaik.
> 
> 
> Magpie:
> > On the other side, some fanfic writers wound up being published--
> > their fics, I mean. I think Star Trek people went legit that way, 
> for 
> > instance.
> >
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Yes, courtesy of the copyright holders, no? Lackey selects some 
> fanfics to be printed too.

Magpie:
Of course courtesy of the copyright holders. I'm not sure what you're 
asking about. I'm just saying that fanfic is a part of fandom and so 
not necessarily something an author considers a threat or an insult 
to him/her. I don't think the Lackey case would be brought up so much 
of this were an on-going problem of authors getting sued--there are 
plenty of crazy fan stories that go beyond that one. You name it a 
fan has probably done it. The Internet's bringing together the public 
artwork and the previously private way that people in fandom interact 
with it. It's not even just fanfic--look at the fights creators and 
fans will get into for instance. They didn't used to be able to 
eavesdrop on fandom so easily.

-m
>