the letter box project / copyrights, intellectual property, literary critici

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

KathyK zanelupin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34885>:

<< I did, once, and I can scarcely believe I did so.  If I were the me
of  today several years ago, I never would have.  My letter was
included in this thing called "The Letter Box" that was sent to JKR. 
The website is no longer functioning and I can't remember many
details, like why or how this idea came about. >>

The letter box project was started by a fan named Alison, I can't
remember her last name, who had a Potterfan website that was fairly
well spoken of at the time altho' I don't recall ever visiting it. Ali
announced the letter box project on HPfGU (and surely many other
places) with the statement that she wanted JKR to know that there are
adults who are Potterfans. I expected that Rowling would never read
the letters, but Ali seemed to be a fine person, deserving my support,
so I wrote a letter for the box. 

The box had a livejournal with photos of the first several post
deliveries it received (photos of a heap of envelopes on the floor)
and one photo included a bright red envelope that got the comment:
"Look out, it  looks like someone sent a Howler". I believe that was
my envelope, bright red and adorned with a collage of Valentine ads.
(My outer envelope, the one addressed to Alison, containing a smaller
envelope containing a note card with my letter written on it.)

<< KathyK, who would now never send fanmail >>

Why not?

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34906>:

<< I am moving this from main to talk about the multitude of
sequels to the classics that I had seen in the bookstores as well.
(huge snip) Is that a relatively recent phenomenon ? >>

I suspect it's a rather old phenomenon. For one example, the story
from which California got its name was an [unauthorized] sequel to
another book by a different author. 

Quotes are from Wikipedia: "The name California is most commonly
believed to have derived from a storied paradise peopled by black
Amazons and ruled by Queen Califia. The myth of Califia is recorded in
a 1510 work The Exploits of Esplandian, written as a sequel to Amadís
de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer García Ordóñez Rodríguez de
Montalvo."

"The first known printed edition [Of Amadis de Gaula] was published in
Zaragoza in 1508, by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (or Garci Ordóñez de
Montalvo). It was published in four books in Castilian, but its
origins are unclear: The narrative comes from Portugal, originates in
the late post-Arthurian genre and had certainly been read as early as
the 14th century by the chancellor Pero López de Ayala as well as his
contemporary Pero Ferrús.

Montalvo himself confesses to have amended the first three volumes,
and to be the author of the fourth. Additionally, in the Portuguese
Chronicle of Gomes Eannes de Azurara (1454), the writing of Amadis is
attributed to Vasco de Lobeira, who was dubbed knight after the battle
of Aljubarrota (1385). However, it seems that in fact the work was a
product of João de Lobeira, not the troubadour Vasco de Lobeira, and
that rather than originating with him it was the revision of an
earlier work from the beginning of the 14th century.

In his introduction to the text, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo explains
that he has edited the first three books of a text in circulation
since the fourteenth century. Montalvo also admits to adding a fourth
as yet unpublished book as well as adding a continuation (Las sergas
de Esplandián), which he claims was found in a buried chest in
Constantinople and transported to Spain by a Hungarian merchant (the
famous motif of the found manuscript)."

As another example, when Miguel de Cervantes published the first
volume of Don Quixote, it was such a hit that many sequels were rushed
into print, so when Cervantes published the second volume, it began
with the character denying that he had had the experiences which so
many untrustworthy books had attributed to him. 

After seeing the movie of Baron Munchausen, I got the book from the
public library, and it had a preface explaining the history of the
book, saying that apparently there was a real Baron Munchausen, a man
with a habit of telling tall tales about hunting, which someone else
published, without his consent, as 'The Tales of Baron Munchausen',
which was so successful that it was republished several times, each
time with additional material by various unnamed hacks.

People not only took it upon themselves to write sequels to books that
other people had written, they were eager to attribute books that they
had written to other authors: Montalvo (above) attributing his
Esplandián to a manuscript found buried, all the Munchausen writers to
Munchausen, and people whose names are lost to history to Plato and
Aristotle and each of the Apostles including Mary Magdalene.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34909>:

<< The best continuation of the famous story that I had ever read was
the book called "Troy" by Russian author Irina Ismailova. Although
again I am not sure if I loved the book so much due to its merit or
because it changes the famous story development the way I always
wanted it to go ever since I first read "Illiad" as a kid. I should
not call it a continuation, because it is not, it is a retelling of
the Troyan war >>

The Classical Greeks themselves had many different stories of the
Trojan War. The adulation of Homer has not prevented us from finding
vase paintings in which characters labelled with the Homeric names do
something different than in Homer's text. 

Not only the ancients had the notion of a subject matter about which a
lot of different people told a lot of different stories. I've read
that medieval troubadors called that one 'le matiere de Troyes' and
the Arthurian mythos 'le matiere de Bretagne'. That movie a couple of
years ago was NOT a movie of the Iliad, but I had to admit that it was
a legitimate tale of le matiere de Troyes.

P. Alexis Nguyen wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34918>:

<< I can't recall the basis upon which the Gone With the Wind sequel
was allowed to be published, but needless to say, Mitchell's estate
lost the case. >>

THE WIND DONE GONE, as I understand it more a re-telling, from the
point of view of Mammy's biological daughter, than a sequal. The
Mitchell estate sued it for being an 'unauthorized sequel' but it won
on the ground that it was actually a parody, and parody is specially
stated to be 'fair use'. Without having read it, I gather that it is
actually a commentary rather than a parody, and I kind of think that
commentary is more of a contribution to ongoing thought than is
parody, making it sad that commentary is not protected as fair use.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34937>:

<< What I would *not* do is to stifle discussion or interpretation of
my characters in any way. But literary criticism and fanfic are
opposite reactions to a literary work. One analyzes and interprets
what the author has written, the other strives to expand or recreate
the work. >>

I can imagine that some authors are more offended by some literary
criticism than by almost any fanfic. Literary criticism that analyzes
that a tale has 'fascist values' (I once read an article explaining
that It's A Wonderful Life is a fascist film) or sexual obsessions,
for example. Literary criticism that analyzes that an author has the
same plot in every story even though they pretend to be different.

If Margaret Mitchell were still alive, I imagine she would be more
offended by THE WIND DONE GONE as a commentary on her [alleged] racism
and Scarlett being an idiot than by it being an unauthorized sequel
that might possibly reduce the market for her authorized sequels. 

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/34988>:

<< That is, "foreign people" (Westerners) care about intellectual
property violations. How quaint. >>

Because intellectual property (other than keeping a trade process your
own by keeping it secret, like the forceps) is a fairly new idea, even
in the West.

Shakespeare took plots from Plutarch and from Girardus Cambrensis, and
IIRC others, and modern intellectual property laws would protect us
from having Shakespeare's play in our universe.