Rant about fanfiction and copyright

[matrixrefugee]

My one wish this Christmas? That the U.S. copyright laws on fiction and fanfiction would get replaced with the Japanese copyright laws re: same.

There's a discussion on lkh_lashouts re: LKH and fanfiction. Now, while I understand why some authors would have "no fanfic plz" clauses in their contracts or have made public statements to that effect, but... I find it annoying when someone who isn't that author decides to be the Fanfic Police and do a "no fanfic plz" on other people. Might be a backlash from the debacle with Lee Goldberg on the original Orange Board version of Godawful Fanfiction, where the guy castigated all of us for being fans of fanfiction and attacked me for my "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" fics. You could tell the guy had no teeth in his arguments when he yelled at me because I'd written Gigolo Joe as a male prostitute. Duh! Anyone who's watched the movie would know I was in the right because, well, as the green-eyed silicon hottie would say, "It's what I do." ( :: Pauses a moment to chase off a plot bunny for an "A.I."/Evangelion crossover:: Joe/Ritsuko might be really cute and Ritsy-poo might be less bitchy afterward [plus I could totally see her hiring our silicon hottie to try and make Gendo jealous, but we know how badly that would backfire...], but I don't need any more ideas...)

The case at hand: a middle-school teacher saying there is a "no fanfic plz" clause in their classroom, the poster's argument being that it's to protect the kids from plagiarism suits. I think after the file-sharing debacle in which RIAA went batshit on middle-school kids, no lawyer in their right mind would do something like that, if they didn't want the press to do the same thing to them, and make them and their client look like bullies shaking kids down for their lunch money (the case where RIAA tried to get CPS to slap an "unfit parent" charge on the single mom of one kid was an all-time low; thankfully, CPS turned around and said, "What are you talking about? This kid is doing just fine, now stop wasting our time when we could have been saving kids from being molested."). This could have it's upside: it could be protecting us from yet another bumper crop of bad Twhinelight fanfic, but I can't help seeing a lot of kids being denied a pastime that I find dear to my heart. Maybe a "don't ask, don't tell" policy ala Jim Butcher's take on it would be a good compromise.

Comments

[koemiko.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm guessing the fanfic restrictions would be an attempt by the teacher to try and stir up their creative juices.

My Creative Writing professor this semester mentioned that she had problems with people only writing things they knew and liked... like one woman who spent the entire semester writing every writing piece about her cat, or stories about 19 year old boys doing 19 year old boy stuff from writers who were... 19 year old boys.

Another downfall to writing fanfic is if you haven't seen the series, you're left scratching your head. I feel bad about not reading your fanfics, but I've never seen Evangelion myself, so... I wanna see it first, y'know? :C

[anivad.livejournal.com]

In the case of the classroom I think it's justified - for the simple reason that it's not likely the teacher will be familiar with every single original-source that the students write fanfic on. This will almost definitely affect her judgement of their writing. There's also how the teacher might really like a particular fandom, and fics for that fandom might get better grades, and things like that.

[tortillafactory.livejournal.com]

Buh? Who would ever get the idea that Gigolo Joe isn't a prostitute? It's...right in his name...

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

problems with people only writing things they knew and liked

Now that's an interesting departure from that Dead Horse Trope "cardinal rule" of fiction-writing "Write What You Know".

I also have to confess that I've entered a few fandoms via the back door, ie. through fanfiction; I tided myself over with fanfiction during the wait for "A.I." to be released on DVD.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Mmm, now that I'm more alert, I'm better equipped to give this discussion a better assessment, and I have to agree, this teacher has some very valid reasons, even if I have a hard time seeing them...

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

I'm told by a friend whose uncle works in television (since it turns out Goldberg is a TV script-writer, and know from experience that the guy won't consider anyone to be a "real writer" unless they've been paid for every cent they've penned. Going by that line of reasoning, I guess that rules out Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen as authors, since much of their work wasn't published in their lifetimes.) that Lee Goldberg isn't exactly the sharpest pencil in the pack. He's so anti-fanfic, he's got a horrible case of tunnel vision.

[tortillafactory.livejournal.com]

But I...his name...is...Gigolo Joe...

I mean, there's dense, but that goes way beyond dense into the criminally insane territory.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Mmm, the short conversation I had with Lee Goldberg, via email made me question his sanity. There's monomania and there's sheer froth at the mouth madness...

[koemiko.livejournal.com]

Well, I think it stems from the idea of "you can't do well if you don't try; mistakes are inevitable, so learn from them." Also, it's a good way to stamp out self-inserts.

The thing is, fanfiction is usually done for fun and entertainment, so 'writing what you know' makes it more believable - UNLESS you're looking primarily to have someone hack away at your little darling until you perfect your craft. My experience tells me that people don't want others to rip their fanfiction apart, they want their writing enjoyed.

Mmm, my main problem is that I don't want to see a fan author's interpretation of a character, fall in love with the character, and then have canon shatter the image I've built up in my head.