Writer's Block: Copy and paste
Mar. 3rd, 2011 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrixrefugee[Error: unknown template qotd]
I'd actually be slightly pleased that someone thought my work was good enough to steal: notice when you hear about art heists, ie. the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist about twenty years ago, the thieves take the masterpieces. When's the last time you heard about someone stealing a Thomas Kinkade painting :: Laughs::?? (Not to slam Thomas Kinkade: his paintings are pretty, but to my eyes, they look more decorative than artistic)
But... and there's always a but. If it was something that I had been paid for, I would want the plagiarist to give me half of what s/he made from the piece they had piggybacked onto my work. If it was a fanfiction, and the bulk of my writing is fanfiction, I would prefer that credit is given where it is due. There are a number of writers who consider fanfic and other derivative works based on their work to be plagiarism, an opinion they are entitled to, but which I find restrictive. As long as credit is given, ie. disclaimers (eg. "I do not own Yami no Matsuei/Inception/Firefly, its characters, concepts or other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita/Christopher Nolan/Joss Whedon, etc. etc. etc.), there should be no contest about it. I'm all for the protection of intellectual property, but I'm not a fan of what I call the strangler fig school of copyright laws. As long as there are disclaimers in place and the person isn't profiting from the distribution of their creation, the creator of the derivative work should be cut some slack.
I'd actually be slightly pleased that someone thought my work was good enough to steal: notice when you hear about art heists, ie. the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist about twenty years ago, the thieves take the masterpieces. When's the last time you heard about someone stealing a Thomas Kinkade painting :: Laughs::?? (Not to slam Thomas Kinkade: his paintings are pretty, but to my eyes, they look more decorative than artistic)
But... and there's always a but. If it was something that I had been paid for, I would want the plagiarist to give me half of what s/he made from the piece they had piggybacked onto my work. If it was a fanfiction, and the bulk of my writing is fanfiction, I would prefer that credit is given where it is due. There are a number of writers who consider fanfic and other derivative works based on their work to be plagiarism, an opinion they are entitled to, but which I find restrictive. As long as credit is given, ie. disclaimers (eg. "I do not own Yami no Matsuei/Inception/Firefly, its characters, concepts or other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita/Christopher Nolan/Joss Whedon, etc. etc. etc.), there should be no contest about it. I'm all for the protection of intellectual property, but I'm not a fan of what I call the strangler fig school of copyright laws. As long as there are disclaimers in place and the person isn't profiting from the distribution of their creation, the creator of the derivative work should be cut some slack.