fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3212 ]

[ SECRET POST #3212 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3212 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 027 secrets from Secret Submission Post #459.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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There's a huge difference between being hired by somebody to do a job, and asking people to fund your hobby which is based on copyright infringement.
I'm all for fanfic, but I don't think you're presenting the situation fairly.

What I see is that fanfic writers devalue their own work and inflate the economic value of the canon by producing so much work for free. And not just for free--lots of writers and artists post work online to be seen publicly--but insisting that they can never take money for it.

And then, when some writers realise that they have put in enough work to have something publishable, and they "file off the serial numbers" to publish it, those writers get attacked. Look at how much venom was directed at Cassandra Clare when she turned pro.

Fandom teaches writers that they should be amateurs and work for free. I don't think that's good for writing as an industry.

Cassandra Clare was about a lot of other things than just filing off the serial numbers though. Like plagiarism and cyber bullying.

I stand corrected. I wasn't in the same fandoms as she was at the time, so I didn't really remember what the whole story was.

If you want some old wank it's interesting to read up on.
http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Cassandra_Claire_Plagiarism_Debacle

... then it probably wasn't the best idea to act like you did know ("Look at how much venom was directed at Cassandra Clare when she turned pro") and were in a position to educate others about it, eh?

I don't think raspberryrain was doing those things. This is a really pompous, rude and unnecessary comment.

NAYRT but Raspberryrain was accusing fandom of attacking Cassandra Clare for daring to make money off her fanfiction by turning pro and using that as an example of how fanfic writers are taught to devalue their own work. I don't necessarily disagree with her conclusion, but the example she used simply wasn't true. Using incorrect supports to validate your argument isn't a good idea. Maybe the anon could've phrased it more kindly, but when people aren't familiar with the subject but insist on talking about it as if they are, they risk being wrong and slightly embarrassed.

...she did nothing of the sort. She made one statement:

Look at how much venom was directed at Cassandra Clare when she turned pro.

...observing something that was actually true but she didn't have the whole context for it. When someone pointed it out, she graciously admitted she had been wrong. This jumping on her is ridiculous. She never "insisted" on anything or held herself up as an expert.

Edited 2015-10-22 20:16 (UTC)

Not to mention laptopgate.

The venom against Cassandra Clare when she turned pro was not due to the fact that she "filed off the serial numbers" from her own fanfic and published it. The venom was due to the fact she was a plagiarizer and thus should not be rewarded for that.

I have no issue if someone takes a work that is out of copyright and writes something for it, wanting to get published and paid. I have no issue if someone does parody of canon and wants to get published and paid. I have no issue if something is so completely off from canon that "filing off the serial numbers" and publishing as original fiction is possible so the person can be paid. I do, however, have an issue with someone taking someone else's characters and setting and plot set ups to write fanfic and expecting to get paid. The only way to do that legally and morally is to get themselves hired as a tie-in novel writer. It is not their IP, and thus it is not their right to get paid to work with it.

"Fandom teaches writers that they should be amateurs and work for free."
No. It teaches writers that fanfic is for practicing and honing their skills, but if they want to be professional and paid, they need to come up with their own worlds, their own characters, and their own ideas. Which several of them have done.

So you think the moral standard is the same as the legal standard?

I don't know about anon, but for me personally I see some equivalence between the moral and legal standard in this instance.
Obviously big companies (coughdisneycough) manipulate copyright law so they can make the most money, and to me that's not the spirit in which the law was intended. But by and large, I think the idea of the person who invented this thing which lots of people are enjoying reaping rewards for it, and not letting other people cash in on it (within certain frameworks) is reasonable both legally and morally.

I think the feelings of the individual creators should get more attention than they do. It doesn't make sense to me to say that it's wrong to do it if the creator doesn't mind.

But to be fair, that's not very common in cases where the fanfic writer is making money off it. I'm more used to these discussions being about the legal, ethical, and artistic problems of writing fanfiction in general. I don't know why but I've been really interested in these arguments for years.

Doesn't the owner of the copyright have to be the one to sue, though? If say you wrote a fanfiction and sold it, the creators always have the option of not suing, though then there's the problem of losing the ability to defend their copyright.
I mean laws generally have to be made so they work for the majority or for some overarching idea.
But I kind of agree with you, I think there are a lot of interesting questions to debate, but for me personally the question of writing a Harry Potter fanfic and selling it outright seems like a pretty clear-cut no. And tbh I don't think fanartists should either.

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sarillia - 2015-10-21 01:04 (UTC) - Expand

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ketita - 2015-10-21 01:11 (UTC) - Expand

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cbrachyrhynchos - 2015-10-21 02:07 (UTC) - Expand

eh, I don't think AYRT implied they were both the same, just in this case they happened to apply to the same thing.

Look, if you want to stick to copyright laws and all it's fine, but saying first that publishing something based on an out of copyright is something you're ok with and later that "if they want to be professional and paid, they need to come up with their own worlds, their own characters, and their own ideas" it's rather hypocritical.

Then a writer has to come up with a twist on out-of-copyright works that they can call their own. If they have that, they can defend it as their own.

(ayrt)

The point here is just that the other anon is using a legal difference (whether out of copyright or not) to support a moral objection (writers shouldn't get paid unless they create everything), which contradicts their exception.

Cassandra Clare's venom was because she was a thief, not because she turned pro. I know of several fanwriters who decided to write original stories and they all received a lot of support from their previous fans.

Now, if we are talking about people like Stephenie Meyer and Twilight, that's another story. In tha tcase fandom teaches writers than writing a fanfic and the publishing it changing the names of the characters and pretending that it's an original story is wrong. And that's good because fandom is right, stealing another author's characters is wrong.

Don't you mean 50 Shades? Twilight was original fic...

That's more because Cassandra Clare had MILES of drama behind her already, and was kind of blatant about it. Plenty of other ficauthors have turned pro without drama - like Sarah Rees Brennan and Naomi Novik.

I... really don't think that's what fandom teaches people. What it DOES teach is that if you're going to use other people's property, you shouldn't get paid because it's THEIRS. (and for the record, I'm not really in favor of fanart commissions either). Every writer is free to write their original works and do what they want with them. I have no idea where you see this devaluing of work.
I'm sorry you don't like copyright law, I guess.

I'm curious, what do you think of people who commission something for a character created in an established world? The world isn't theirs but technically the character/idea of a character is (or should be)?

To me that's more of a grey area. The biggest question regarding that is how much can you "tell" that this character is supposed to be in this established world? In a fic, you can't really avoid mentioning the world, so you're still using the original creator's stuff. In art, I suppose you could have something which relates to something else visually, but at a stretch you could claim that it's not *actually* that thing.
I am not as against it.

Oh my god, that's not why people don't like Cassandra Clare.

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