Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2021-07-18 04:01 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2021-07-18 04:01 pm
[ SECRET POST #5308 ]
⌈ Secret Post #5308 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #760.
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.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2021-07-18 10:25 pm (UTC)(link)Ok, I think the first thing we have to understand as author/writers is most people find books/fics written on any type of true story creepy if they are the subject. RPF, ripped from the headlines, from a viral story, you didn't know your best friend wrote a memoir and you come off badly. Stumbling across a story about yourself with or without the details changed is a bit weird. If they haven't asked permission, then, yeah it can feel rather violating. It happens. (And if the writer is your friend, you might to re-evaluate that friendship. Yikes.)
If said person posted the story to the public on twitter or tumblr or insta, then yes, you're correct. They've lost control over it as much as if it had been published in a newspaper or played on the nightly news. Social media (written sections) isn't really um, covered by copyright especially twitter, always check the TOS.
It really does come down to at times, situational ethics. What is right in one situation might not be right in another situation. So, yes, sometimes, you're an asshole and other times, you aren't. It's figuring out which is which is the tricky part because good authentic writing is based on experience; yours, others, and imagined. It's finding the right blend to make it work and not every book is going to be balanced the same.
Just witness the huge knockdown fights the writing community gets into over any sort of representation and own voices for books and "your experience isn't my experience so your experience is wrong." It's mind boggling and there is a reason many writers do not want to dip their toes into the writing BIPOC or LGBTQA+ or neurodiverse characters if they aren't BIPOC or out of the closet b/c the readers and the authors will shred them. And the response is "you didn't do enough research?!" which is... other people's experience. -waves hands in frustration-
Like, a lot of viral stuff isn't really worth the screen space either. It's not as useable as you'd think. Some of it is too petty or toxic. Even the ghost/cryptid stories can be too mundane if that makes sense. As a writer, I've found a lot of cute little details in viral stories, but not um, big plotty conflicts. Okay, it's cute the cops adopted the cat family and made them uniforms or the "I haven't tried every type of pie, how can I know my fave?" kid or the parrot with his own toy train. They're good grounding details for a story.
I'm more likely to get a good conflict/story from 2 or 3 different news events together or the random plot point of a movie or a random "what is your YA title" meme. Then again, I've also made it a personal sticking point not to really USE anyone I know personally as inspiration/character templates. One, to avoid this nonsense. Two, b/c most of my family/friends were simply not interesting nor do I want to immortalize their behavior in books. No. I am doing my best never to think of them again. The best revenge.
YMMV
no subject
no subject
This isn't correct (especially when considering TOS, since at best the control lost is to the company for marketing purposes, not other users, and even then the nature of TOS make them shaky as copyright agreements). In fact, copyright doesn't make sense to mention here, if people are simply using ideas. It'd be more accurate to say that ideas are just that and as long as you're not copying actual words, you're fine legally, and if you are copying actual words, you better hope you're within copyright exceptions.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2021-07-18 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)you're correct. Ideas can't be copyrighted. And I wish people had a good consensus on the lines of where "ideas" and "inspiration" fell. Unfortunately, I've seen too many arguments about it to believe this is the case.
The secret mentioned plagiarism which is in function a violation of copyright, thus, I mentioned copyright.
There is a general belief that things posted to twitter in particular fall under copyright b/c that is where most of the professional book/writing community hangs out. I've seen poetry. I've seen inspirational stuff. I've seen "ideas" and "titles" sometimes together. And it gets "Stolen" the twitter posters start arguing about it and most people have no idea what copyright even is or how it applied. I say this only b/c when it comes to certain small form social media like twitter, it is much better to assume it isn't copyrighted. (Because 50 words or more. Why 50, I don't know.) And maybe Twitter changed the TOS. If they did, okay, good on them?
If it's an idea/scenario and you put it out there on social media, you lose control over it. Most people aren't out there "stealing" ideas. And then most people don't also get copyright even if they're authors. I did a video about copyright and trademarks and it ended up being 40 minutes long. Thus, the shorthand above. Sorry, I guess, I wasn't clear enough.
no subject
Plagiarism is not necessarily a violation of copyright. There's a good deal of plagiarism that doesn't violate copyright at all. OP is just wrong in thinking that plagiarism has a legal sense in the West, and I do think there's a question of whether plagiarism occurs with these "inspired" stories. I think it does, it just doesn't have any legal effect. Will you get sued reasonably, no, unless you're actually reproducing expressions it's just an idea or concept, and nobody legal actually cares whether it was inspired. Will you face social consequences? That's quite possible and also affects your professional rep and therefore further opportunities and getting shunned for plagiarism is also quite legal.
Things posted on twitter may absolutely fall under the rules of (US) copyright. Copyright rules affect all intellectual property in fixed format involving reproduction. The TOS is completely irrelevant as to whether you own your work's reproduction (you do). What the TOS will say is that by posting you have licensed your words to the company for specific purposes, usually the ability of the platform or its users to reproduce the expression on that platform. And ONLY on that platform. That's all they can contract with you. They can't say that a third party not mentioned also has ownership over your work's reproduction off the platform, even if that third party is another user.
The question of whether you are protected by copyright is not where you did it, the question is whether what you did is unique enough for you to own for legal policy purposes but that's regardless of where you've written it. The question of whether someone else can reproduce your work is ALSO not about where you originally produced it, but about whether they can claim independent production or fair use or policy reasons for leaving certain expressions unprotected (50 words is very specific to define the "short phrase" that exempts certain expressions. I'd like to see the case or statute that mentions it. I agree the short phrases exemptions will necessarily exclude titles and people are being a little ignorant if they're fighting over titles and blurbs, lmao. actual poetry is actually probably easier to decide the phrase is "long" enough if form is also copied because the form itself might be unique, but yes also a hard sell. but if there's a character exhibited in a short phrase and a third party tries to commercialize it...well that's less likely going to be part of the exception. eta: I forgot that yes some short phrases are so unique or creative that they absolutely can be copyrights, but again hard sell and lbr courts prefer if commercialism is at risk here.). And if you want legal damages and not just statutory damages, you're going to need to register your copyright. The reason nobody is suing all the time is that most of the time it's economically unfeasible (both registration for legal damages and filing a case at all), and evidentiary pretty hard to prove that someone had access to your work before they produced theirs. Not legally unfeasible.
that's how I see it anyway. If you don't mind linking your video, I'd love to see it, because maybe I'm just missing your meaning because commenting is a little informal.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2021-07-19 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)I'll give you the link to my video. I don't honestly think the parsing is the problem. I think our audience is. You work in legal. Okay, if I was LegalEagle (and I'm not) I'd be probably saying things in a different way. I'm an author and I try to make it so other lay people (like me) have a general understanding of how copyright works. Do I err on the side of caution? Yes. B/C I don't want people to end up in civil court. Do I make it clear ideas aren't copyrightable and the expression of them is. I hope so. I think I did. (I was trying to cover a lot of ground. And I can't remember now what exactly I said in this video versus my narrative game design ideas process video. I know I said something about expression in both of them.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XpJKLfq1jM
I'm not jackswaggering when I say in general authors do not understand copyright or trademarks. If they did, there wouldn't be at least one "scandal" a year in the book community involving it. I've literally had arguments with other authors over how they can't copyright an idea. The amount of "scandals" in the bookish community over copyright and own voices on twitter is literally why I had to leave it. It is too toxic. Yes, they argue over if they "own" their tweets. No. Twitter won't get involved. That's why I say it's better to go with "they aren't copyrighted." Even if they may technically be so legally. (The courts aren't going to try it. There are better things to do.)
I'm willing to bet you understand trademarks and copyright better than I do. Like I said, I don't work in legal. I ended up doing my video after having close to a two or three hour conversation with a young author over the whole MZB affair and why authors don't really read fanfic. And I'm going to bet there are parts of my video that you're going to go "well, that would never happen!" And in general, I'd agree with you. Except, a whole lot of shit is happening otherwise that I didn't think would happen here in America.
I just find it interesting in my long comment that was more about situational ethics than copyright, you honed in on the copyright.
no subject
I don't know why that's interesting. That's a) where I think you were incorrect and b) where I have enough knowledge to correct it. The rest of your comment I didn't materially disagree or agree with enough to comment. Did you want me to acknowledge that?
I think you don't understand why I'm harping on this. It's because I think it's pretty important to be clear about what actually stops and comprises legal cases. Erring on the side of caution would be to say: talk to a lawyer in a consult and listen to them about your chances, but even if you're right you will waste your life trying to get something for it. Erring on the side of caution is not making claims about copyright that aren't accurate (and you did in the first 3 minutes of that video) because you know authors have more emotion than sense, and you think telling them something incorrect will shortcut them to good decision-making.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2021-07-19 03:49 am (UTC)(link)