Anti-fanfic bingo, Line Three
Fanfic Bingo, Round Three: Five issues: Raping the characters, MZB, ickyslash, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and immorality. Worthy of five essays, or one big one that ties in threads of ethics and legalities and the conundrum of our court system.
I can't write it. I look at this line on the card, and I just get hung up on one topic: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. I want to weep.
Years ago, when I was a new fan, oblivious to fannish politics and legalities of fanworks, I attended a science fiction convention in San Jose, California. (BayCon. Memorial day weekend. I attended it for 20 years.) My first year at the con-my first sci-fi gathering ever-I was introduced to filk music: Leslie Fish's "Banned From Argo," sung by three people over a photocopied set of lyrics in the back corner of a hotel room party.
I'm not sure if it was next year or the year after that figured out that what I'd heard was called "filk," and went looking for more of it. I found it.
Jordan Kare sings a song called "The Bride of St. Germain," which is one of the most beautiful achy ballads I've ever heard. It talks about the loneliness of the ages, and fear of never having companionship… and the unexpected delight of finding a mate, someone willing to face the sorrows and share the joys of a very long life, isolated from all other human beings. I loved the song. It rings in my head today, the couple of lines I can remember.
The next year, I asked for it. (This was a big step for me; I'm shy.) (Shaddup. I am so. In person.) Jordan was willing to sing it again. Yaaay! Happy song. Well, not exactly happy, but sweet and haunting and angsty, exactly what I wanted to hear, filling my head with thoughts about the price of immortality and the rare, precious gift of love. Awww.
I asked if it's available anywhere. It's not recorded on any live filk tapes, and at the time, Jordan didn't have any commercial recordings. (He's got two now; I have them.) Not only is not available, the lyrics & music aren't available (commercially); apparently, St. Germain is a character in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's books, and her publisher is beyond fanatic in pursuing "copyright infringement."
(St. Germain is also a historical figure, a mysteriously long-lived one. Her contribution to the legend is the idea that he's a vampire.)
So… this beautiful song, that rings in my head more than twenty years after I heard it, that convinced me to read some of Yarbro's books (which I liked, but never stood out as favorites), that got me to research and read other articles about an intriguing historical figure… can't be shared. Can be sung at no-recordings gatherings, but can't be kept on tape to give to people who weren't there. (Possibly couldn't be sung, if her publishers could figure out how to prevent it.) Can't have the lyrics put on a website. Can't even confirm the existence of the song through Google… that's how firmly this beautiful artwork has been suppressed.
I don't even know if Ms. Yarbro agrees with this censorship. I don't know if Jordan wrote the song, or got it from someone else who can't publish it either.
There is… something very wrong here.
I don't have any solutions. I don't know how to balance an author/ artist/ singer/ whatever's right to promote and earn from their work, with the public's ethical right to react to that work and create new things inspired by it. I know that authors should have the right to make follow-ups and derivatives and convert their books to movies, without some new person grabbing their characters and settings and ruining those venues for the original. I want Frank Herbert (or his estate) to profit from both the movie Dune and the Sci-Fi channel's miniseries; I don't want either competing with a dozen fannish variants-Herbert created a masterpiece, and I want to know how his vision looks on screen; while I adore fanworks, I don't want them confused with the originals, nor driving away customers from the originals.
And yet…
Dammit, something's wrong. These laws are supposed to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution). And they have failed. They are not promoting progress, not of science (which is hampered by patent laws tripping over each other, and inability to quote relevant papers because of copyright concerns), and not of the useful arts-they are handing an economic stranglehold on creativity to whoever's lawyers have the biggest stick.
The third time I heard "The Bride of St. Germain," more than fifteen years ago-I became a crusader for copyright law reform.
Because oh, my friends, you should hear this song. And it is an atrocity, that you cannot hear it with a single voice an acoustic guitar-but if Metallica heard it (I don't know how; they're not known for their filk leanings), and decided they wanted to do a vampire-themed album, and went to Yarbro's publishers with an offer of substantial rewards, you could probably hear the heavy metal version.
We need our laws to acknowledge the importance of small arts, shared among friends with a few bucks exchanged to cover the cost of production and sharing, as important to our culture. We need our laws to not be slanted in favor of the highest bidder. We need our laws to liberate creativity, not stifle it-to acknowledge it can't be invoked or controlled by corporate decree.
I weep for the fate of this song, and the hundreds of other beautiful songs, and the countless heart-wrenching stories, and the funny videos, that I haven't seen or heard or watched, because the IP owner is holding out for more tribute than the poor person who was inspired by their works can afford. I scowl at the awareness of all medicines we don't have because the company that owns them won't allow anything similar to be created, even if invented independently. I rage at the papers that aren't being written, on sociology and history and psychology, because they'd need to quote from pop-culture elements, and the universities that can't afford the hint of a possibility of a lawsuit don't allow such quoting, and of course grad students can't afford Disney's usage fees.
THIS IS NOT RIGHT. Something must change. Art and science must not be held for ransom.
Because oh, my friends, you should hear this song.
I can't write it. I look at this line on the card, and I just get hung up on one topic: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. I want to weep.
Years ago, when I was a new fan, oblivious to fannish politics and legalities of fanworks, I attended a science fiction convention in San Jose, California. (BayCon. Memorial day weekend. I attended it for 20 years.) My first year at the con-my first sci-fi gathering ever-I was introduced to filk music: Leslie Fish's "Banned From Argo," sung by three people over a photocopied set of lyrics in the back corner of a hotel room party.
I'm not sure if it was next year or the year after that figured out that what I'd heard was called "filk," and went looking for more of it. I found it.
Jordan Kare sings a song called "The Bride of St. Germain," which is one of the most beautiful achy ballads I've ever heard. It talks about the loneliness of the ages, and fear of never having companionship… and the unexpected delight of finding a mate, someone willing to face the sorrows and share the joys of a very long life, isolated from all other human beings. I loved the song. It rings in my head today, the couple of lines I can remember.
The next year, I asked for it. (This was a big step for me; I'm shy.) (Shaddup. I am so. In person.) Jordan was willing to sing it again. Yaaay! Happy song. Well, not exactly happy, but sweet and haunting and angsty, exactly what I wanted to hear, filling my head with thoughts about the price of immortality and the rare, precious gift of love. Awww.
I asked if it's available anywhere. It's not recorded on any live filk tapes, and at the time, Jordan didn't have any commercial recordings. (He's got two now; I have them.) Not only is not available, the lyrics & music aren't available (commercially); apparently, St. Germain is a character in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's books, and her publisher is beyond fanatic in pursuing "copyright infringement."
(St. Germain is also a historical figure, a mysteriously long-lived one. Her contribution to the legend is the idea that he's a vampire.)
So… this beautiful song, that rings in my head more than twenty years after I heard it, that convinced me to read some of Yarbro's books (which I liked, but never stood out as favorites), that got me to research and read other articles about an intriguing historical figure… can't be shared. Can be sung at no-recordings gatherings, but can't be kept on tape to give to people who weren't there. (Possibly couldn't be sung, if her publishers could figure out how to prevent it.) Can't have the lyrics put on a website. Can't even confirm the existence of the song through Google… that's how firmly this beautiful artwork has been suppressed.
I don't even know if Ms. Yarbro agrees with this censorship. I don't know if Jordan wrote the song, or got it from someone else who can't publish it either.
There is… something very wrong here.
I don't have any solutions. I don't know how to balance an author/ artist/ singer/ whatever's right to promote and earn from their work, with the public's ethical right to react to that work and create new things inspired by it. I know that authors should have the right to make follow-ups and derivatives and convert their books to movies, without some new person grabbing their characters and settings and ruining those venues for the original. I want Frank Herbert (or his estate) to profit from both the movie Dune and the Sci-Fi channel's miniseries; I don't want either competing with a dozen fannish variants-Herbert created a masterpiece, and I want to know how his vision looks on screen; while I adore fanworks, I don't want them confused with the originals, nor driving away customers from the originals.
And yet…
Dammit, something's wrong. These laws are supposed to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution). And they have failed. They are not promoting progress, not of science (which is hampered by patent laws tripping over each other, and inability to quote relevant papers because of copyright concerns), and not of the useful arts-they are handing an economic stranglehold on creativity to whoever's lawyers have the biggest stick.
The third time I heard "The Bride of St. Germain," more than fifteen years ago-I became a crusader for copyright law reform.
Because oh, my friends, you should hear this song. And it is an atrocity, that you cannot hear it with a single voice an acoustic guitar-but if Metallica heard it (I don't know how; they're not known for their filk leanings), and decided they wanted to do a vampire-themed album, and went to Yarbro's publishers with an offer of substantial rewards, you could probably hear the heavy metal version.
We need our laws to acknowledge the importance of small arts, shared among friends with a few bucks exchanged to cover the cost of production and sharing, as important to our culture. We need our laws to not be slanted in favor of the highest bidder. We need our laws to liberate creativity, not stifle it-to acknowledge it can't be invoked or controlled by corporate decree.
I weep for the fate of this song, and the hundreds of other beautiful songs, and the countless heart-wrenching stories, and the funny videos, that I haven't seen or heard or watched, because the IP owner is holding out for more tribute than the poor person who was inspired by their works can afford. I scowl at the awareness of all medicines we don't have because the company that owns them won't allow anything similar to be created, even if invented independently. I rage at the papers that aren't being written, on sociology and history and psychology, because they'd need to quote from pop-culture elements, and the universities that can't afford the hint of a possibility of a lawsuit don't allow such quoting, and of course grad students can't afford Disney's usage fees.
THIS IS NOT RIGHT. Something must change. Art and science must not be held for ransom.
Because oh, my friends, you should hear this song.