Anti-fanfic bingo, Line Three

[elfwreck]

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

Comments

[intheyear2004]

Here via...? Forgot how I got here.

But that's BS! Her publisher can't copyright St.Germain. For instance, Umberto Eco uses him, too, in "Foucault's Pendulum" and I'm sure I've seen him mentioned by a few other writers, too. He was a historical figure, more or less, after all. Someone should finally stand up to them. I'm pretty sure these publishers have no chance of winning that lawsuit.

[elfwreck]

She can't copyright St. Germain, but this is a song specifically about the St. Germain character from her books--the one who's a vampire and so forth.

The real issue is whether an author can suppress all uses of their characters and settings in other creative works. (Or possibly, whether they can suppress them in all non-parodic works.)

The publishers can win lawsuits if the defendant is poor... convincing a non-fannish, non-history-freak judge that something using "St Germain" is derivative of CQY's books isn't hard, if the other side can't explain why it's not. And all the publisher has to do is throw a few thousand dollars at the problem, and the fanficcer or filker or artist or whatever will almost certainly agree to an out-of-court settlement involving removing the work from public view.

After all, how many days of work can you miss to defend your right to share a short story by email?

[intheyear2004]

Oh, I understand. But still, there's such a thing as principle. Well, perhaps the OTW can help once it is established. I personally would risk that lawsuit in a heartbeat, because if you use another medium, like book to song, you sure can argue that that's transformative. I've no idea how lawsuits work where you are, but I'm not rich and I *never* hesitate to either sue or be sued and have sofar not lost much money. I mean, I do think you give the law too little credit, even an ignorant judge can be convinced, if you have a valid argument.

[elfwreck]

An ignorant judge can be convinced... if you show up or send a representative to court. Where do you live, and where does Ms. Yarbro live, and where does her publisher manage to file suit? (All rhetorical questions, those.)

If the song is recorded at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest convention, does it get prosecuted in Ohio, or in New York where the person who made the recording lives? Or in San Francisco, where LiveJournal is, if the lyrics were posted on LJ? Can the publisher find a way to file suit in whichever location is least convenient for you?With a lot of these cases, it's not so much that "the judges are idiots," but that it's hard for the defendants to even make a token attempt

[klangley56]

Yes, do recall that Yarbro went after the fanzine THE HOLMESIAN FEDERATION in 1991 when they published a story with St. Germain in it. In that zine's editorial, the editor noted "Ms. Yarbro was not supportive of the idea of a story using her character, so I hope, should she ever read this, she will forgive [us].

Suffice to say, she did not. The editor had to cease sales of the zine, issue a letter of explanation and apology to all and sundry (don't think I kept my copy, unless it's buried somewhere), and so on.