Fic from deleted journals, fair game?

[vickyblueeyez]

 Hello, I'm new and I have an issue/question. Recently an author deleted their fic from LJ and FF.net by deleting their accounts. The author cannot be reached. I've saved said fic as a PDF and don't know if I can distribute it

Comments

[kappamaki33]

From a legal perspective, if you subscribe to the idea that a person has any rights in fanfic, the right to distribute (or not distribute) is one of them. Essentially, you'd be 1) making a copy of their fic, and 2) distributing it without the author's consent. Attribution doesn't save you. If I Xerox the entire Harry Potter series and keep the "by J.K. Rowling" title page, I'm still infringing her copyright, even if I'm not claiming the work is mine. The same idea applies if I scan the books and post them on my website with the title page intact. What you're proposing to do is no different than that

[astridv]

What? No. Look, I'm not a lawyer either but that's not what public domain means, even I know that. (I'm an artist and try to keep myself informed about copyright issues.)

The act of publishing something online != the work entering the public domain.

[vamysteryfan]

I second kappamaki33's comments. The author took it off the Net which mean he/she doesn't want it seen/read/distributed any more. It's basic courtesy to respect the author's wishes.

[kaylle]

I agree with what's been said above. I'm not a lawyer, but from a fandom culture perspective, this is heavily frowned upon in every fandom I've been a part of. We tend to be respectful of an author's right to control where their story is archived and how it is distributed. The argument that by putting it on the internet they've lost all control of it may be strictly true legally, but it isn't a very good moral argument.

[fides]

It just isn't fannish practice to post it back to the web without permission of the author. It's just not done and I would expect there to be a backlash against it.

That said, I slightly disagree with the previous posters that it is never, ever acceptable because it isn't totally unknown for people to ask about a story that has been taken down and for someone to say that they have a copy... and then for a private discussion to occur in which a copy of the story may or may not change hands in the spirit of fannish friendship. However that is very different from publicly posting it - or even publicly announcing that you have a copy to share

[cschick]

Right. There is more than one fandom out there with a "lost-and-found" type of forum which at least partly participates in this type of private distribution. The XF Lost & Found message board is obviously the one that comes immediately to my mind (being both public and extremely well organized), but I've located and used such resources in fandoms outside XF as well.

[fides]

I suspect it happens more in older fandoms where archives have fallen over or gone offline (incidentally taking works with them) rather than the author deliberately pulling their works. The former sadly happens all to often while the later is, thankfully, comparatively rare.

[cschick]

Heh. Being who I am, I know that probably 75% of the stories passed around this way in XF at least, were deliberately taken down by authors.

But, back to the OP ... maybe for your fandom, the better idea would be to create some sort of forum where people can post requests for help finding fiction within the fandom, the side effect of which might be the evolution of this type of system.

[cschick]

And, vickyblueeyez, I just glanced at your journal and recent public posts. You might personally be interested in looking into the Creative Commons licenses for your own fannish work. One of the aspects of the Creative Commons licenses is that they are perpetual (to the extent of copyright). Once you've released a work under a CC license, people are free to take advantage of the releases from copyright you've granted until copyright expires.