fan fiction

[mizkit]

I should not even post this, because it is a shitstorm in the making, but OMG.

Sharon Lee/ of Sharon Lee & Steve Miller is doing an open Q&A, and posts a response to a question about fan fiction over here.

Fan fiction is an incredibly touchy topic, and I thought Sharon responded with an enormous amount of grace and intelligence in her explanation

Comments

[ruford42]

There's a lot of confusion out there when it comes to IP law. And if the Samsung/Apple trial of the decade (OK it might be less "of the decade" so much as "lasted the entire damned decade") illustrates, there may well be plenty of confusion over how to enact and interpret it in the system and courts as well!

In the US, we have three basic types of IP: Copyright, patents, and marks (both service and trade marks).

Copyright is for original works of art. Patents are for ideas and innovations while marks are for words, phrases, symbols and/or designs that distinguish the source of goods or services in a given industry.

Patents and marks both have to be registered and defended.

In patent law, if you fail to enforce your rights over a length of time you risk running afoul of the doctrines of estopple and/or laches which would limit or forbid your ability to recover financial damages.

Similarily, if you fail to maintain the registration for a mark or defend against a challenge -- the mark can be abandoned.

Copyright, at least since the Copyright Act of 1976 was passed, does not require registration. So long as it is not a work for hire, you own all copyrights, immediately, upon creation up until you either sign those rights away for you've been dead for 70 years.

Furthermore, the existence of fan fiction or of any derivative work, licensed or not, does not diminish the owner's rights to create or license any additional or derivative works.

That said, I can think of three possible reasons why an author would not want to even hear about your fan-fiction, or anything else you may have written:

1) The horror story I always heard about is the case where a fan gets to meet the author and gushingly shows her this great story, or idea for a story they had. Then a few months/years later the author has another book come out, but this time the characters and/or plot bare some resemblance to something that played out in the other book. The fan suddenly becomes less fannish and more of an engraged, entitled twit and tries to steal the author for infringement because she obviously stole that story from them...

2) While technically the rights of the owner are not diminished by non-licensed derivative works, ala fan-fiction -- It can have other effects. For example, if an author started knew about a lot of fan-fiction and let it slide -- then it possibly opens the door for other uses of derivative works (Joanne action figure anyone?!? :) for which the author might not be OK, but might very well find themselves arguing in court with a lawyer claiming there was an implicit license.

I have yet to encounter the author who would rather be pulling their hair out because they were dealing with a lawyer rather than just a bazillion deadlines :)

3) Well...It's quite possible they are PAINFULLY aware of how bad their own fan fiction was back in the day! :-)

[aberwyn]

Thanks for that clarification!