I have to admit, I'm still puzzled by the MZB one. Sure, there was the "fanfic" lawsuit (there were a lot of lawsuits in her life, sadly), but she not only encouraged fanfic, she published it. For decades. I know several people who sold their first stories to her. Insofar as I'm aware (and I was, at the time, in the same SCA group as one of her editorial assistants on the magazine), she was continuing to work on Darkover anthologies that included fanwork right up to the time of her death.
She approved of fanfiction in theory, and supported it for a long time. And then a fan sued her (or threatened to sue)... and that was the end of the open Darkover anthologies.
I think the message is "you can't allow fanfic; those bastard fans will turn around and sue you!" It's got nothing to do with MZB's support of fanfic; her name is used as a warning to authors not to permit fanfic for fear of having their own publishing rights curtailed.
Right, I'm familiar with the story. And after some review, I'm seeing assertions made that MZB had to "stop allowing Darkover fanfic in 1992" following the lawsuit issue.
This is interesting, because Snows of Darkover, the last Darkover anthology, was published by Ace in 1994.
Apparently I confused (above) the Darkover anthologies with S&S, which is what she was working on in '99.
*shrug* I dunno, I've always thought a better message would be, "If a fan novel you've read is so close to the book you've submitted to your publisher that the publisher won't print it, maybe you need to rewrite your novel." Or, "Don't publish fan work yourself," though when I was younger I loved the Darkover anthologies.
I dunno, I've always thought a better message would be, "If a fan novel you've read is so close to the book you've submitted to your publisher that the publisher won't print it, maybe you need to rewrite your novel."
Which is an excellent anti-fanfic argument. If you don't allow fanfic, you don't run the risk of someone writing something similar enough to your work you'll run into trouble.
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Oh no no no, all the sex I write is consentual.
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I think the message is "you can't allow fanfic; those bastard fans will turn around and sue you!" It's got nothing to do with MZB's support of fanfic; her name is used as a warning to authors not to permit fanfic for fear of having their own publishing rights curtailed.
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This is interesting, because Snows of Darkover, the last Darkover anthology, was published by Ace in 1994.
Apparently I confused (above) the Darkover anthologies with S&S, which is what she was working on in '99.
*shrug* I dunno, I've always thought a better message would be, "If a fan novel you've read is so close to the book you've submitted to your publisher that the publisher won't print it, maybe you need to rewrite your novel." Or, "Don't publish fan work yourself," though when I was younger I loved the Darkover anthologies.
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Which is an excellent anti-fanfic argument. If you don't allow fanfic, you don't run the risk of someone writing something similar enough to your work you'll run into trouble.
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You know, this is exactly the kind of over-identification that has led certain folks into walking the streets of Burbank in vampire capes.
And isn't over-identifying what we get made fun of for doing?
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That's what your back button is for.
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...sometimes that's canon.
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