Re-publishing long S&H stories as original novels?

[gideonbd77]

You may have heard about a certain Twilight-fanfic-turned-novel called 50 Shades of Grey and all the brouhaha about it. If you haven't, the non-tl;dr version of the situation is that a fanfic writer in the Twilight fandom posted a many-chaptered AU story featuring Edward/Bella called Masters of the Universe, but then pulled it, changed the names of

Comments

[provencepuss]

it would be legal - a writer has the right to do what s/he likes with his/her work

[zandras_court]

I think the sense of this being "unethical" comes from the unwritten culture of fandom that we agree we are playing in someone else's sandbox, but since we are aren't making money at it, we don't want to be sued ourselves for what we know is copyright infringement. If someone starts to profit, then it can taint the rest of what we do. That fear (and jealousy, lets be honest) leads to cries from the base that somehow we are better than that. This isn't exactly new. The scandal-only-in-fandom over Cassandra Claire comes to mind. But none of that stopped her books from being published.

Sometimes reworks are great and sometimes they are not, but whether they *should* be made has never been an ethical point for Hollywood or publishing houses. No one cries about the ethics of "Death comes to Pemberly" or "Clueless"? Everyone has a different muse. Does the ethics of using that inspiration change because the works are in the public domain? Do we owe real-life muses too? Adele's ex tried to sue her because he felt he was owed some of

[zandras_court]

OK, that was supposed to be it's own comment, but my iPad client made it a reply. Oops.

[kimberlyfdr]

Speaking of Cassandra Clare, CBS news just had an article about her new series and they mention the plagiarism.

Before "City of Bones," Clare was an author of fan fiction, for which writers make up new stories about popular literary characters and settings. Writing under the name Cassandra Claire, she published Harry Potter fan fiction on FanFiction.net in 2000-01. But after allegations that she had borrowed improperly from fantasy writer Pamela Dean, the website removed her work.

I think this is the first time I've seen it mentioned in mainstream media. ONTD is having fun with that one.

[toasterdog]

hmm well to be quite honest

[gideonbd77]

Yeah, I've seen similar opinions on the pages I linked above. It's fascinating how varied the responses have been about the situation! Writers and readers seem to have very different perspectives on publishing.

The thing is, I don't see the point of reading a fanfic in book form if the characters had to be changed to evade copyright issues. If I really liked a story, I'd just print it out myself or have an ebook format of it for reading. Once the characters, places, etc. are changed, it's not the story I like anymore, which defeats the purpose of making it into a book in the first place. You might as well just create your own characters and worlds, and rest easy knowing that your profits are fully yours. As for authors deserving monetary gain, fame, etc., sure, as a writer/artist in the industry, I totally get that, but ... it's only positive to me if those things are earned without taking advantage of other people/fandom and, if the situation calls for it, original creators/estates are compensated.

[kimberlyfdr]

Since I follow a lot of people in the publishing industry (writers, agents, etc) I saw this debate emerging over the past few weeks and in the back of my mind I kept thinking "yeah, but we knew about this first in fandom

[gideonbd77]

Fandom: We Are Everywhere! *grin*

You have raised good points and food for thought for me. I don't see anything wrong with basing a character's physical appearance on a real person, though, in prose form. You can copyright fictional characters but I don't think you can copyright a person's physical appearance in words, celebrity or not. I mean, how many ways can you describe a curly-haired, blue-eyed man with a big grin? :P (In art/comics/graphic novels, it's another story altogether.)

Now I wonder ... does what happened with 50 Shades of Grey mean that fanfic writers everywhere can now openly do the same with their own fanfics?

[kimberlyfdr]

What happened with 50 Shades of Grey isn't typical. It made news because it was an anomaly. She published with a small press, the word of mouth of fandom made it hugely popular on sites where the publishing industry pays attention, and now she's getting a news-worthy publishing deal with a larger house because of it. And if she doesn't earn out her advance (which I don't think will be easy) her subsequent publishing career is going to be damaged. Just because one author beats the system doesn't mean it will open the door for others to do the same. It's a business, but one that can't necessarily build on the back of single successes.

[gideonbd77]

You mentioned that you follow lots of people in the industry. Just curious, would her book have been published by any of the big presses? I'd been told that big-name publishers do not accept any work that has already been posted on the internet. Is that true?

[librathree]

It's funny ... my gut reaction is that it's kinda sleazy ... but when I think about it, the author (say it was me) came up with the scenarios, the dialogue, the plotline, etc. - that is, a lot of original work goes into any decent fanfic. So if I were to revamp S&H as different people, etc., then I've done all the work that goes into any original story ... I guess I'm not sure why it doesn't then count as an original story.

Interesting ...

[gideonbd77]

Yeah, I know what you mean. My gut says this is unethical, regardless of the minor changes to turn it into an original novel (to evade copyright issues, basically). The author may have come up with all that stuff, but the thing is, she still used very popular characters that don't belong to her upon which to build all that stuff. In some ways, a lot of the hard work was already done by Meyer. All the fanfic writer had to do was use what Meyer had already built with the Twilight characters.

When you say revamp, what do you mean exactly?

[librathree]

Well, if I revamp S&H so they aren't S&H, but are, for instance, two cop partners in a city (say Johnson and Coleman, partners at the LAPD, one a midwesterner and one from NYC) - you can't really copyright a premise ("This is about two cop partners in a city"). Y'know? I mean, I don't think my fanfic (using the personal because it's what I know best) is 80 percent canon and 20 percent my work. I'd say it's closer to 50/50, or even 80/20 the other way (since after all all my dialogue, scenes, plot and even interpretation of the characters are my own and not lifted verbatim from the show - names and circumstances and history certainly are, of course).

I don't know ... I just think a lot of original effort goes into any halfway decent fanfic, so to take the part that is wholly canon (names, places, etc) and changing it ... it makes it original fic, I guess. I guess I'm not sure how it's different. If you didn't know ... you wouldn't know, if you follow me.

[librathree]

Sorry - to conclude the thought, that means it's neither immoral nor unethical.