There should always be a devil's advocate. ;) But the people I think might need defending here are perhaps the ones that express doubt about the idea of fanfiction, or the specifics of it when applied to their material (e.g. in some fandoms, particularly those where canon is focused at children, it would be fair for the creator to have all sorts of censorship concerns at the very least, though that's really sort of another issue). I absolutely believe that it's logical to have misgivings about such a thing. It's clearly a complicated issue. But there's also clearly a reason why, despite decades of fanfiction being popular in one form or another (more so recently with the internet, of course), authors haven't banded together and claimed copyright to stop it. If there was any kind of risk to their own interests that was more than fleeting, you can bet they would have acted en masse. Instead, most of them are content (or at least grudgingly willing) to let their fans do as they will in this matter, as long as we don't escalate the issue by demanding money for our efforts or by infringing on the freedom of the authors themselves.
For those few authors, though, that choose to distinguish themselves by completely outlawing fan contributions out of hand (and, more particularly, for those that kick up a massive hissy fit every time the issue comes up in any way instead of even considering any arguments contrary to the way their mind is set), I don't think the same defences necessarily apply. I might have missed something, but from what I've seen their experience is no different from the vast majority who don't feel the need to isolate their fans over this. There seems to be a level of irrationality in the way some of them kick their heels in so completely on this issue. And maybe that overlooks one or two authors whose history with the issue is a little different (who might have had enough personal experience with fandom somehow causing them as an individual actual harm in some way), but I'll freely admit that I'm dealing in generalisations here, so that's a flaw that I'll concede.
For those few authors, though, that choose to distinguish themselves by completely outlawing fan contributions out of hand (and, more particularly, for those that kick up a massive hissy fit every time the issue comes up in any way instead of even considering any arguments contrary to the way their mind is set), I don't think the same defences necessarily apply. I might have missed something, but from what I've seen their experience is no different from the vast majority who don't feel the need to isolate their fans over this. There seems to be a level of irrationality in the way some of them kick their heels in so completely on this issue. And maybe that overlooks one or two authors whose history with the issue is a little different (who might have had enough personal experience with fandom somehow causing them as an individual actual harm in some way), but I'll freely admit that I'm dealing in generalisations here, so that's a flaw that I'll concede.
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