On Derivative Works

[mark_asphodel]

 Fanfiction is by nature a derivative exercise.

That said, both the overall "fandom" of those who write and the specific fandom communities have rules.  Some of these are modeled on professional literary and scholarly guidelines for behavior, while some are peculiar to fandom.

A) A person takes a story about Innes from the FE section of FFNet,

Comments

[sailorvfan10]

See, if I'm inspired by a piece of meta, or someone else's fic, or something like that, I always say who/what inspired me. I think it's common courtesy, and then others can read the meta or whatever too!

Now I am curious as to what fic you're talking about.

Can everyone join in the fun?
THE MORE THE MERRIER I ALWAYS SAY

[sailorvfan10]

Also what the hell, my HTML isn't working anymore o_O

[raphiael]

It's definitely tricky for C and beyond. C especially largely depends on the attitude of the writer. In the recent case, it was definitely an unintentional thing on the writer's part and hasn't happened since, so that, IMO, is not a big deal at all. However, if someone were consistently writing different-but-similar stories? That's not quite plagiarism, but I'd be really uncomfortable with it.

Also, how in blazes does one substitute Marth for Innes? Maybe Ephraim, or even Eliwood, but Innes?

[mark_asphodel]

However, if someone were consistently writing different-but-similar stories?

Yes, that would be a red flag as well, I agree. But there it's fine to adopt a 'wait and see' approach and not treat every new story they publish as toxic, you know?

Also, how in blazes does one substitute Marth for Innes?.

Not terribly well. I can't imagine the thought processes there.

I can't think of any 'fic in which it would possibly work.

[raphiael]

Absolutely agreed.
Even with the recent fic-ripping guy, there were reviews on his other things asking "what was this ripped from?" and the like, and even that doesn't seem right to me (even though it ended up being ripped anyway). Things should absolutely be on a case-by-case basis.

Tried to imagine a young, somewhat naive Innes - still nothing like Marth. What even.

[mark_asphodel]

Nothing about E is out-and-out wrong, but that strikes me as a case of "if original poster is uncomfortable, derivative poster might want to rethink".

Still, resolving that situation would involve confronting the person to determine whether they even saw the meta in question. It could be a case of parallel thinking. My meta argument in this case was not terribly original... the structural similarities were the really eerie thing.

And I just don't want to deal with that kind of confrontation.

[writerawakened]

You're 100% right--there is most definitely a gray area when it comes to this issue. For me, personally, how I judge it always comes down to mens rea--was there a conscious, malicious intent to plagiarize and do wrong? In cases A and B, it's pretty obvious the plagiarism was conscious and intended to appropriate someone else's work. In the third case, it's the mistake of someone who doesn't know better--there wasn't any intent to encroach on someone's personal writings there and the person had no bad intentions, so there's no problem

[mark_asphodel]

IMO, I think there was an unspoken agreement between all parties that the stories weren't aping each others' works so much as drawing inspiration from a common source and adapting it in different ways.

This is true-- but as the parties engaged in said unspoken agreement, we don't know how this was perceived by those not in the "clique."

This all springboards off the issue of how fandom treats new writers. They don't know about these unspoken agreements, or the boundaries, or any of it. They will make mistakes, and coming down in a punitive manner for mistakes made in good faith gives credence to the various accusations of elitism-- or the perception of it, anyway. And perception = reality on the Internetz.

[sarajayechan]

A and B just fail. Not only is it theft, but it's LAZINESS. Basically these people want to write fic, but can't be bothered to come up with their own ideas. That's just dumb.

C and E are dual-sided situations IMO. I don't the idea that people have to ask special permission to be inspired by someone else's work, it implies that we're all pretentious and selfish snowflakes. On the other hand, taking from someone else's hard work and not bothering to give them credit just strikes me as rude. Fan #1 may not be the only one in the world to come up with an idea, but if Fan #2 is clearly working based on it they should at least give Fan #1 a shout-out.