Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Annie Proulx's still pissed...
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on March 05, 2010, 01:54:55 pm ---
appropriation is not the right word for what fanfiction writers are doing. Stealing is the right word.
--- End quote ---
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about this.
I think it would be stealing if someone took the entirety or large chunks of the original short story word for word and claimed it as their own writing. I've never seen that in fanfic. Most of the stories quickly veer pretty far away from the original.
serious crayons:
I'm somewhere in between you two. I think many fan fic writers have nothing but good intentions, many are talented, and their work is a tribute to Proulx's genius. I'm sure there's an element of respect in most or all of it.
But it's not about their intentions or the quality of the work, it's about a writer's control of his/her intellectual property. Jane Austen, Shakespeare and L. Frank Baum are all dead. The copyrights on their works have expired, and their writing is in the public domain. When fan fic with more recent characters gets published as books -- for example, all of those Star Trek novels -- there's no doubt the originator of the story gives permission and gets paid. It took Margaret Mitchell's foundation years to grant permission for a sequel, and I would guess the publisher paid. Someone who made money off Harry Potter characters found him/herself in court. As with all filmmakers, Larry and Diana don't qualify as fan fic writers because Proulx was paid for the rights to her work.
I'm not sure to what extent it's possible to make money on fan fic, but if anyone does so it would violate the spirit of the copyright law as well as, I'm sure, the letter. Otherwise, if I were Annie Proulx, I think I'd probably shrug it off. It probably leads more people to buy her books, and complaining irascibly alienates fans.
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 05, 2010, 02:11:43 pm ---I'm somewhere in between you two. I think many fan fic writers have nothing but good intentions, many are talented, and their work is a tribute to Proulx's genius. I'm sure there's an element of respect in most or all of it.
But it's not about their intentions or the quality of the work, it's about a writer's control of his/her intellectual property. Jane Austen, Shakespeare and L. Frank Baum are all dead. The copyrights on their works have expired, and their writing is in the public domain. When fan fic with more recent characters gets published as books -- for example, all of those Star Trek novels -- there's no doubt the originator of the story gives permission and gets paid. It took Margaret Mitchell's foundation years to grant permission for a sequel, and I would guess the publisher paid. Someone who made money off Harry Potter characters found him/herself in court. As with all filmmakers, Larry and Diana don't qualify as fan fic writers because Proulx was paid for the rights to her work.
I'm not sure to what extent it's possible to make money on fan fic, but if anyone does so it would violate the spirit of the copyright law as well as, I'm sure, the letter. Otherwise, if I were Annie Proulx, I think I'd probably shrug it off. It probably leads more people to buy her books, and complaining irascibly alienates fans.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I can see those points about recent vs. very old/ older writing and the intricacies of copyright law. I think the vast majority of fanfic (regardless of quality) would never come close to being published. Most of it seems to be a way to work through ideas inspired by BBM one way or another. But, it does raise an interesting question about how far away content can stray (and some fanfic strays very, very far from the original context) and still be considered closely connected enough to the original short story for it to even be an issue. I'd say a lot of it is just loosely inspired by BBM (whether it is the movie or the story).
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 05, 2010, 02:11:43 pm ---But it's not about their intentions or the quality of the work, it's about a writer's control of his/her intellectual property. Jane Austen, Shakespeare and L. Frank Baum are all dead. The copyrights on their works have expired, and their writing is in the public domain.
--- End quote ---
Not that this will necessarily add anything to the discussion, but the first writer to pop into my mind was Arthur Conan Doyle. Years ago it was S.O.P. for me to read a nouveau Sherlock Holmes novel (e.g., Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution) while I was on my summer vacation.
Clearly it makes a legal difference, but perhaps some would question whether the age of work and the status, living or dead, of the writer, makes a moral difference.
--- Quote ---When fan fic with more recent characters gets published as books -- for example, all of those Star Trek novels -- there's no doubt the originator of the story gives permission and gets paid. It took Margaret Mitchell's foundation years to grant permission for a sequel, and I would guess the publisher paid.
--- End quote ---
And the Mitchell Estate went to court to block publication of The Wind Done Gone, which retold the story of Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the O'Haras slaves. But let be, let be.
Monika:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 05, 2010, 01:57:19 pm ---I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about this.
I think it would be stealing if someone took the entirety or large chunks of the original short story word for word and claimed it as their own writing. I've never seen that in fanfic. Most of the stories quickly veer pretty far away from the original.
--- End quote ---
fan fiction is far from stealing. The characters in fan fiction might have the same names as Jack and Ennis, but the stories are original and the characters are never the same as in the original story. Every fan fiction contains it's own unique fictitious universe.
These stories have their origin in BBM, but they aren´t BBM. Writing fan fiction is ones way to pay tribute.
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