Article on the legalities of fanfic

[julesjones]

Gacked from Scrivener's Error, although I think I've seen other references to it when I didn't have time to follow links:

http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=Friction-over-Fan-Fiction

Good, thoughtful article on the legalities of fanfic from a Canadian legal perspective, by someone who clearly knows something of the history of fanfic, rather than thinking that it's a product of the Web.

Response to the article in the letters to the editor section:
http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=home

Comments

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff.

It's funny that one of the biggest objections is that "a reader might assume that the source author was somehow associated with the fanwork, or approved of it". This is just as condescending as the idea that the Terrorist!Obamas New Yorker cover is too likely to be taken seriously by the masses. I hope the law can't dictate that we're all too stupid to understand where parody, jokes, and creativity come from.

Yeah, fanwriters can get hot under the collar when they don't like someone else's interpretations, but for all the stories I've heard of fan stupidity, I've never known anyone to mistake fanfic for something approved by the creator of the sourcework.

On the flip side, as a fanfic writer I grew up in communities where everyone was quite careful to write a respectful disclaimer stating that they were borrowing from someone else's work. These days I see less and less of that, to the point where I often stumble across works labeled "fan art", am not familiar with the series, and have no clue what fandom they come from because the artist hasn't given credit. It really does help our cause if we devote a minute to that courtesy.

[julesjones]

I'd like to think that it's a stupid idea that people would think the source author was associated with the fanfic, but I've heard too many tales about the people who can't or won't distinguish between actors and the characters they play to think that it couldn't happen. I can see the same sort of mindset applying with fanfic when you get someone who doesn't know about fanfic Googling on the name of a fandom and stumbling across it.

However, I think a much more realistic worry is the one suggested by Rowling a while back -- she thinks fanfic is good, but has asked that the steamy stuff be kept out of open access archives, because she's worried about kids looking for more Harry Potter stories, and stumbling into the smut. Were I writing Potterverse porn, I'd lock it down for exactly that reason. Torchwood, on the other hand, falls under the heading of "if you're looking for it in the first place, you know to expect porn". :-)