I Feel Like Starting An Argument: Writing a fanfiction based on ANY story you've ever read is perfectly fine***

[SimonDoom]

This just comes down to, "This is what I want to do, and you can't stop me."

It doesn't strike me as a courteous, adult way to act. You're getting a lot of input from other authors in this forum who strongly disagree and would be offended by your doing this, and you don't care.

I'll leave it at that.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

For a lot of people this isn't a playful matter. Plenty of writers have a strong attachment to their characters and stories, and joking about it probably comes across as dismissive and insulting.

Well for the record, I started this with a joke from the start, so I figured that everyone knew what they were getting into.

 

[litfan10]

Well for the record, I started this with a joke from the start, so I figured that everyone knew what they were getting into.

Sadly the past, present and probably future says otherwise

 

[MediocreAuthor]

This just comes down to, "This is what I want to do, and you can't stop me."

It doesn't strike me as a courteous, adult way to act. You're getting a lot of input from other authors in this forum who strongly disagree and would be offended by your doing this, and you don't care.

I'll leave it at that.

I wouldn't say I don't care. Truth is I do care, and I would never use anyone's IP without permission (small creators at least).

I just don't see the harm in it, and I think that people who care so deeply should do the bare minimum of making their feelings known in their bio or whatever.

 

[AlinaX]

So many fragile egos.

 

[Plathfan]

I've got a story here that's eight years old, and I have every intention of writing a final chapter for it, eventually. It might be another five years, who knows. But I don't need to badge it to tell anyone that, because it's mine.

But if someone approaches you, you'll respond quickly because you're active. If months go by without a response from you, you're likely no longer with us. If you've been completely inactive on both sides for years, your work will eventually be forgotten (unless you have a presence on the top lists). You're obviously aware of that, and that's probably the only reason you haven't put up that little sign on the door.

 

[THBGato]

I recently read a wonderful book by Caro de Robertis called The Palace of Eros - a retelling of the Persephone myth having Eros be transgender. They made it work brilliantly. Right now I'm reading Masquerade by O. O. Santorini a mash up of the Persephone myth with African lore from the time of early Timbuktu. So far a great book.

Am I glad these authors wrote this books? Absolutely. Do I consider them fanfiction-ish? No. These authors took a concept extending them to a point clearly making them their own.

Reading these make me appreciate what the authors have done and their creativity/imagination. It adds to my enjoyment of the original.

Well, if you really want to get into it, we could bring up Harold Bloom's anxiety of influence and discuss whether these count as Tessera or Clinamen. I mean, was Nikolai Leskov's The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District fan fiction? Was Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time a total rip off of inspired by the Lord of the Rings?

(I'm with you by the way. Where would we be without West Side Story, Clueless or The Handmaid's Tale?)

 

[AwkwardMD]

*Puts on glasses, and checks clipboard*

So which of your characters would you prefer to see in the fanfic?

Definitely don't read the whole thing to include them all.

 

[litfan10]

Well, if you really want to get into it, we could bring up Harold Bloom's anxiety of influence and discuss whether these count as Tessera or Clinamen. I mean, was Nikolai Leskov's The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District fan fiction? Was Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time a total rip off of inspired by the Lord of the Rings?

(I'm with you by the way. Where would we be without West Side Story, Clueless or The Handmaid's Tale?)

I always think of Terry Brooks Sword of Shannara as the ultimate wannabe, even though I love the first two Shannara books a lot, the other multi dozens not so much.

Like Dune, Frank's six are classic and great. His son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson (a very good writer in his own right) upteen gazillion sequels and prequels, not so much.

Besides isn't Amazon's Ring of Power series and Peter Jackson's Hobbit series really deluxe fanfic? I feel his LOTR trilogy is a faithful reproduction. He took way too many liberties in the Hobbit IMHO.

Another point - from childhood. I passionately LOVED the original Planet of the Apes and have enjoyed everything since be it movie, comic, tv series or books and am glad they were all made. But every single of them mention with credit, Pierre Boulle's original novel which besides having apes ruling over humans really didn't have much to do with the original movie.

But that is one of my points, because of the very different movie I went back and discovered and enjoyed Boulle's book. Not so free advertising.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

@SimonDoom

I really wanted to hear your response to my silly little false equivalency featured here:

You and I are metaphorical kids on a playground, and I find an abandoned toy.

Me: "Someone left this a long time ago. I'm gonna play with it."

You: "That's somebody else's! You're stealing!"

Me: "No, they abandoned it! They wrote their name on it though... but no contact info." *At the top of my lungs* "HEY, ANDY! IS THERE AN ANDY HERE? YOU LEFT YOUR TOY HERE! IF YOU COME OVER HERE, YOU CAN HAVE IT BACK!! I'm just gonna play with it until he shows up... if ever."

You: "Playing with that toy is theft, and it's icky and wrong!"

Me: "But I couldn't find the original owner! I haven't taken anything from them!"

You: "You can see from my reaction that others disagree with you. You're making unwarranted assumptions about the original owner of that toy. AND I'm telling!"

Me:

---

(PS: that was not a serious argument, I'm just trying to explain how my mind equates the idea)

(if you already remarked on it, your response got lost in the replies)

 

[lovecraft68]

And now the laugh emoji to pretend it doesn't bother you.

That emoji is the new white flag/ ouch, that stung, but I'll act like its funny.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

And now the laugh emoji to pretend it doesn't bother you.

That emoji is the new white flag/ ouch, that stung, but I'll act like its funny

It is funny! I'm enjoy this discussion, and I hope you are too.

I honestly don't understand how you think I've said anything unacceptable. But I don't think you have, and you haven't offended me. How can I make this more clear?

 

[nice90sguy]

It is funny!

good thing you're trying your material out of town

The number of times I've posted something that nobody except me got, or found funny, has made me completely immune to the upset responses. But what I don't do, is plug away at threads that I started trying to explain why they're funny

The thing is, plagiarism is taken much more seriously by some authors than others. You can see that from the responses. Personally I don't give a shit about my stories being plagiarised (it's happened to me on here before), but that's just me being all ultra open-source about my stuff

 

[Bramblethorn]

For a lot of people this isn't a playful matter. Plenty of writers have a strong attachment to their characters and stories, and joking about it probably comes across as dismissive and insulting.

Yup. If the person you're "playing" with isn't enjoying the game, then what you're actually doing is "having fun at their expense".

 

[AlinaX]

Yeah, it was an act of despicable cruelty to force everyone to contribute to this thread.

 

[nice90sguy]

Like a red rag to a damn bull, I know

 

[intim8]

You're definitely not allowed to write a fanfic of my Aces series. In fact, you're not even allowed to read it without asking me first, in writing, sent by registered US mail.

And while we're at it, I don't recall giving you permission to read this response.

Y'all realize that OP obviously necro'd @Devinter 's "homage" thread yesterday, then tried to do something in the spirit of it, right?

A bit derivative, and maybe pushed the wrong buttons, but I'm getting too old to take it so seriously.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

And this is how M's trolling career started...

Btw, I wouldn't mind it personally if you used my characters as long as you credit me and as long as I was okay with the way they were being used - in other words, if my characters weren't behaving (much) out of character. For example, if my fantasy series MC suddenly became a rapist, sadist, or something like that.
Of course, that's just me. I understand the sensitivity of this topic and why people react badly. Personally, if someone wanted to rewrite some of my chapters/stories or to continue them, now that would piss me off very much. Taking the characters and putting them in some unrelated setting is something I am okay with, with the caveats I mentioned.

 

[intim8]

Btw, I wouldn't mind it personally if you used my characters as long as you credit me and as long as I was okay with the way they were being used - in other words, if my characters weren't behaving (much) out of character.

OK, for the record, anyone has permission to write an Aces story. There's room for hundreds of characters in the "universe" that the premise sets up. And room for every type of good guy or complete asshole.

Just don't make any of my characters central to it, nor any of those I have already planned and sketched out. And don't discover a cure for the virus.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I had a weird, 'hippie' co-worker who used to trout fish on farmer's properties wearing wading boots. When the landowner, inevitably came out to tell him to leave, my co-worker would quote the Pa. law that if you're standing only in the stream, it's not trespassing. I never checked to see that was true, but the few times that farmers came out to chase us off their land(teen-age boys), he was usually carrying a shotgun. In my book, (shotgun) > (quoting obscure laws).

Property rights and waterways have a tremendous amount of variance between states.
My parents have property on a river, and they own the land to the middle of the channel. So the water level doesn't have any bearing on the property line .They don't own the water, meaning you can float, row, sail, whatever your boat down the water. But you can't anchor, because your anchor would be on their property (the river bottom), although they wouldn't care if you did as long as you were being civil and not blasting music or something.

 

[KeithD]

This isn't true. Covering another person's song is not a parody, unless you're Weird Al Yankovic writing "Amish Paradise" as a spoof of "Gangster's Paradise." When you cover another person's song, you do so pursuant to a mechanical license, usually by paying a license fee to one of a number of organizations like Harry Fox, which handle the distribution of the license fees to the correct copyright owner. A mechanical license is mandatory under US copyright law, which means that a person has a legal right to cover a Kiss song without Gene Simmons's permission so long as they pay the appropriate license fee through the appropriate medium.

My thought was that you were supposed to pay a license fee for any cover use (I do know that each time a song is used for something like "American Idol," a fee has to be paid or they can't use the song). That it doesn't happen all the time is probably a function of the volume of use although song use is, I think, the largest area of copyright infringement action.

I know, from experience, that you are supposed to pay a royalty fee and even a fee per script copy for any/all theater productions of a play even if for nonprofit.

 

[Bamagan]

I have posted this on my profile, which should absolutely not be necessary, but whatever. I'm posting it here, too, because I'm not entirely sure anyone who would assume lack of response implies permission can be trusted to do their due diligence in seeking said permission.

To @MediocreAuthor specifically, and everyone else generally, permission is NOT given to use the characters in my stories in any of their own works, nor to create any derivative works, sequels, spin-offs, etc., involving those characters, regardless of whether or not I reply individually and/or directly to any attempts to contact me seeking an exception to my stated position regarding the rights to my copyrighted materials. This really should go without saying, but here we are.

You'll have to wait about 7.5 decades after I'm dead, although my heirs (if any) will control the copyright following my demise, and they may well not feel very proprietary about my work, so you're certainly free to contact them regarding licensing or whatever. As a courtesy, I'll try to remember to let the board know before I shuffle off.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I know, from experience, that you are supposed to pay a royalty fee and even a fee per script copy for any/all theater productions of a play even if for nonprofit.

School theatre productions have to pay, a reduced rate but they want their money.

 

[SimonDoom]

My thought was that you were supposed to pay a license fee for any cover use (I do know that each time a song is used for something like "American Idol," a fee has to be paid or they can't use the song). That it doesn't happen all the time is probably a function of the volume of use although song use is, I think, the largest area of copyright infringement action.

I know, from experience, that you are supposed to pay a royalty fee and even a fee per script copy for any/all theater productions of a play even if for nonprofit.

Yes, you're right. It depends on the type of use. For instance, if you are a wedding singer and you perform a song at a wedding, or a karaoke guy at a party, that's one kind of license. If you are a band and you record somebody else's song and put it on your album, that's another kind of license. But in both cases the license terms are standardized so the user doesn't have to negotiate something directly with the copyright owner. Gene Simmons can't stop you as a DJ at a party from playing Kiss songs, but you have to honor the mechanical license requirements and pay the license fee (and you're right--it's a per use license fee). Gene Simmons can't stop you from recording your own version of "Calling Doctor Love" and putting it on your album so long as you comply with the mechanical license requirements and he gets the cut that he is due.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Yup. If the person you're "playing" with isn't enjoying the game, then what you're actually doing is "having fun at their expense".

This was an absolute "Dead Dove" scenario. EVERYONE saw the sign on the door before they came in.