I'm not posting a fanfic, but this is about a fanfic, so I figured it goes in this topic.
A day or so ago, an author named Clez, who's also a very good friend of mine, submitted a story relating to the movie Queen of the Damned. Now, fanfiction.net doesn't allow stories by Anne Rice, so they deleted the story and suspended her for a week.
I'm bringing this up because there are about twenty or more other stories that relate to Queen of the Damned that the moderators haven't done anything about, and yet they deleted hers. Sorry if you think I'm taking up space with this rant, but I think this is incredibly unfair for her.
So, if you are a fellow writer at fanfiction.net, as I am, please contact the site to complain. Or, you can contact me, at [email protected]
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I don't write Anne Rice stuff on FanFiction.net, but this incident doesn't seem really fair. The moderators need to keep on top of things and weed out all the inappropriate stories!
Because Anne Rice has stated that people are not allowed to write fanfiction about her stuff.
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Gender: Female Location: The dark depths of my withering sou
I don't think thats even the issue here: the moderators banned her while dozens (if not hundreds) of other authors still have fanfics on there with Anne Rice material!
On a point of accuracy, unless the authors who have the material also run the site, this is the site admins being sloppy, not hypocritical- and a protest should recognise that.
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I was wondering why there was no Anne Rice on ff.net. I've been looking for a Queen of the Damned or Interview fic. Is there ANYWHERE that will post them?
The problem is that Anne Rice is so protective of her intellectual property that she'll threaten legal action against any site that hosts fanfiction using her characters or settings.
While I tend to be of the mind that fanfiction is a waste of time, I wouldn't go so far as to say it warrants litigation.
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to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
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Because it is copyright infringement (even if no one is profiting from it) and the holder of said copyright can defend it as strictly as they wish. It's their intellectual property, after all.
From an artistic standpoint, I can understand why a writer may also not be amused by all the horrible things that fanfiction writers can do to their characters.
I wouldn't advocate censorship/litigation (so long as the ff writers don't go for profit), but at the same time I've always thought that if you have any kind of skill as a writer you're better off writing your own stories.
I think it was TS Elliot who said that bad poets (substitute writer) "borrow" while good poets "steal".
Borrowing would be fanfiction, stealing would be retelling a story with your own unique spin such that it's barely recognizable as descending from the original. That's the basis of all real fiction.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Gender: Male Location: Barkdonald's Inc. OMFGPlulz: dunt
Did you read the part of my post where I talked about there being no tangible benefit to Rice? And how this alienates the most passionate part of her fanbase?
While you're right I don't think that Anne Rice would take legal action against it because, economically speaking, it's not within her best interest to do so.
It's a very flimsy case, and there's no tangible amount of money involved—as there would be if someone were to make money off of her intellectual property or illegally distribute her works.
Fanfiction.net likely makes a great deal of money off of advertisements given how much traffic they get. And in either case, Anne Rice doesn't need more money, any kind of lawsuit would be punitive in nature.
I'm admittedly not well versed in copyright law (I abandoned my aspirations for Law School just after two semesters of pre-law) but I would think that the onus would not be on Anne Rice to prove infringement but more on FF.net to prove that fair use hadn't been overstepped/violated. I wouldn't expect Rice to win, but I don't know if I'd call her case "flimsy"
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Last edited by Omega Vision on Oct 27th, 2012 at 11:57 PM
Except that really it doesn't, as she's had the "no fanfic or derivative works allowed" stance for nearly two decades. Pretty much everyone is aware of this already and has been for a long, long time.
Agreed. What better way to be inspired than by knowing what's possible? I'm an aspiring writer myself, and being a "skilled" writer is by no means an inherent quality.
Like any art, you have to persist like hell to even be able produce anything worthwhile, and fanfiction, for many (preferably the truly faithful and dedicated), is a healthy outlet for one's imagination and skillbuilding. Fanart is a similar avenue, as it requires an exhaustive effort from the artists and encourages them to apply and better themselves at their trade. One wouldn't dismiss that as a "waste of time" (no offense, Omega), so why would we do it with fanfiction?
Sure, I admit that there's an unfortunate frequency of those who would carelessly saturate the art with frivolous wish fulfillment with no real artistic intent, but God forbid we narrow our minds as result and overlook those who actually give a shit about what they're doing.
For the sake of future artists, we need to be able to provide them with constructive perspective; praise them for their strengths and point out their weaknesses so that they may correct them. To add to the earlier comment about how "the best poets 'steal'", these things allow authors/artists to challenge their understanding of works that inspired them to begin with so as to eventually translate what they've learned from it to their own original works. It would be more difficult for the relatively inexperienced to determine these things, would it not?