I'm Jill Bearup this is history of
fanfiction and if you are a big-name fan
say SnowQueens IceDragon and you write
in a big old fandom say Twilight and you
have written a big-name fic say master of
the universe then there's probably a
small army of people who support your
work. In the abstract sense anyway
Fanfiction is largely a gift economy
because of legality issues but it is
possible to parlay fanfic success
into real-world money not without
controversy but it can be done so as
fifty shades darker hit cinemas today
let's talk about fifty shades of grey
not the content but the context.
You can find on the internet many people who
believe that fifty shades of grey is
copyright infringement and further that
Stephenie Meyer could sue EL James'
plagiarizing backside for totally
ripping off Twilight so let's start with:
Meyer has already said she has no
interest in doing that, but let's
continue with you'd find it very hard to
do that here's the thing
Fifty Shades of Grey is not really very
much like twilight. Now this might be a
surprising statement given that it
originally appeared as master of the
universe a twilight alternate universe fic
but it's true. Is 50 Shades of Grey
technically a twilight rip off with
more sex and less vampirism and
different names?
well sure but those three changes are
enough to make it an original work not
just in the way the statute of Anne
would describe an original nothing
exactly the same exists but in the way
modern copyright law defines us or at
least you could definitely make that
case when it had the characters names it
was alternate universe fanfic with
different names and a few changed details
the Twilight parallels are obvious if
you're looking but that doesn't really
matter
Anastasia Steele is not Bella Swan but
because Anastasia Steele used to be
Bella Swan EL James has something of a baked-
in audience when she decided to release
her book into the mainstream. and that's
not the whole reason for the success of
the series but that's a bit beyond our
scope in this episode to be honest to
return to the point if you've written
for example a Draco and leather pants /
hermione non-magical alternate universe
if you can change their names to Kobra
with a K because that's just how we
roll and, I don't know, Jemima, no one's going
to bat a legal eyelid frizzy-haired
smartypants teenage girls and
misunderstood brooding angsty teenage
boys are not copyrightable convepts and
so 50 shades of grey is most likely a
hundred percent legal even if it is a
twilight fanfic with BDSM and no
vampires so then what about actual fanfiction?
that's that's more complicated way way
more complicated and there's a lot of
misinformation and a lot of fear out
there or at least they're used to be but
because fanfic nowadays is so mainstream
almost, for which among other things we
must thank 50 shades of grey people are
a little bit less leery about the whole
legal issues things in general. That
being said there are significant number
of authors who have a zero-tolerance
approach to fan fiction and if you ask
them why they will likely say it is
because of legal concerns "I don't want
to be sued by some fanfic writer who
thinks i stole their idea to use in my
latest boo!" they cry or perhaps "I don't
want to lose my trademark!"
and while it's definitely true that it's
not really a good idea to read fanfic
of your own work a lot of this fear
seems to stem from the most infamous
fanfic legal saga ever to not
actually involve any legal action
Sort of. we need to talk about marion zimmer
bradley
marion zimmer bradley wrote the Darkover
series of novels and was very much
involved in her fandom in fact she even
edited a fanzine for Darkover but
everything muddled along without
significant incident for years until
In 1989 marion zimmer bradley had a stroke
which may or may not have left her with
significant cognitive impairment which
may or may not mean that her subsequent
books were wholly or mostly ghostwritten
in 1991 a fanzine published a story
called masks marion zimmer bradley wrote
to the author of said work
Jean lamb and offered her $500 and an
acknowledgement at the start of the book
to use something in her work in progress
novel contraband. they were unable to
reach an agreement.
here's where it gets sticky: Jean Lamb
says she wrote back to negotiate so she
asked for more money if you have for a
byline instead of an acknowledgement
mercedes lackey says that it wasn't
marion zimmer bradley wanted to use the
entirety of the work in her new novel it
was just that she liked the particular
spin that gene land put on one of the
characters between rounds and claim that
Bradley had threatened her with lawyers
and Bradley claims that her publisher
would not publish her work in progress
novel contraband because of these issues
the publisher when asked in 2010 claim
that it wasn't them that cancel the
novel it was Bradley who knows i don't
know probably someone regardless there
is no evidence that gene lamb the fans
like writer ever threaten to sue marion
zimmer bradley the author in this case
but the fact doesn't actually seem to
matter very much because the whole thing
made a massive stink in fandom even
though to my mind the problems mostly
seemed to stand from Bradley's over
involvement in the fandom and her trying
to buy the rights of the story except
was she trying to buy the right again
who knows this story of fan second van
dough has turned into a sort of urban
legend and given that there are several
mutually contradictory statements you
can take out of it what you want and it
has meant that a lot of authors back in
the day were very leery of fantastic and
a lot of fans and others were very
secretive about the writing of sick but
time marches on and we forget or new
people come into the Sandman have never
heard of this and while authors
generally do not read fantasy because
they're at work to quote sir terry
practice everything works if people are
sensible that doesn't mean a lot of them
do
definitely accept it or even encourage
it not downright though and rice is
still dead against the whole fantastic
thing
yeah mine too and you know what the best
part is my best timing worse the
legality of fanfiction not at all clear
it would be consistent to be able to say
all family is illegal and you write it
to terrowin risk but there are two
things which make it a little more
complicated first as I said a lot of
rights holders accept or even encouraged
fanfiction and second yes Virginia there
is such a thing as fair use but it's
probably nothing like your thinking
fair use is a legal defense against
copyright infringement and it is
assessed on a case-by-case basis because
of course it's basically if someone
claims copyright infringement it is
possible that you won't get your butt
suit if you can claim fair use for
teaching research scholarship criticism
things like that but this isn't a
get-out-of-jail-free card
like I said it's a legal sense that you
use in court and the court will decide
whether or not they think the thing is
actually fair use and to decide this
they go on four factors one the purpose
and character of the use including
whether such uses of a commercial
catcher or for non-profit educational
purposes to the nature of the
copyrighted work three the mind and
substantiality of the portion used in
relation to the copyrighted work as a
whole and for the effective use on the
potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work most cases are related
to fanfic is in the realm of published
unapproved works like the wind done gone
which is gone with the wind from the
viewpoint of a different character but
case-by-case means there is no
consistent legal treatment of sick is
sick legal news
depends thankfully practically speaking
it doesn't really matter because most
people are nothing playing to sue and if
you're in the right fundam well you
might even be able to make money from it
like I said fanfic is a gift economy
because non-profit uses of things are
much less likely to raise iron
for-profit uses of things but in 2013
amazon launched a brand new shiny thing
and they said look sick writers here is
a way that you can make money writing
fanfic and it was called kindle world
naturally a lot of people were wildly
enthusiastic and a whole lot more people
were kind of side eyeing a concept
because first with the scene tougher
crackdowns on non-approved frantic it
currently doesn't think so and second
with this damage the gift economy that
frantic operates and again seems to be a
no
and thirdly what even is this here's the
thing about kindle world it is very
little to do with fantastic as far as
fan culture goes you can write
officially for fewer than a hundred
fandoms none of them are particularly
large or frankly terribly popular with
thick writers the massive fandoms like
Sherlock or Harry Balzer or the MCU
newpsies and you can publish explicit
sex anyway with cut my grits width of
content for years later and kindle
worlds is fewer than a hundred worlds
most of which have fewer than 50 stories
each thing is Kindle worlds was probably
never going to be wildly popular whether
or not it made money because it looks
like the goody-two-shoes cousin of six
sites where some sections of net is
young and bar me and what pad is
obsessed with one direction and a 03 is
where the slashers go in the world even
if you can get paid is very hand in
kindle worlds demand stories which are
neatly manicured gardens speak and it
makes you pay to get in but if you go to
the free sites then you can also find
neatly manicured gardens or deserts or
snow escapes or jungles or whatever else
you want for free more legally
questionably the actual legality of
unapproved fanfiction is something I'm
really really not qualified to advise
you on but only you weren't waving it in
the faces of the author of the original
work it generally seems to be tested Lee
accepted and with that clear as mud
statement we've come to the end of this
episode and having brought ourselves up
to more or less than modern-day we're
going to do something different for the
next episode of history of fanfiction
next time we will be discussed
thinking often maligned much
misunderstood character-type she had
many names sometimes he doesn't even if
she but you probably know her best as
Mary Sue thanks for watching if you'd
like to support the show you can go to
patreon.com/scishow a steel barrel and
do things there or you can donate by
paypal or if you don't really fancy
other of those things you can always
follow me on twitter at you'll bear up
and listen to me ranting about random
things which may or may not include
fanfiction see you next time