One thing I wanted to consider in my blog post is the issue of fan fiction and whether or not it constitutes as copyright infringement. While I can understand both sides of the argument and respect the rights of authors or the creators of characters used in fan fiction to protect their creation, I feel that fan fiction is not an infringement of copyright.
I have decided to read some fan fiction to become acquainted with some of its forms and have read some fan fiction for Harry Potter (books), Doctor Who, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (please refrain from yelling nerd, thank you).
My reasons are that the writers of fan fiction do not profit from the use of the characters and that they are not professional writers. If Stephen King began writing fan fiction online, it would attract such attention that I believe it would be copyright infringement. The majority of writers do it for fun and as a hobby.
My other reason that publishing companies should not shut down fan fiction sites is that it is adding popularity to the original franchise. If I heard a friend at school tell me that he or she writer Harry Potter fan fiction, I would ask myself why Harry Potter is so important and has such an impact on my friend. It could cause me to, at the very least, watch the movies or maybe read the books. But it adds to the franchise that fan base will write their own fantasy fiction with those characters.
The other important aspect of fan fiction is that it adds a new layer of cultural perspective to the stories and characters. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a cultural artifact of her society, so Pride and Prejudice and Zombies becomes a cultural artifact of our society and tells the classic tale from a new perspective with the filter or contemporary American society.
The TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one popular form of Fan Fiction that I have been reading up on and I find that the fan fiction gives a lot of the fans an opportunity to explore and elaborate on gay characters Tara and Willow. While a TV show can have homosexual characters, it is difficult for a mainstream show to focus so much on a homosexual romance. Fan fiction allows the focus to be on an issue like a homosexual relationship, and readers who don't care to further explore this relationship can choose to not read those stories.
I found an article discussing how fan fiction allows space for queer communities to focus on homosexual relationships but was unable to access the full article. I've linked to it and hope to find the article in a database eventually.
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/7/3/9/p117399_index.html
Some people may not consider fan fiction to be quality literature, it is an emerging tool for young adults to begin storytelling and imagine new scenaries within the frame of popular character. Maybe one fan ficiton writer will go on to be a bestseller or become an accountant. In my opinion, fan fiction is a fun and interesting new community for people to share ideas and manipulate their favorite characters and begin to compose their own ideas and beliefs. Fan fiction is not just silly or pointless. It gives more people voices and the role of storyteller without the requirement of finding a publisher and people a mainstream author.
Well said. :)
ReplyDeleteI basically agree with you. But do you really think Stephen King should be forbidden from writing fan fiction? I'm not sure it would be copyright infringement if he suddenly decided to do it, though it would be weird. But it struck me that Gorgias was basically writing fan fiction based on Homer. Isn't everything fan fiction, at least to the extent that it owes a debt to whatever influenced it?
ReplyDeleteYou might be right. What I meant about Stephen King writing fan fiction is that he is a well known author and his name being attached to anything will draw attention to where ever it's posted. So the website it's on (for example) would have increased traffic and their ads would for a substantial amount of money. I don't think Stephen King should be forbidden but that he should have the courtesy to ask permission since he is a fellow author. That was sort of what I meant.
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