From the Fanfic Writers' Perspective

Rebecca Tushnet's 2007 article Payment in Credit: Copyright Law and Subcultural Creativity is a well-written and engaging paper that among other things, offers readers a glimpse inside the minds of fanfic writers.

Tushnet believes that most fanfic, particularly that distributed via the Internet, would be classified as fair use under U.S. Copyright Law, stating that "fan concepts of what makes their creative works acceptable, not immoral, or not unfair resemble American copyright law's fair use principles".

Fans emphasize that their works are not for profit as well as being freely distributed. Attempts to derive from this norm, such as self-publishing, are largely condemned by "true" fanfic writers. I think this is an important distinction. It seems there are two camps of fanfic writers. On one hand, you have the fans that want to share their creations with a fellow community of fans-not the whole world-simply because they share a common love or enjoyment for certain characters or storylines. Their work is non-commercial, and therefore, not taking unfair advantage of the original work(s). On the other hand, you have the fans looking to turn a profit, eager to show the world that they can take a story and either keep it going or make it better (or just as good as) than the original. This is not to say that the "for-profit" fans are always in the wrong or necessarily defying copyright laws, but bringing money into the fanfic arena does appear to set these writers up for a higher level of scrutiny, and possibly rightly so.

Fanfic creations also require the addition of new material, thus creating an original product. Tushnet remarks "fans assert that their own creative contributions turn fan fiction and fan art into something new over which copyright owners can exert no veto. Especially given that mass media creations are designed to engage us, fans reason, it is fair to respond creatively to them". That has been a point of mine since early in this blog. A goal of books, movies, tv shows, etc. is to become popular, to attract fans, to want people to think and care about the presented media. Success depends on fans and fans should be able to express themselves within reasonable limits.

Regarding market effect, Tushnet says "fans argue, is at least not harmful and may actually help sales of authorized works by increasing loyalty to the source. Fan works,in part simply because they are not canonical, cannot substitute for the official versions; they can only whet the appetite for more". This seems realistic. First, if the fanfic cannot be bought, it shouldn't have any market effect. Secondly, beause fanfic is disseminated via the internet, I think it's fair to compare various fanfic sites to other social networking sites, such as Facebook or LibraryThing. Contributors write about what interests them, which make spark the interest of another member of the site. I have a friend on Facebook who had no interest in reading the Twilight series until several other members remarked on how much they enjoyed them and now, this friend has read all four books. It's reasonable to expect that the same scenarios could occur on fanfic sites and ultimately improve sales of the original work.

Regarding the amount of content borrowed, Tushnet argues that there is no limit, as long as the fanfic writers add value, which she says is what matters to them. "Good characterization, seeming true to the original, is usually valued, but that characterization has to be revealed by putting the characters in new situations, adding richness and nuance to the official versions. The borrowing serves as a backbone or framework". As discussed in my "Mary Sue" post regarding parodies, the original work must be referenced for the imitation to occur.

One final important piece of information I took away from this article was learning that fans are against plagiarism, which Tushnet describes as "one of the most serious offenses against the fan community". Before I educated myself on fan fiction,I thought that fan fiction meant plagiarism, which I now know is not the case. Fans want peer recognition, which of course ties in with the other points made; non-profit, not effecting the original market, and not borrowing word for word.

Reading this article left me with a healthy respect for fanfic writers, as they appear to operate under a fairly fixed set of rules and moral compass.