Authorized vs. Non-Authorized Fan Fiction

In Cathy Young's 2007 article The Fan Fiction Phenomena she writes "The vehemently anti-fanfic writer Lee Goldberg, who blogs at leegoldberg.com, is the author of several authorized novels based on the TV shows Monk and Diagnosis Murder--a contradiction he defends on the grounds that he does it only for the money".

Goldberg did work as a writer for both aforementioned television programs. However, I'm guessing (but may be wrong) that he did not create the characters. Furthermore, he is doing it for money. In our class discussions thus far, I've gotten the impression that one of the major arguments for copyright is to prevent others from profiting from others works. Evidently this is okay, if the original creator authorizes it. On the other side of the spectrum is the un-authorized fanfic. I guess I'm not understanding the flap against it, since the majority of it is not done for profit. Rather, it seems to be simply what its label implies--fiction created by fans. It would seem to me that one creates an original work with the hope that it will be well received and popular. That is after all, the sign of success. Authors hope to sell many books. Television show creators hope for high Nielsen ratings. Movie makers hope for box office sell-outs. When books, tv shows, and movies are popular, fans are then expected to suck up all they hype; to buy the posters and calendars, even the t-shirts. However, not to include their beloved characters in their own creative expressions.

Goldberg's blog is interesting and informative. He has several posts referencing a certain Lady Sybilla and her novel Russet Noon which she wrote as a continuation to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Evidently, there were plans for this book to be available for purchase on e-bay, which have since been tabled due to obvious copyright issues.

Here I pose a questions to the fanfic writers who would like to make a profit? Wouldn't it be easier to take your original work--and make it a little more original? Come on, Russet Noon is a terrible title and an obvious rip-off. I guess russet is a color--but isn't it also a type of potato? As mentioned in chapter 1 of our Russell text, referring to recurring themes in tv shows,it is legal to copy "ideas" because "the idea itself belongs to everyone and is in the public domain. The way the scene plays out is an expression of it. Each show uses the idea but creates a new expression." So take your vampires, take your werewolves, take your love triangle and simply create a new expression. Maybe it will be even a bigger seller than Twilight.

Terms of Endearment

As I've been learning more about fan fiction, I've frequently come across terminology specific to this subject. With the help of Hellekson and Busse (2006), here are definitions for a few frequently used terms and abbreviations:

Canon: Events presented in the media source that provide the universe, setting, and characters

Fanon: Events created by the fan community and repeated throughout the fantext

Genres of Fanfic
Gen: General story with no romantic relationship

Het: Story revolving around a heterosexual relationship either invented by the author or presented in the primary source text

Slash: Posits a same-sex relationship, usually imposed by the author and based on perceived homoerotic subtexts

Genre classifications generally play a large role in how fanfic is organized and categorized within archives, or online libraries.

Miscellaneous

OC: Original Character

OTP: One True Pairing

AU: Alternate Universe

Mary Sue: often an avatar of the author, a character presented as the perfect heroine who saves the day and gets the guy while virtually excluding the canonical characters.

Not a New Trend

While researching the topic of fan fiction this week, the name Henry Jenkins kept popping up. Jenkins is a professor at MIT and is seemingly an expert in this area. In a 1998 radio interview with Todd Mundt of the University of Michigan, Jenkins says that "the practice is similar to the way that folk tales evolved. For hundreds of years, people based their own stories on popular characters, like Bre'r Rabbit and King Arthur, each person adding details or making changes as the story is passed along. Jenkins further states that it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that popular characters were seen as the intellectual property of large corporations". Furthermore, in his 2000 article Digital Land Grab Jenkins remarks that between 1869 and 1930, some 200 writers (including Frances Hodgson Burnett and Christina Rossetti) imitated, revised or parodied Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and it is believed that these early versions of "fanfic" positively contributed to the longevity of Carroll's popularity. Contributors to Wikipedia's page on Fan Fiction trace such writings back as far as the 17th century, citing unauthorized published sequels to works such as Don Quixote.

During more recent history, fanfic seemed to gain recognition in the mid-1960's, especially in the sci-fi genre. Spocknalia, a Star Trek "fanzine" is referred to by Wikipedia as the "first known contemporary form of any type of fan-written stories". In fact, to this day, Star Trek and other sci-fi and fantasy stories and characters remain popular targets today for resulting fanfic, although currently, Harry Potter has emerged as the leader. Potter author J.K. Rowling has given these spin-offs her blessing--that is, as long as they are noncommerical and nonpornographic (Young, 2007). Young also feels that Rowling's endorsement has added some legitimacy to the fanfic genre, although there are plenty of authors that would disagree (such as Anne Rice).

So, if fanfic has been around for hundreds of years, why is it such a hot topic today? Thanks to the Internet, fanfic is available for ready, free access on many different sites. Take for instance fanfiction.net where there are nearly 48,000 fanfic stories under Yu Gi Oh (anime) alone! In my limited exploration of this site, there don't seem to be too many posting requirements or any sort of pre-screening process serving as barriers to self-publication. While this plentiful supply of fanfic results in unlimited reading choices for fans of the genre, the Internet also makes it more visible to the original authors--and their lawyers.

Welcome to My Blog!

This blog has been created for my summer class, LIS 855, Managing Digital Resources. I spent some time yesterday trying to come up with a creative title for this blog, but as you can see, it simply bears the generic title of Fan Fiction. This is mainly because I really don't know anything about the topic of fan fiction beyond its definition. Frankly, I didn't even know it existed until I started exploring the list of possible topics suitable for this project. The idea intrigues me, and I am excited to explore it in detail.

So, what exactly is fan fiction? According to Wikipedia, it's a "broadly-defined term used to describe stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Works of fan fiction are rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work' owner, creator, or publisher; also they are almost never professionally published".

I am hoping to learn more about the following aspects of fan fiction: history and origins; types and genres; fair use and copyright issues; legal cases; and what the future may hold for these authors and their creations.

During the next three whirlwind weeks, I invite any comments, suggestions, or attempts to steer me in right direction!

References

References

Chander, A., & Sunder, M. (2007). Everyone's a superhero: A cultural theory of "Mary Sue" fan fiction as fair use. California Law Review,95 (2), 597-626.

Fan Fiction (2009). Wikipedia. Retrieved June 16, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction

Hellkeson, K., & Busse, K. (Eds). (2006). Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Jenkins, H. (1998). Fan Fiction. Interview with Todd Mundt. Internet on the Air, April 18 & 19, 1998. Retrieved June 16, 2009 from http://www.si.umich.edu /iota/Spring98/fan.html

Jenkins, H. (2000). Digital Land Grab. Technology Review, 103 (2), 103-105. Retrieved June 17, 2009 from ProQuest.

Kustritz, A. (2003). Slashing the romance narrative. The Journal of American Culture, 26 (3), 371-384. Retrieved June 20, 2009 from EBSCOhost.

Russell, C. (2004). Complete copyright: An everyday guide for librarians. American Library Association.

Tushnet, R. (2007). Payment in credit: Copyright law and subcultural creativity. Law & Contemporary Problems, 70 (2), 135-174. Retrieved July 3, 2009, from Academic Search Elite database.

Young, C. (2007). The Fan Fiction Phenomena. Reason, 38 (9), 14-15. Retrieved June 18, 2009 from Ebscohost.

Fan Fiction by Beth Ryan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.