People tend to send lawyers after other people when they feel that either their own personal character or their revenue have been compromised.
I can completely understand sending lawyers after people when your revenue has been compromised. You worked to earn your money, and why should someone else take money for using what you created? And I can understand being miffed about your characters being screwed over if someone else writes them, too, but going so far as to send lawyers out, effectively saying, "You can't play with my toys," just smacks of being childish. The fanfic writers were never making money off Anne Rice's work. Ever. And fanfic even encouraged buying of the actual products, and I can attest to this at least on a personal basis, because when I'd read well-done fanfic that referenced and event or a character that I wasn't familiar with from previous readings, I'd go out and buy the next book so I could learn more. And I somehow doubt I'm in the only person in the world who did things that way, either. She made money through fanfic. Indirectly, but money was still made. I'm not saying she should be thrilled about that, but her reaction just went over the top, to the point of driving fans underground and alienating them. Honestly, if I'd written fanfic for her books and I'd been harassed by C&D letters or guestbook spam, it would make me not spend another cent on her books. Ask me to take it down, sure. I can do that. But as the first link on this entry mentioned, writers got stalked. If I took down my Anne Rice fanfic, only to get another letter by her author's when I try to put up a Harry Potter fic, then there's a freaking problem!
She's an egomaniac, to put it bluntly. She wants her things to be hers and hers alone, and it's always about her. Note how "it's essential that we obey her wishes" regarding her own fanfic but she continued to lead the crusade against fanfic in general? Or how she felt so personally slighted by bad reviews that she had to hop onto Amazon and tell the world just how great she is and how her stories are perfect?
I think her attitude wouldn't bother me as much (though it would still bother me) if it wasn't for blatant hypocrisy. "Fanfic is evil and I won't allow it! Now leave me alone while I write my version of the life of Jesus Christ." She's essentially writing Bible fanfic, even if it's under the guise of "exploring her relationship with the Lord." She's taking someone else's work, and making her own version. Now yes, granted, the Bible isn't under anything resembling a copyright so far as I know, so that dims the line a little bit, but the essence is still there. Someone else did the initial work, and she's filling in the "unrealized potential", as Jenkins put it.
If I wrote a series of books and people were writing creepy child molestation stories about it, I might ask them to take it down...
Part of the problem is that when you allow fanfic, you open up a very large can of worms. What to allow and what not to allow. Allow fics only within your personal canon, or only by good writers, or with pairings that trip your particular trigger? If you ask the rest to take their fics down, you're playing favourites, and that's still creative censorship. If someone really wants to write child molestation fic because they think it would be an interesting dynamic to explore between two characters of yours, it's no different from the teenybopper who writes the self-inserts, or budding writer who can really spin a good story. With fanfic, it's really got to be an "all or nothing" thing. You either allow it, or you don't.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My comments, and they may be long. :p
Date: 2008-10-24 03:28 pm (UTC)I can completely understand sending lawyers after people when your revenue has been compromised. You worked to earn your money, and why should someone else take money for using what you created? And I can understand being miffed about your characters being screwed over if someone else writes them, too, but going so far as to send lawyers out, effectively saying, "You can't play with my toys," just smacks of being childish. The fanfic writers were never making money off Anne Rice's work. Ever. And fanfic even encouraged buying of the actual products, and I can attest to this at least on a personal basis, because when I'd read well-done fanfic that referenced and event or a character that I wasn't familiar with from previous readings, I'd go out and buy the next book so I could learn more. And I somehow doubt I'm in the only person in the world who did things that way, either. She made money through fanfic. Indirectly, but money was still made. I'm not saying she should be thrilled about that, but her reaction just went over the top, to the point of driving fans underground and alienating them. Honestly, if I'd written fanfic for her books and I'd been harassed by C&D letters or guestbook spam, it would make me not spend another cent on her books. Ask me to take it down, sure. I can do that. But as the first link on this entry mentioned, writers got stalked. If I took down my Anne Rice fanfic, only to get another letter by her author's when I try to put up a Harry Potter fic, then there's a freaking problem!
She's an egomaniac, to put it bluntly. She wants her things to be hers and hers alone, and it's always about her. Note how "it's essential that we obey her wishes" regarding her own fanfic but she continued to lead the crusade against fanfic in general? Or how she felt so personally slighted by bad reviews that she had to hop onto Amazon and tell the world just how great she is and how her stories are perfect?
I think her attitude wouldn't bother me as much (though it would still bother me) if it wasn't for blatant hypocrisy. "Fanfic is evil and I won't allow it! Now leave me alone while I write my version of the life of Jesus Christ." She's essentially writing Bible fanfic, even if it's under the guise of "exploring her relationship with the Lord." She's taking someone else's work, and making her own version. Now yes, granted, the Bible isn't under anything resembling a copyright so far as I know, so that dims the line a little bit, but the essence is still there. Someone else did the initial work, and she's filling in the "unrealized potential", as Jenkins put it.
If I wrote a series of books and people were writing creepy child molestation stories about it, I might ask them to take it down...
Part of the problem is that when you allow fanfic, you open up a very large can of worms. What to allow and what not to allow. Allow fics only within your personal canon, or only by good writers, or with pairings that trip your particular trigger? If you ask the rest to take their fics down, you're playing favourites, and that's still creative censorship. If someone really wants to write child molestation fic because they think it would be an interesting dynamic to explore between two characters of yours, it's no different from the teenybopper who writes the self-inserts, or budding writer who can really spin a good story. With fanfic, it's really got to be an "all or nothing" thing. You either allow it, or you don't.