A Question: Non-SW Fan Fiction

Lawsuits like this generally deal with theft of intellectual property as well as authors' perspectives that fanfic damages the images of their characters/universes - much like GL's attitude toward slash.

What I was referring to (and I mention this because I'm not sure if your comment was in reference to my statement to Jade or just was general) is what Jade said about original - more specifically publishable - work.

Jes

 

Published works or illegally distributed fiction with the intent to make money of Star Wars intellectual property, for example, would be subject to a lawsuit. This is not even remotely within the scope of what we allow or do here. What users try to do in the real world is their risk with ramifications brought upon themselves.

 

Jade was referring to the idea of SFF original fiction by users writing a story with their own characters, universe, etc. It might be fun, but we'd have to really stay on top of it, and have many parameters set up to protect both authors and the site.

 

I know. I was just commenting on what Jade said about original publishable work, that's all.

 

I know and appreciate the clarification. I know you're talking about SFF.

I just don't see how any story would be any different. Keep it clean and within the TOS. If the story you're writing is outside of that, then you can't post it or whichever portion is unable to be posted. If it's all okay, then where's the problem if we're not making money from it or selling it? We're celebrating the work and honoring it by perpetuating its memory without making a cent.

 

If what people want is this particular audience for their non-SW fics, maybe instead of posting the actual fic here, there could be threads indexing other major fandoms. Authors could submit stories that are posted elsewhere to it so that their readers here can find it, but it's not "diluting" the JC.

 

The fan fiction currently available allows authors to create their own characters and, in a way, their own worlds 'within' Star Wars. If that works as well as it is, how hard would it be to monitor original non-sw material? Keeping it within TOS standards would be the only obvious thing to do, unless perhaps creating certain parameters for writers to keep within. Maybe only sci-fi based, instead of romance or murder mystery?

 

Because there are some people not as kind as GL when it comes to fanfic, for one.

 

Here's an interesting point, perhaps going a little out there but it does relate. Within the Role Playing Forum, users are allowed to create their own non-SW games. Including original stories.

Here, it's users writing their own stories, be it sci-fi or general fiction. Might not be the same thing, but it's still using original characters and stories...

Within TOS, the only other thing I can think of that may cause concern is Copyright. Now, there's nothing stopping any user from taking a fan-fiction character from another user in their own story on some other far away forum. If a user were to publish their own original work, anyone can come in and use it. Unless a copyright clause exists within the forum?

 

I don't know if any of you understood my original question. Now, I know it would be nice to have a board for non-Sw related fanfics, but that's not what I'm really asking about. What I am asking about is original fiction with people creating their own characters, universes'...etc. I've been working on such a thing myself recently and I know some people in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy forum who posted a topic about it called the Writer's Guild would love to post their work as well.

I'm saying is that we can stay in the Sci-Fi/Fantays genre, but I was thinking that maybe we could create a forum for people to post original works of their own.

 

DarkPrince, I think people are sort of talking about both in one breath.

 

I think I see what they are talking about. To me though it just seemed that they were just talking about regular non-SW fanfic's from other franchises.

 

Well, I think people are arguing the merits of both.

Kartanym, there have been cases of plagiarism even on the JC Fanfic boards. I don't know if the JC mods can do anything if a user here copies someone else's work and uses it elsewhere, though.

The same danger would exist with original fiction here.

From the US Copyright Office Web Site, regarding what you need to do for copyright protection.

Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work.

 

The concern that any writer of original fiction should have if they have any sort of hope of some day publishing their story is this. Once you publically post a story on the internet, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you would lose your right to have it published for pay. You forfit your right to earn money from it.

 

That makes sense, and I can see it being true. It would explain why Matt Stover has a short story about his character Caine on his blog (apparently with no fear of plagiarism). Assuming we had an original fiction forum, there's nothing to stop anyone from stealing people's work and changing a few details. I wonder, though, if there are ways to check up on the thiefs if they ever tried to publish stolen work - copyright laws, registration, and the like. Hell, I know a few college professors who were very good at searching the Internet for cases of plagiarism when grading papers.

 

Oops! Double post hasn't happened to me in a while.

 

Deja Vu

It's an interesting thought. There are various websites already available that allow users to post their own original work, so it would be clearly stated within the websites rules and regulations the terms for copyright laws. Any website that publishes items has copyright as long as they wish for it.

It's harder to keep track of these days compared to newspapers of old, but copyright does exist within this medium.

 

Mariah, that's what I said on the first page, actually. I knew I'd heard it before; glad I'm not the only one.

 

Herman made some very good points.

While each side seems to be making good points, just knowing how many mods we have now to just cover Star Wars fan fiction alone... it seems like we'd be opening up a very big can of worms to try to allow other fandoms to post works, or even to allow people to post their own works. Like several others have said before, people have copied other's fan fiction and claimed it as their own. I have a feeling they would do the same to original works, but that it would be much harder to prove that they did copy it. The other comments about diluting are also good, but personally, I hope we don't stray too far away from Star Wars. It's why we're here afterall.