Playing in George?s Sandbox: Copyright Issues and Fan Fiction

I'd like one, too, just so I can see what kind of uppity [insert not-very-nice word of choice] does something like that. And someone in the publishing industry, too.

 

Author Interview


Here is a google cached version. The answer to the first question is just mind boggling.

 

I'm inclined to agree with dianethx. Precedence, as Kidan suggested, would not apply here. Admittedly, I'm not a legal scholar and not a master of copyright law, but to appeal to the fact that GL has not gone after free fanfic in the past as justification to publish and sell your own fanfic doesn?t hold up under any kind of scrutiny. The fact is that intellectual property rights can be granted only at the whim of the owner of those rights. This granting of rights can be implicit (freeware) or explicit (signed agreements). In any case, if the granter of those rights revokes them for whatever reason, the user must cease and desist. Simple as that. No reason needs to be given.

The way I see it, GL?s lawyers need only send her a threatening letter and she?ll pull her story down. There?s no way this goes to court because she?ll lose?BIG TIME.

GL has always had the option to stop our dalliances in their collective tracks. He?s tolerated us because we?ve never crossed any lines. By going as far as to use her publishing company to print, market, and sell this book on Amazon.com, she?s crossed the line. I don?t think GL will go overboard, though. Well?at least I hope he doesn?t.

Good question. Technically, it?s copyright infringement, I think. But as far as Lucasfilm has been concerned in the past, there was no profit generated so it probably wouldn?t bother them. *shrugs* Somebody smarter than me (Darth_Lex) would probably know the real answer?

 

Instead of a dislaimer, I always put "I invented Star Wars" at the top of my fics in bold and add that George Lucas owes me money. I haven't had any problems yet.

 

The most amazing part of her interview is that she says something to the effect of "Lucas has said that, if no one maks a profit off of it, it is an amazing tribute."

How does she not see the discrepancy between what WE do and what SHE is doing? It says there, on Amazon, that she is selling it, for actual cash, actual profit.

At what point did her wires get crossed?!?

 

I agree, Luna and her book is listed also at Barnes and Noble and Powell Books.

 

It seems that the Nabberrie girls website is shut down. I can't download the book from the interview link

But I wanted to read a fanfic!!!!!!

 

I rather hope that whats-her-face and her book vanish quietly and discreetly from the net and the face of the earth and we never have to hear from her again.

The plot is horribly overused, by the way. She couldn't think of ANYTHING better?

 

It seems she wants you to pay her for it now.

 

If you owned a Barnes and Noble, would you sell it?



This whole thing makes no sense to me.

 

The one thing I don't understand is that she says that it's for family and friend. It's on amazon, and only her friends and family knows it's there.

Why is she doing this interview again?

 

If I owned Barnes and Noble, I'd contact the book mafia (you know it exists) and have her sleep with the fishies.

 

Well, it seems more than her friends know it's there.

Unless all her friends throw insults at her?

I wonder what her enemies are like?

 

I honestly believe that, if Lucas still cares for his fans, he will deal with this accordingly.

I believe he will wipe this woman out with one fell swoop, leaving the rest of us behaving under his parameters alone.

I could not imagine the backlash in fandoms if he put the kabosh on it all. While I'm sure he would not really care, and it would not hurt him monetarily, it would still be to the point that I'm sure he'd like to avoid it.

 

While fanfic seems to be tolerated on TFN, I do wonder if this will have any effect on those of us who publish on other archives as well. All my fanfic is contained on three archives, with some posted on more than one - here, FFN, and LJ. I also have two on AFFN but they're both available on LiveJournal as well so I still count it as three.

Do you think some of the non-TFN archives are in danger, or will the crackdown (which is almost certainly coming) only apply to the individual who clearly went way over the line into asking money for her fic?

 

I don?t think that TF.N is the first one to go, but yes, if GL (I pray to the Force that he won?t) ever would decide this then I think, no, I know that all websites that have SW fanfics will have to quit, not just us.

 

If it has any effect on one fanfic site, it will have one on all of them.

Something they MAY do is put up a fanfic service ala Fanfiction.Net and then have it controlled by StarWars.com, where when we post a story there we would basically sign over the rights to what we've written to LFL.

 

For anyone interested, I did take several screen caps from her site, including her interview and a story excerpt. If anyone wants, I can direct you to the link on my site.

 

Very interested, Inara. I am having a nice chuckle over this while still in awe that someone would actually try something like this.

 

Plot bunny. Darth Irol anyone?
But that's beside the point.
Anyone willing to support her by the way? She's standing up to the blood thirsty copyright infringement lawyers everywhere ;0

 

If anyone's interested, you could google for the domain and check the cached pages:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.thenaberriegirls.com

Y'know, I was sorta hoping this was an April Fools joke that they forgot to take down. *sigh*

- lazy

 

There's no such thing as 'official' fanfic as far as I know. But there certainly have been print Star Wars fanzines. Loads of them. I first got Skywalker in 1979 and a whole lot of others in the 80's. That's what we old fogies did before the internet. Paying for printing, postage, using typewriters and pasting layout with rubber cement. Oh, and artwork.

But it was basically non-profit; editors sold their zines mostly through the mail, sometimes at zine cons, but it was at cost. More than one editor lost money on their labor of love, sometimes it would be a lot. Editors even sent coutesy copies of their zines to Lucasfilm. Things got uncomfortable when the Lucasfilm lawyers emerged over R and X-rated material. That got them interested. But they pulled back on the lawyers and switched to word-of-mouth warnings and the adult material went into private distribution. I don't know what they think of the internet these days; everything is out there now. Maybe it's just the overload of material, or maybe it's the lack of artwork attached to it.

Honestly, there's no reason to print fanfiction these days. No layout, no printing, no mailing is fanfic HEAVEN. No editing, no proofreading....well every silver lining has it's cloud. I don't know why anyone would sell hardcopies now. There's just no justification for going through that pain. And selling it for profit? Yes, there are products that skirt licensing by changing a name or alter something to make it not-quite-Star Wars, but still look Star Wars enough to sell. But you can't do that with fanfic if you're writing in the universe and especially if you're using canon characters. Methinks this woman's ego is moi, moi bigger than her talent and sense.

 

judging by what I read of it from on Amazon.com this is a slight understatement...

 

Uuuuhhhhhhhhh, in a word.......uuuuuummmmm.......no.

Negatory, no way, no how, not, nowhere, no, no, no.

The copyright lawyers are not the bad guys here at all. They're the good guys.

This isn't about lawyers; it's about authors. They've got to be able to defend their right to make a living on their work. Fanfiction has gotten by partly because plenty of it isn't that great and not competitive in the marketplace, it could be prohibitively expensive to go after without generating a lot of ill-will, but mostly I think it's not considered a financial threat to the licensed material. I've heard some theories that it can generate a positive 'buzz' for the licensed stuff, but I've never seen any research backing that up. I know I've been buying my share of licensed SW books.

Now, I could say something about Congress extending copyrights to ridiculous times beyond all reason in recent years....but that's a side issue. Selling profit for fanfic is a no-brainer stupid thing to do.

 

Saw it on Amazon, reported it as copyright violation. Hell the opening page is ripped right off the Opening scroll.

I hope she gets royally toasted.