Should Intellectual Property exist?

[Farm Boy]

Lol, ok. Sharing does indeed exist. Mothers literally share thier calories internally, and then internally/externally, then cooperatively. Surely, this is groundbreaking and novel.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yes, the fact that this is how it usually works with authors who are against fanfiction makes it quite clear it's not anout them feeling entitled to the money of hapless fanwork creators, or even the people hosting them online.

It's about them not wanting fanfiction of their work. Which, frankly, probanly does more harm than good to their brand in my experience, but it's their mistake to make.

Some of them mistakenly believe that if we have free stories to read, we won't want to read any more "real" ones.

Well, I suppose that may actually be true in some cases. I'd rather read a Dune fanfic than the crap KJA/BH puts out, as long as that fanfic is based on Frank Herbert's books or at least on the Dune Encyclopedia. Some of the Dune fans are going nuts over on TrekBBS because the latest movie's release has been pushed back to 2024. Whatever will they do? Were I one of the people looking forward to Villeneuve's pile of trash, I'd be searching out stories written in his version of the Duniverse (there must be some by now).

But in the case of C.J. Cherryh... there are some excellent fanfiction works based on her novels. Some are so good that Cherryh could have written them herself. Does that mean I won't buy the next Alliance-Union novel that's coming out next year? Of course I'm going to buy it. It's beyond frustrating that it didn't come out this year, but oh well. I will just have to wait.

George Lucas had the right idea when he decided to let the fan films and fanfic go ahead. Fans might not be consuming his variety of Star Wars, but at least they're thinking about it, engaging with it, spreading the word to their friends (and potentially paying public) that Star Wars is a good thing - and more people will want to see the next movie, buy the merchandise, and so on.

 

[Plains-Cow]

No, it's not a "mean assumption" when the only kind of copying that's being prevented (in the specific is precisely the one where you can't even be arsed to make the least effort.

A generally poor presentation (what else is news from you) of the excessively rare circumstances where copyright holders actually threaten to sue over fanworks.

Even in the rare cases where copyrights holders actually DO worry about fanworks, the typical resolution is almost universally the offending fanwork being withdrawn from the internet, with no money changing hand. Which shows quite pointedly that it's not about them feeling entitled to your money for making a fanwork. It's about them not wanting, for one reason or another, your fanwork to be distributed.

In many of the cases where it's happened, that was at least in part if not in whole about feeling that your fanwork actually risked damaging the reputation of their actual work or characters by presenting them in a damaging light or by otherwise presenting their free product in a way that might mislead others to believe it's actually *their* product. In others, it's because the fanwork was outright being used to attack the copyright holder (in a case of biting the hand that is feeding you). In some rare cases from the early day of fanfiction, it was about protecting themselves from copyright claims on your part if they came up with similar plot ideas in their next story in the same series. And yes, in some case, it's about fearing that free distribution of your story will cause fewer people to buy theirs.

Money does play a part in some of those (precious few things in the whole wide world where money plays no role whatsoever), but in none of those cases is it about them wanting your money.

Quire frankly, it is excessively unlikely that you (or the vast majority of fanwork creators) have enough money for any creator to consider suing you a *way to make money*.

Being mean about it won't get your anywhere in convincing someone who doesn't believe that you can steal a thought.

The current system even supports people proactively defending their IP with cease-and-desist notifications. If they didn't do that, then there's a real risk that that the fanwork they allow can be seen as a toehold for others to undermine their IP. If nobody could use the arm of the state to punish people for the impossible crime of stealing thoughts, then there wouldn't be any incentive to behave in such a mobster way about art as though it's street turf that needs to be defended to the last inch as the only place fans can come to get their hit of their favorite drug.

Now take a look at IP that companies sit on with the intention of never reproducing it with the goal of trying to find better ways to monetize it. Movies, TV shows, books, etc. This isn't creativity in any other way than the creativity of people seeking to take something fun and artistic and making the most money out of it as possible. Zorro DVDs going for $400 on Amazon is just a casual example:

Amazon.com

 

[Plains-Cow]

Some of them mistakenly believe that if we have free stories to read, we won't want to read any more "real" ones.

Well, I suppose that may actually be true in some cases. I'd rather read a Dune fanfic than the crap KJA/BH puts out, as long as that fanfic is based on Frank Herbert's books or at least on the Dune Encyclopedia. Some of the Dune fans are going nuts over on TrekBBS because the latest movie's release has been pushed back to 2024. Whatever will they do? Were I one of the people looking forward to Villeneuve's pile of trash, I'd be searching out stories written in his version of the Duniverse (there must be some by now).

But in the case of C.J. Cherryh... there are some excellent fanfiction works based on her novels. Some are so good that Cherryh could have written them herself. Does that mean I won't buy the next Alliance-Union novel that's coming out next year? Of course I'm going to buy it. It's beyond frustrating that it didn't come out this year, but oh well. I will just have to wait.

George Lucas had the right idea when he decided to let the fan films and fanfic go ahead. Fans might not be consuming his variety of Star Wars, but at least they're thinking about it, engaging with it, spreading the word to their friends (and potentially paying public) that Star Wars is a good thing - and more people will want to see the next movie, buy the merchandise, and so on.

Can you post some of your scribe work? I bet it looks cool!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Can you post some of your scribe work? I bet it looks cool!

You mean my calligraphy?

Unfortunately not, as I did most of it in the 1980s and '90s. I'm not sure if any of it is still left, and if there is, it would probably just be a feast menu.

 

[Plains-Cow]

You mean my calligraphy?

Unfortunately not, as I did most of it in the 1980s and '90s. I'm not sure if any of it is still left, and if there is, it would probably just be a feast menu.

The feast menu sounds like it would be one of the coolest ones, though! If you find it, you gotta share it with us.

 

[NinjaCow64]

When was the last time any leftists were on the site? Early 2010s before gamergate? 2000s when it was essentially a tentacle rape hentai porn fansite?

Either way the website was always bad with some kind of nasty element to it, so I can't imagine any leftists who uses to hang out there in some past era to be like good people.

Never implied there were leftists on the site. I just said creative people. Not all creative people are leftists, some can have downright awful politics. Point is, eventually all the posters who made creative memes left the site and all that remains are weirdos who spend all their time going “oh boy I love Trump!”. That’s when the website became irrelevant in meme culture.

 

[Evie]

The current system even supports people proactively defending their IP with cease-and-desist notifications. If they didn't do that, then there's a real risk that that the fanwork they allow can be seen as a toehold for others to undermine their IP.

One, as I have previously pointed out, *copyright doesn't work that way*. It does NOT get diluted because you don't defend it. Non-enforcement is NOT "a toehold" for other to use our copyright. You're misapplying *trademark* law to copyright, again.

Which is easily shown by the fact that in the real world, the overhwelmingly most common outcome is for fanworks to be tolerated quietly if not outright permitted under specific conditions (fan content policies). Cease and desist for fanwork is not at all the default - because the vast majority knows that by and large, fanworks *promote* their work, they don't harm it!

In the copyright world you claim exist, Archive of Our Own (to name but one, although the best, example) wouldn't exist, and it certainly wouldn't have been allowed to survive the massive spotlight of getting a Hugo Award, but yet none of that happened! AO3 not only exist but is immensely popular, well known, and its Hugo win was largely celebrated, not condemned! (Closer to home, the same can be said of CFC and its mods archive, which certainly wouldn't exist in a world where c&d is the go-to response to fanworks!)

Simply, you seem, again, to have built your perspective of IP on a handful of higher profile cases (which are higher profile BECAUSE they are exceptional situations, and outside the norms).

 

[Plains-Cow]

One, as I have previously pointed out, *copyright doesn't work that way*. It does NOT get diluted because you don't defend it. Non-enforcement is NOT "a toehold" for other to use our copyright. You're misapplying *trademark* law to copyright, again.

Which is easily shown by the fact that in the real world, the overhwelmingly most common outcome is for fanworks to be tolerated quietly if not outright permitted under specific conditions (fan content policies). Cease and desist for fanwork is not at all the default - because the vast majority knows that by and large, fanworks *promote* their work, they don't harm it!

In the copyright world you claim exist, Archive of Our Own (to name but one, although the best, example) wouldn't exist, and it certainly wouldn't have been allowed to survive the massive spotlight of getting a Hugo Award, but yet none of that happened! AO3 not only exist but is immensely popular, well known, and its Hugo win was largely celebrated, not condemned! (Closer to home, the same can be said of CFC and its mod archive, which certainly wouldn't exist in a world where c&d is the go-to response to fanworks!)

Trademark law and copyright law both feed into each other in this day and age. It isn't the 1300s anymore where trademarks are even used by the public at-large when buying things from stores. Trademarks are only used in branding and the wonderful world of marketing these days.

The fact there's a law at all that allows people to not have to "quietly tolerate" fanworks is proof enough that the system is pretty broken. It's gross to even think that a company can have the thought of "quietly tolerating" fans of media doing their own things with the characters. Imagine being so self-entitled as an entity that you feel like you need to control the fan art people make. It isn't like it's yours, and it isn't like your story doesn't borrow from countless unaccredited things in the past.

All because sometimes companies choose to not use the bloody tools of law to bludgeon fan works and websites out of existence doesn't make the existence of said laws a good thing. You're arguing that because gross exploitation of said tools doesn't happen all the time, that it's no big deal. Again the hands get tipped though, because you argue from a money perspective in that allowing these sites and works of art to exist isn't good because they're morally fine to exist and be shared for free on principle, but because they make the company who "owns" the IP more money.

 

[Crezth]

Yes but people were complaining of how the old system of publishers was corrupt, and stingy, and you needed to be hooked up with the right connections for it to even be seen by a publisher, and yada yada yada.

At least Amazon solved that problem just as a consequence now you get to swim through a sea of garbage since after all that's just a natural consequence of what will happen if you allow everyone to easily publish books since most people are utterly crap at writing books.

Amazon solved that problem by becoming an international shipping monopoly. By the way, I don't agree most people are utterly crap at writing books. I really just don't think they've been given a shot, and they live in a world that does not encourage them to write books because it's a waste of their time and money. You know I don't have a problem with any old peasant writing books. I think perhaps all peasants should be allowed to have a book out there. What I have a problem with is the book industry in the hands of capitalist production. That's what produces all of the terrible pathologies everyone is complaining about regardless of how much you dance around the topic.

The old publishers were stingy? Yeah, you know, again that's all just gonna come down to capitalist production and their priorities. They couldn't afford to publish everyone's books; it just doesn't make sense. Because they must turn profits.

But the fully socialized and planned book industry doesn't need to turn profits. It just needs to grind wood pulp into books at a predetermined rate. At no point does anyone's great great grandson get to be a billionaire because of that.

But see that's just a return to the old publisher method, but instead of capitalist publishers they're socialist publishers.

So people would then complain again about how there's limited space in the libraries and how you need to know a local party official and do something special to her/him to get your work in a library. Even claiming there's too much censorship like back in the old capitalist publisher days!

Too bad, so sad, get in line.

To me it's either a traditional publisher system (capitalist or socialist your choice) which will inevitably have bias, favoritism, and stinginess, plus possible censorship. Or some kind of digital distribution system where anything goes, but will inevitably have poor quality control but lacks the favoritism, and stinginess.

However you forgot to mention the digital distribution system is also a capitalist one, so bring back the favoritism and stinginess, and also add the arbitrary enrichment of a rent seeking megacorporation which is above the law.

 

[Evie]

Trademark law and copyright law both feed into each other in this day and age.

Regardless of whether the vague claim is or is not accurate in specific other cases, it is grossly wrong in this matter. The legal distinction is clear and explicit, and inherent to the fundamental nature of each of the two regime.

There is no feeding into each other on this matter, except in the strawmen being constructed by people who hate IP but have only superficial understanding thereof.

It isn't the 1300s anymore where trademarks are even used by the public at-large when buying things from stores. Trademarks are only used in branding and the wonderful world of marketing these days.

...what, are we really going for the angle that people don't buy products on brand recognition (ie, branding, ie, trademark)? Which is, in effect, the same process of buying something because you recognize its makers' mark or brand?

The fundamental idea is largely the same.

 

[Joij21]

the digital distribution system is also a capitalist one

It doesn't have to be. The original publisher one is also capitalist through it originating in capitalism, so you wanna return to something capitalist as well via this notion.

By the way, I don't agree most people are utterly crap at writing books. I really just don't think they've been given a shot, and they live in a world that does not encourage them to write books because it's a waste of their time and money.

They are already all given a shot via Amazon, so it proves most people are crap at making books.

So please explain how capitalism is making the people who publish there bad at writing, I want to see what you come up with to explain that phenomenon.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

She is a fascist

She supports the fusion of business and government power?

She opposes civil liberties?

She wants the government to control the media?

She wants dissidents imprisoned?

Please link to some evidence.

 

[Lexicus]

She is a fascist

Afaict pretty much. Depressing that people fall for this ****.

 

[Crezth]

It doesn't have to be.

Granted.

They are already all given a shot via Amazon, so it proves most people are crap at making books.

No, it doesn't, because market access is not this perfectly flat and uniform line across the board for all products of a similar nature. Putting aside how easy it is to now get distributed by Amazon, it does nothing for putting you in the public eye or making purchasers aware of you. All it proves is that capitalists have found a way to make more money per book. That's all it is. Everything else is not fundamentally changed.

So please explain how capitalism is making the people who publish there bad at writing, I want to see what you come up with to explain that phenomenon.

Because people are motivated to write what they think sells instead of what they want to write. I talked about this with Charlie Dickens already. How much will you compromise on your artistic vision to make something you think could be a lucrative media product? Countless art has had the life choked out of it by the capitalist media industry. Long before there were bad books on Amazon Books, there was Herge writing the same cartoon for 50 years because he couldn't stop, and lamenting the course of his life even as we all, happy greedy pigs, dined on Tintin and the Picaros.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Regardless of whether the vague claim is or is not accurate in specific other cases, it is grossly wrong in this matter. The legal distinction is clear and explicit, and inherent to the fundamental nature of each of the two regime.

There is no feeding into each other on this matter, except in the strawmen being constructed by people who hate IP but have only superficial understanding thereof.



...what, are we really going for the angle that people don't buy products on brand recognition (ie, branding, ie, trademark)? Which is, in effect, the same process of buying something because you recognize its makers' mark or brand?

The fundamental idea is largely the same.

You keep saying that I don't understand it, but you never explain what I don't understand or make an attempt to educate me. I make no bones about hating IP laws as a concept. I'm not making any strawmen because my examples are factual.

You didn't address the most critical parts of my statements:

"All because sometimes companies choose to not use the bloody tools of law to bludgeon fan works and websites out of existence doesn't make the existence of said laws a good thing. You're arguing that because gross exploitation of said tools doesn't happen all the time, that it's no big deal. Again the hands get tipped though, because you argue from a money perspective in that allowing these sites and works of art to exist isn't good because they're morally fine to exist and be shared for free on principle, but because they make the company who "owns" the IP more money."

 

[Evie]

I've corrected a number of false claims you've made about IP law, and pointed out the reality of the situation.

Every single time, rather than taking the occasion to listen to the corrections and ask further questions, you've instead doubled down or shifted the goalposts to some other line of thinking.

If you're suggesting I should take the time to give you a full class in fundamentals of intelectual property, then no. That's a 45 hours university class with significant entry requirements (like having to be in law school to begin with) that people get paid to give; I do not have time for that.

As to the main argument: I would prefer somewhat stronger protection for derivative not-for-profit works, but not unlimited freedom, no. In a quarter-century neck-deep in fanworks across multiple fandoms I've much more cases where attacks on fanwork by copyright holders were reasonable and justified than cases where they weren't. So these should largely remain possible.

Sorry not sorry. I've seen the heart of fanwork, and freeing it of any restrictions is a road paved with a lot of good intentions. We know where that goes for the original creators.

 

[Igaryd]

Of course not. But you're missing the point. Yes, I know the Catholic church owns the ceiling that Michelangelo painted. My point is if Michelangelo could have gone on to paint the same, or similar scene, somewhere else? It's not whether he owned the ceiling. It's whether he owned the idea.



Thomas Kinkade did make beautiful pictures. I own several of his calendars and a shelf and a half of jigsaw puzzles made from his work. No, they aren't all of farm scenes. Since I grew up on an acreage that was close to a farm, why would I want dozens of pictures of farms around?

I just did an image search for Thomas Kinkade, and don't see much there to do with farms. Of course anything with his name on it after his death wasn't really made by him. There are people he taught to emulate his style.

The critics can shut up. Yes, there are numerous common elements in a Kinkade painting. Stone cottages, gazebos, flowers, streams, bridges, little pathways going here and there... those are pictures I enjoy. His other themes include Christmas, city streets, and I don't remember when the Disney stuff started. I don't care for those. There are whole calendars dedicated to churches and bible verses. Those are not in my collection.

Good for your niece. I wish her every success.



Jean Pare may have been a celebrity when it comes to cookbooks, but I liked the recipes because they weren't complicated. I didn't start getting interested in cookbooks until someone in the local SCA snarkily dared me to autocrat (organize) the next feast.

That resulted in weeks of planning with the people who were actually going to be doing most of the cooking, to plan a several-remove feast that could have been served at a high-ranking court during the 16th century. I deliberately set it in that time period so we could include New World ingredients. I also had to organize the removes for the fighters who thought that fruit-based dishes were "sissy", people who weren't into everything being meat-based, and the one guy I've mentioned who was deathly allergic to garlic.

The feast was a success, btw. The Order of the Ravening Horde (food/feast critics) rated it 5/5.



Authors who write fanfiction don't feel entitled to your money. Only the stupid ones think they can self-publish on Amazon without getting caught, because other fans can and will rat them out. We have to, so TPTB don't shut down the fanfic sites.



Ghostwriting can help extend the life of a series when the original author dies, ie. Darkover. The Heirs of Hammerfell is the last Darkover novel Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote by herself. Every one since then has either been some sort of collaboration while MZB was alive, or written/edited by the people she designated as her "heirs" - Elisabeth Waters and Debra Ross. Mercedes Lackey collaborated with her on one of the novels, and I could tell exactly which parts, and even which sentences Lackey wrote. Their styles didn't mesh well enough to make it seamless.

Debra Ross did a great job on some of the books. Others... yikes. I dunno what she was thinking, writing such a miserable piece of crap that was supposed to be the decades-awaited sequel to one of the best of the Darkover books. She must not have done more than skimmed the first one, or assumed the longtime fans would be glad to get any new Darkover book?

Nope. I gave it a bad review on Amazon, and did not hold back on why.

And when the original author isn't dead, but just isn't good at writing novels, you get the case of Star Wars. The first novel was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, which explains why I was disappointed when I finally saw the movie. There were some things Foster had written that were absent.



Some authors have made it very clear on the fanfiction sites that they do NOT want any stories on their work to appear there, and if found, they are to be taken down immediately. In turn, the site has a list of authors/series that may not be posted. Some Darkover fanfic authors get around this by posting in non-English languages.

This is awfully hypocritical of some of them, btw, if they themselves got their start in fanfiction. The whole Outlander series, for example, started as Diana Gabaldon's Doctor Who story based on what she imagines happened to Jamie McCrimmon after his memory wipe and return to the Highlands at the end of the Second Doctor era. So for Gabaldon to later go on a rant about fanfic based on Outlander is... rich.

As for "biting the hand that feeds you"... even the pros can get into trouble over that. Diane Carey is one of the worst Star Trek tie-in authors who didn't get her start in fanfic. She inserted her own political views into the mouths and thoughts of the characters, to the point where I was staring at the page and thinking, "But that isn't what Kirk thinks! WTH?"

Her final novel, and the one that got her fired as a Trek tie-in novelist, was a Voyager novel in which she had Janeway mirror every nasty, hateful little thought Carey had about that series. By the time the publishers realized what a hateful hatchet job it was, it was too late to cancel it and get another author write something to meet the deadline in the publication schedule.

So this POS had to be published. But that was it for Carey.

I always associated Kincaide's stuff with rural settings hence the farm reference. I loved his stuff my self. My spare coin however gets spent on games and books Though I am more inclined to non fiction Though I loved David Webbers stuff going back to his days writing game fiction for the old starfire pen and paper scifi game one of the most singular elegant approaches to in game ship design ever

 

[Crezth]

As to the main argument: I would prefer somewhat stronger protection for derivative not-for-profit works, but not unlimited freedom, no. In a quarter-century neck-deep in fanworks across multiple fandoms I've much more cases where attacks on fanwork by copyright holders were reasonable and justified than cases where they weren't. So these should largely remain possible.

I doubt this is true. I think there's probably almost zero cases where an "original creator" is actually justified in creatively denigrating a fanwork. I mean, you know, from a business perspective it's whatever, it's just capitalist violence, but from an artistic perspective? Why should it matter?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I always associated Kincaide's stuff with rural settings hence the farm reference. I loved his stuff my self. My spare coin however gets spent on games and books Though I am more inclined to non fiction Though I loved David Webbers stuff going back to his days writing game fiction for the old starfire pen and paper scifi game one of the most singular elegant approaches to in game ship design ever

Kinkade does not do farm pictures. He does stone cottages, stone bridges, streams, gazebos, flowers, places with lights on in every room, Christmas stuff (lots of churches), plenty of old-fashioned scenes.

I collected his calendars for awhile until they got too pricey. I've probably got a couple of dozen jigsaw puzzles of his stuff. I used to have a clock with one of his gazebo pictures on it, and it was one that had birdsong every hour (scared the hell out of company if they were here and birds suddenly started chirping from the clock). The clock doesn't work anymore, though.