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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Feb 23, 2019 3:02:19 GMT
I was on YouTube, today, and I came across the video of an author who was reading a book she'd published. And in the video she says that she copied an entire blog post written by someone else, along with all of the comments, and pasted them verbatim into her book as chapter two. And she was reading the chapter to her audience. I responded with a comment asking if she got permission and explaining that just because something is posted on the internet that doesn't make it public domain.
If you aren't making money off it, and you're just sharing on your own blog or in a forum, whatever, then that's fine. But you can't publish it and make money from it because that is copyright infringement.
It's like with fan fiction. You can write all the Star Trek Discovery fan fiction you want and post it on your fan fiction site. But the minute you try and publish that shit on amazon you are plagiarizing. So don't do it!
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Post by davidvandyke on Feb 26, 2019 1:07:25 GMT
Actually, Star Trek Fan Fiction is technically infringing, but Paramount (or whoever owns ST now) is smart enough to know that fanfic helps them, rather than hurts them, and to ignore it.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Mar 9, 2019 13:40:36 GMT
All fan fiction the author didn't expressly authorize is infringing, but most people don't worry about it as long as the writer isn't making any money, or claiming they own the original or anything.
But yeah, don't steal. It's a low down thing to do to people.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Mar 11, 2019 4:52:44 GMT
So how would y’all feel if fans started writing fanfics using your character or world? Would you feel flattered or would you feel angry that people were stealing from you? Especially if they found a way to monetize it? Not by selling their stories but say through ad-click revenue or patreon?
I would feel flattered that fans loved my characters and universe so much, and would probably see it as extra advertising. But since it hasn’t happened yet, I’m not sure. I can certainly understand rights owners getting annoyed if fans were making money from their intellectual property.
And yes, it’s absolutely right that fan fiction does infringe even when no money is made. I used to write a lot of RPG and back then I didn’t realize that we were infringing. But of course we were. We didn’t make any money off it and luckily no one shut us down cos it was fun.
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Post by davidvandyke on Mar 12, 2019 0:29:34 GMT
I'd love it. It would be a great position to be in. I could decide on a case-by-case basis how to deal with it--maybe even offer the writer a co-author deal, eh?
What do you mean "write a lot of RPG"? Roleplaying games? What?
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Mar 12, 2019 5:19:13 GMT
I'd love it. It would be a great position to be in. I could decide on a case-by-case basis how to deal with it--maybe even offer the writer a co-author deal, eh? What do you mean "write a lot of RPG"? Roleplaying games? What? Yes, roleplaying games, although it was more like communal creative writing. I started with V series, that's where K'Sennia Visitor was born, she was an original character in that universe, and then she sort of morphed into me. I also did Once Upon A Time, got to play many different characters, original and canon. We would basically rewrite the show, sometimes episode by episode, with some of us writing as OG's and others as canons, but we could morph and twist the story however we wanted. Although, often it ended up just being an excuse to take our characters clothes off and have at it.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Mar 15, 2019 14:16:20 GMT
I wouldn't mind if someone wrote fan fiction from my stuff, but it would have to be just for fun. No scratching off the serial numbers and selling it (I'm looking at you, E L James). I also wouldn't want to read any of it, to avoid potential claims I stole anyone's ideas.
When I was young, I wrote Star Trek fan fiction. I wrote stories for my brother's fanzine, but we didn't make any money from it. It was for fun and for love of the show.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Mar 15, 2019 23:39:55 GMT
Right, not reading any of the fics is a good idea. The creator of Babylon 5 once had to scrap a storyline due to a fan coming up with a similar idea. And so from then on he had a firm "no story ideas" policy on any platform where he interacted with fans. EL James isn't the only one who changed her fanfic names and made a fortune. Cassandra Clare did the same. If you're going to do that you need to go with a trad house because that way you'll be protected. An indie would be roasted alive with their stolen manuscripts taped to their melting flesh.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Mar 30, 2019 19:50:04 GMT
I've read that Lois MacMaster Bujold basically wrote her Vorsakian books based off Star Trek (I know, I probably didn't spell any of that right). It was a pretty common rumor for years, at least as I remember it. I used to read the fandom magazines back in the day, it's amazing the stuff you'd pick up. I tried to read those books but they just didn't interest me (sorry, Lois!), so I don't know if they were close to ST or not.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 1, 2019 7:55:22 GMT
Interesting, I hadn't heard that before. I've seen some star trek, but never a full series, and I'm not super into that fandom. I have read at least parts of one Bujold book, but I never got around to finishing it. At least I don't think I did. Not out of disinterest, just not enough time.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Apr 22, 2019 8:15:46 GMT
I think she admitted a long time ago that she'd written the first one more as ST fan fiction, but ended up changing most or all of the ST influence once the story got started. Apparently people who read the books and were big ST fans noticed it. I don't see anything wrong with being influenced by something. We all are the product of what what we've read or watched or heard about or experienced ourselves. I have a story that's sort of loosely inspired by Supernatural, and another by Star Gate: SG1, but they are different enough that I don't think it's doing much more than following a vague idea that's the same. The basic premise got my brain working. What I dislike are the people who steal an entire work and only scrape off enough paint to pass it off as their own, or those who sell their "catalog" and someone republishes it without changing anything (or very little) and don't tell the readers. I know I'd be pissed if I bought something that was the same book I already had, only the author name and title was different. I don't even like "mirroring", where the genders are changed or the heat level is changed. Without letting people know, it's just skeevy to me.
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