Why fanfic makes us stupid

This is a response to “Why fanfic makes us poor” by Cupidsbow, made over here. I think, in the interests of civilised debate, that it’s important that I make it clear that this is a reponse, not an attack.

One of the arguments in the essay was that fanfic is deserving of more broad recognition, and the commercialisation, in some form, of fanfic may be one way to address the dearth of respect that fanfic authors get. Some of the comments, and many people more broadly within various fanfic communities, argue for the abolition or at least relaxation of intellectual property as they apply to derivative works. The arguments that have been advanced by the fanfic community in “Why fanfic makes us poor” are wrong on a fairly fundamental level, in my view.

It’s mostly the same deployment of copyright as a monolithic authority which should keep all non-commercial writing in check, with no real self-awareness that this is the same Bad Faith argument Russ addresses…

I think this needs to be addressed.

  • It’s fundamental to the protection of artists that intellectual property protections extend to derivative works.Without that protection there would be no protection against anything other than the direct reproduction of someone’s work – any Hollywood studio could pick up a book, turn it into a film, and pay nothing to the original creator.There would be nothing to protect any author if their work became successful and popular – any rival publisher could grab a couple of work-for-hire writers and turn out a couple of books using the same world, for a fast cash in – almost certainly, at the same time, diluting and destroying what had been good about the original work.

    In another field, intellectual property laws protecting derivative works are the only thing that prevents the art world sharks turn the work of indigenous artists into towels, coffee mugs and tee shirts for tourists without recognition or payment - at least it stops it happening more than it currently does, and can offer some justice to artists when identified.

    In “Why fanfic makes us poor”, George Lucas was mentioned in one comment – in the context that he’d done well by leaving the fan community alone as they created around the canon, keeping his creation alive and vibrant. This is bullshit. Lucas made most of his money by aggressively maintaining control of derivative work based on his IP. Every figurine, book, comic; pretty much every bit of Star Wars kitsch between then and now has made money for George Lucas. And every toy company in the world knows that if they stray across the line, Lucas will send around the angry lawyers.

  • Secondly, and this flows from the first point, you can’t have those changes because you don’t have a business model.There doesn’t seem to be any particular way, advanced by proponents of fanfic, of changing things that will make them better for everyone. On the other side, however, plenty of people will have loads of ways to make money out of making things worse for artists.You can’t have a case for change without an alternative. And you particularly can’t make a case for change when you’re running the case from the argument that it benefits a relatively limited section of the broader community like the fanfic community.
  • Lastly, there seems to be a fundamental assumption in this debate that the only people involved in the creative process, as it applies to fanfic, are authors and fans – and that the fundamental divide is between protecting the property of the author and recognising the right of fans to create works that explore the work in greater depth (and/or make the hobbits have sex with each other).That ain’t the case either. Publishing is a process, not a ‘monolithic authority’, and every layer in that process adds value.The writer’s agent; the editor; the copy editor; the graphic designer, cover artist, typesetter, print production manager, marketing rep, advertising designer, sales rep… All of these people, to one degree or another, add something of value to the book that we see on the shelves (and that’s just on the literary side, btw – there are far, far more people involved in the various stages of visual media).

    Fanfic rides that process. Fanfic takes the final product (usually the successful final product) as canon – the fanfic community says: “We have the final product which we love, but we’ll take it from here, thanks very much”. Some people strongly oppose even this, but I’m personally largely ambivalent about it when it’s primarily about non-commercial creation and community.

    But irrespective of that, it’s pretty offensive when an element of the fanfic community says, to all of these people: ‘Fuck you. We want to take this, which came to our attention because of your hard work, and we want to make money out of it too.”

    Even if it isn’t much money, or it’s money down the track somewhere (’Still Not King’ shirts anyone?), or even when it’s ‘original’ fic with the serial numbers filed off.

    I really don’t know how I feel about fanfic that is not commercial in its outlook and its intent – mostly I don’t care, because mostly it isn’t very good. And the shithouse signal to noise ratio makes it hardly worth the effort to find what quality is out there - having a friend as a beta reader is not the same as having independent editorial assessment, seriously. I might not like all of the commercial fiction I pay for, but at least the adjectives are mostly in the right places.

    But I do know how I feel about those bits of the fannish community who say we should change the rules for all, so that they can make some money out of their tiny end of it.

    • 2 People have left comments on this post



    » Pete Tzinski said: { May 2, 2007 - 02:05:57 }

    Damn smart blog entry, and you’re entirely right. I wrote fanfiction contentedly for a number of years when I was younger; it was how I cut my teeth on writing fast, to a deadline, to a word count. I value *what I took* from fanfiction.

    Every now and then, you’d get a yuppie kid showing up who would try to rally those of us who were just having fun with a “We shoudl make MONEY off this! Down with the Evil Overlord!”

    It was just people talking silly buggers then, it still is.

    And frankly, when fanfiction gets to the level where it would be considered publishable (in terms of quality, not length, God knows) then 90% of the time, the author of it has plenty of original works, of publishable quality, which they can happily sell.

    Anyway, great article.

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