Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

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Sundae
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Sundae »

Misha wrote::lol: Yeah, I was joking, though maybe they really don't know that fanfiction is, by definition, a sort of plagiarism, even if you don't earn money by it.

Now, if I were a published author, would I ban fanfiction? Personally, I wouldn't, but I probably wouldn't read it either. It would be either too depressing to see my characters written so bad, or I might run the risk to come across a really good idea I wouldn't want to use since it's already in a fanfiction work...

So, on the other hand, if I write a fanfic and then see the author running with my idea on his books, do I get to sue too? No wonder fanfic is such a legal minefield...
Haha, yeah. I don't think I'd ban fan-fiction of my work if I ever get published. But...the bad writing...its sort of embarrassing, but I find that I'm easily inspired by really bad fics. Its horrible, I know and really made me question myself, but then I realized. Its' not that is bad per say, but its just poorly written and very underdeveloped, but the seed for greatness is there...and I usually find myself getting hit with a slew of ideas right after another. I hate it. :lol:

I'm not sure if I would read fan fiction for my own work or not. Sometimes, I feel like the actors have to feel pretty embarrassed or ashamed at times if they ever read some of the fics on here. Especially the smutty fics. :lol: It's kinda weird when you think about it.

Ew, did they just and did they just use my body to do that :oops: :lol:
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nibbles2
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by nibbles2 »

I've read interviews with TV show writers and producers where they say that they are aware of fanfiction but not allowed to read in case they use the same ideas as the FF. Does that mean the copyright holders would be open to being sued for ideas theft? It's a grey area and possibly always will be unless somebody takes somebody else to court.

Personally speaking, if I was a published writer I would love if there was fanfiction of my work, if only because I know how much I've got out of it over the years and how much fun it is. However, if somebody was making money off it, ie trading on my name and work to make money then yeah, I'd probably put a halt to that.
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Angel
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Angel »

This is an interesting topic...I haven't really been involved in other fandom's fanfiction since Roswell, so I had no idea how it all worked elsewhere. I just know I got tired of searching for fics on LiveJournal. I much prefer message boards. :D

Anyway, I saw in some Star Trek documentary years ago talking about how fans used to mail episodes (typed up on typewriters, or even handwritten! :lol: ) to each other and even in to the show, thereby really creating the first "fanfiction." And yes, sometimes the show writers would use those ideas, but then they had to credit the person who wrote it.

So that's why shows now won't look at fanfiction. They don't even want to accidentally use an idea they read from someone else. It could be subconsciously. The original writer could sue them, but whether they won or not, it's not something they even want to go to court and lose money over. I always thought that was interesting because really, that fanfic writer doesn't have any right to the characters. But they DO have a right over the storyline, I guess. Definitely a gray area when it comes to the law and there are definitely emphatic opinions on both sides of the issue.
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Heavenli24
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Heavenli24 »

Angel wrote:But they DO have a right over the storyline, I guess. Definitely a gray area when it comes to the law and there are definitely emphatic opinions on both sides of the issue.
What's bugging me about the publishing thing right now is that there are stories being 'pulled for publishing' almost every day over there now, but the fics that are being published are the ones with the most reviews and are the most popular, not the ones that are extremely well-written and really deserve to be published.

...And what gets the most reviews is lots of sex in the chapters... so basically, these authors are just publishing smutty crap and not much else (including BDSM/Dominatrix fics, which for some reason are very popular in Twilight fanfic) - there are a few big-name fics that have been pulled for publishing in the last couple of weeks... fics that I started reading a while ago and quickly gave up on because they were nothing but sex and not much plot.

I just can't believe they think these fics are worthy of publishing simply because they got 15,000 reviews or whatever on Fanfiction.net (most of the time they only got reviews because of a) the sex or b) because they offered incentives to the readers at the end of each chapter so that they will be guaranteed to get more reviews), but a lot of them have the kind of plots that really should be left to fanfic and not unleashed on the outside world (I have yet to find a single Twilight fanfic that is anywhere near as good as the amazing stories here at RF)
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Angel »

Is it a case of just getting too big for their britches? Someone else mentioned (can't remember who) the natural evolution of fandoms. Rosdom certainly went through some crazy times the first few years, and I wonder if publishing had been as easy then as it is now with self-publishing if we would have had the same issues.

These authors who get a lot of feedback for their smut...and let's face it, smutty fics do tend to get more readers...think their writing is so great that they go off to seek publishing? That's extremely naive, I think. The best they could hope for would be to self publish. Of course, I've read some published books that reek of fanfic (Twilight is one of them).

I'm always fascinated at how other fandoms unfold. But I agree, pulling fics so easily seems strange. I know Roswriters from 10 years ago that still have their fics up on a website somewhere. We even have some great fic archivists who can find an old fic for you if you can't find it. Reading things like this reminds me why I still like the Roswell fandom. :lol:
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Heavenli24 »

Angel wrote:Is it a case of just getting too big for their britches? Someone else mentioned (can't remember who) the natural evolution of fandoms. Rosdom certainly went through some crazy times the first few years, and I wonder if publishing had been as easy then as it is now with self-publishing if we would have had the same issues.
Yeah, I think it is a case of too big for their britches - they get all this attention from the readers (who from what I've seen don't care if a story is full of grammar and spelling mistakes and is badly written, as long as it is full of sex) and they think, 'ooh, I'm going to make myself even more important and superior by publishing my porn-fest 'literary masterpiece' in the real world.' I mean, what random person off the street is actually going to go into a bookstore and buy that? (Apart from the Twilight fans who read it when it was a fanfic, that is).
These authors who get a lot of feedback for their smut...and let's face it, smutty fics do tend to get more readers...think their writing is so great that they go off to seek publishing? That's extremely naive, I think. The best they could hope for would be to self publish. Of course, I've read some published books that reek of fanfic (Twilight is one of them).
Yeah, I agree; smutty fics do get more readers, but that doesn't mean they are worthy of publishing. Looking at the explicit content of some of those fics, if it were me, I would be mortified for the real world to find out I wrote something like that... especially my family and friends!

The problem is, it's not even self-publishing... there has been an online publishing house set up by the creators of one of the major Twilight fanfiction sites and they are approaching the fanfic authors to ask if they want to publish their fanfic 'original work' with them.

Despite claiming that they do not publish fanfiction and only publish original works, the majority of the staff there are Twilight fanfic writers themselves and they are advertising the books on Twilight fanfic websites - they have now published 24 books and I think about 15-20 of them are former fanfics or sequels to fanfics (and several of them still have the same name as the fic). If you look at the reviews of the e-books on Amazon, you'll find several mentions of the fact that the books used to be Twilight fanfics.
I'm always fascinated at how other fandoms unfold. But I agree, pulling fics so easily seems strange. I know Roswriters from 10 years ago that still have their fics up on a website somewhere. We even have some great fic archivists who can find an old fic for you if you can't find it. Reading things like this reminds me why I still like the Roswell fandom. :lol:
Yeah, that's what's so great about it - you can still find the old fics even when the authors have left the fandom. If you want to read the early Roswell fanfics that shaped the fandom, then you can and you can experience the amazing talent of the writers who helped form the fandom in the first place. However, with Twilight fics, the majority of the good, well-known stories have now been pulled, so when someone new joins the fandom, they don't get the opportunity to go back and experience those great stories. I just found a list of all the fics that had been pulled as of a year ago - there are 170 fics on that list and I would guess that a good 50-100 more have probably been pulled since then.
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Misha
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Misha »

I think the Twilight fandom really got to you :lol:

In fanfiction defense of any fandom, there are some great fanfics out there that, with a little tweaking, can be incredibly well thought out original works and be published into books. Twilight is probably not the exception to this rule. On the other hand, instead of having 3,000 titles to go through (like with Roswell at fanfiction.net), you have like 200,000 stories. So it's absurdly hard to find a good story there.

It happens to small fandoms as well. I read Superman Returns fanfiction, for example. As there are probably less than a 1000 fanfics written specifically for that movie I have probably read by this point at least the summaries of 80% of those fics (I have not checked live journal, so... ::shrug:: ). There are probably only 10 well written, thought provoking, novel length, inspiring fanfics there that should by all accounts be books by themselves. The problem for these writers is there's no option but to remain in fanfiction. You cannot alter a Superman story enough without losing Superman's essence to your new character. Plus, thank God there are no All Human fanfics to that fandom! :shock: But I digress...

All I'm saying is, as frustrating as this has been for you in your pursuit of a decent piece of twilight fanfiction to read, and as annoying as it is to see crappy works being printed, they have all the right to think the world of their works. And yes, it sucks when I'm the one who buys the book at the bookstore just to find such an awful story for my money.

The original question asked here was if the writers have the right to take away their works, Twilight or otherwise, and my opinion would be "yes". I wish too there was a nice way to say "your writing sucks" without hurting anyone's feeling and for the benefit of both the author and the story, but yeah... At least, take comfort on knowing that once those books do hit the real world, the general public is not going to worship it as your fanfic readers if it really is that bad 8)

There's not much one as a reader can do... You can stop reading the author, start telling others how this author just completely leave you out in the cold, I guess... And start a thread about it, of course :lol:
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Heavenli24
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Heavenli24 »

Misha wrote:I think the Twilight fandom really got to you :lol:
Yeah, I think it did!

So, much so, in fact that I really think I need to get out of there. I'm only reading about 10 Twilight fics at the moment (on FF.net), and as I'm not really a big fan of the fandom or the books in general (I just went there for some new AU-Human stories), I really just check out the forums for the gossip and to give my take on things :P.

However, I got so wound up by the discussions on the forums yesterday that I ended up ranting about it here...and then I could barely sleep last night because I couldn't take my mind off the senseless arguments regarding publishing over on the Twilight websites (I didn't get to sleep until 4 a.m. this mroning, and had to be up for work at 7).
In fanfiction defense of any fandom, there are some great fanfics out there that, with a little tweaking, can be incredibly well thought out original works and be published into books. Twilight is probably not the exception to this rule. On the other hand, instead of having 3,000 titles to go through (like with Roswell at fanfiction.net), you have like 200,000 stories. So it's absurdly hard to find a good story there.
Yeah, at the end of the day, I don't have a major problem with taking something that was originally a fanfic and completely reworking it with new characters, new settings, different plot details etc. and then publishing it in the real world without associating the work with fanfiction (essentially as Rosdeirdre did). However, what I don't agree with is simply changing the names and places, not changing the plot at all, then publishing it as a novel... with the same title as the original fic so everyone will associate it with fanfiction.
It happens to small fandoms as well. I read Superman Returns fanfiction, for example. As there are probably less than a 1000 fanfics written specifically for that movie I have probably read by this point at least the summaries of 80% of those fics (I have not checked live journal, so... ::shrug:: ). There are probably only 10 well written, thought provoking, novel length, inspiring fanfics there that should by all accounts be books by themselves. The problem for these writers is there's no option but to remain in fanfiction. You cannot alter a Superman story enough without losing Superman's essence to your new character. Plus, thank God there are no All Human fanfics to that fandom! :shock: But I digress...
That's a good point actually - I was thinking about why publishing wasn't an issue in Buffy fanfic when I used to read it and I think it was because there were very few AU-Human stories and the majority of the fics were essentially trying to fix events that happened in the show... so there was not really any thought of publishing them. For me, that was the real joy of reading Buffy fanfiction... to read all the amazing ideas that the fans had for how the show could have gone.
All I'm saying is, as frustrating as this has been for you in your pursuit of a decent piece of twilight fanfiction to read, and as annoying as it is to see crappy works being printed, they have all the right to think the world of their works. And yes, it sucks when I'm the one who buys the book at the bookstore just to find such an awful story for my money.
Yeah, that's fair enough, I suppose :).
The original question asked here was if the writers have the right to take away their works, Twilight or otherwise, and my opinion would be "yes". I wish too there was a nice way to say "your writing sucks" without hurting anyone's feeling and for the benefit of both the author and the story, but yeah... At least, take comfort on knowing that once those books do hit the real world, the general public is not going to worship it as your fanfic readers if it really is that bad 8)
I just feel that the whole pulling and publishing fanfics thing over there is damaging both their fandom and fanfiction in general, partly because new readers are deprived of the well-known works of the fandom, but mostly because of the public nature of it all (especially with the publishing) - I feel like it's giving fanfiction in general a bad name and I don't want it to hurt the reputation (and possibly even the tolerance) of other fandoms as well :(.
There's not much one as a reader can do... You can stop reading the author, start telling others how this author just completely leave you out in the cold, I guess... And start a thread about it, of course :lol:
Lol.

I think my problem with it is mostly the shock and disappointment I feel when I read certain things about the fandom - I mean, I've been involved in fandoms for over a decade and they have always been relatively peaceful, kind and enjoyable communities, so it really makes me angry to see this new community come in and stomp all over the other fandoms (and draw attention to itself) with its cruel and callous behaviour - I was just reading about an incident last year where one of the big Twilight fics was translated so that a Russian girl and her friends could read and enjoy it. However, the girl didn't ask permission to translate the fic and there was a major fallout because of it.... the author took the fanfic off the internet (no idea why she felt the need to do so, since she wasn't the translator, but...) and so the readers (including some well-respected fic authors) all ganged up on the Russian girl on Twitter and threw obscene insults and death threats at her for depriving them of the story - I was absolutely shocked at the extent of the abuse... and as it was on Twitter there was no one to step in and put a stop to it.

Anyway, I've calmed down a bit now after yesterday and I've decided to try to stop thinking about this anymore... it's just been making me upset and frustrated (which probably isn't helping my writer's block either!).
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by nibbles2 »

Heavenli24 wrote: Yeah, at the end of the day, I don't have a major problem with taking something that was originally a fanfic and completely reworking it with new characters, new settings, different plot details etc. and then publishing it in the real world without associating the work with fanfiction (essentially as Rosdeirdre did). However, what I don't agree with is simply changing the names and places, not changing the plot at all, then publishing it as a novel... with the same title as the original fic so everyone will associate it with fanfiction.
Looks like this issue has hit the headlines recently. A reworked Twilight fanfic has been published as a piece of 'original fanfic' ebook. Because of the popularity of the author/fic in the twilight fanfic universe, it gained a lot of readers and then it grew on it's own merits and now it has been purchased by a publishing company and will be published as a book. You can read about it here.
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Re: Pulling fanfics from the internet - your opinions?

Post by Heavenli24 »

nibbles2 wrote:
Heavenli24 wrote: Yeah, at the end of the day, I don't have a major problem with taking something that was originally a fanfic and completely reworking it with new characters, new settings, different plot details etc. and then publishing it in the real world without associating the work with fanfiction (essentially as Rosdeirdre did). However, what I don't agree with is simply changing the names and places, not changing the plot at all, then publishing it as a novel... with the same title as the original fic so everyone will associate it with fanfiction.
Looks like this issue has hit the headlines recently. A reworked Twilight fanfic has been published as a piece of 'original fanfic' ebook. Because of the popularity of the author/fic in the twilight fanfic universe, it gained a lot of readers and then it grew on it's own merits and now it has been purchased by a publishing company and will be published as a book. You can read about it here.
This is actually one of the fanfics I was thinking of when talking about the whole 'pull to publish' thing... it was pulled off FF.net and the Twilight forums in 2009 and was published last summer - both as an e-book and in paperback. I have a copy of the fic on my computer, but I only managed to get through a couple of chapters before I gave up on it.

Problem is, the author has only changed the names and some physical attributes, but the story is almost identical (and the core personalities of the characters are basically still Bella and Edward) and is apparently still filled with all the bad grammar, cheesy cliches and out-of-place Britishisms as the fanfic.

The author and her husband both work in the media business (for the BBC, I think), so they''re well-versed in getting publicity - the first book has just gone to Number 1 on the NY Time combined ebook and print bestsellers list.

If you're going to try to publish a former fanfic, at least make it your own... use the fanfic as a starting point and then do lots of re-writing and changing of the backgrounds and personalities of the characters so they are original and yours... and don't still have same personality traits as the original fandom characters :roll:.
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