Mmm. Something about online fandom does seem to persistently blur the lines (or at least the perception) between stylistic/conceptual similarity and outright copying-- a fair amount of fan art doesn't involve much (any?) truly active creativity, but merely takes scans or screenshots and moves them around a bit, changes the color scheme, or adds/removes some words. It's a slight step above merely plastering the original scan/screenshot onto your desktop as wallpaper, but it's not significally *creating* something that was never there before; it's more a matter of editing pre-existing material.
I enjoy the HP books/movies in a casual way, but don't really interact with the fandom; every so often I like to rummage through some stories or artwork, but have hardly ever engaged in a debate about anything HP, other than occasional casual conversation with the wombat-consort.
Plagiarism in fanfic doesn't really excite me all that much, on an abstract level; some of my fic has been (ahem) pastiched over the years, but every time I found out about it, the person who told me was much more upset than I was. It's fanfic. Posted online. I don't have any legal rights to it to speak of, and the online distribution makes it doubly unpublishable.
But when something is taken from a *published* work, I just think that it's simple courtesy to return the favor of reflected glory, so to speak, by pointing readers to go buy the original. Eh.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2006-08-13 11:16 pm (UTC)I enjoy the HP books/movies in a casual way, but don't really interact with the fandom; every so often I like to rummage through some stories or artwork, but have hardly ever engaged in a debate about anything HP, other than occasional casual conversation with the wombat-consort.
Plagiarism in fanfic doesn't really excite me all that much, on an abstract level; some of my fic has been (ahem) pastiched over the years, but every time I found out about it, the person who told me was much more upset than I was. It's fanfic. Posted online. I don't have any legal rights to it to speak of, and the online distribution makes it doubly unpublishable.
But when something is taken from a *published* work, I just think that it's simple courtesy to return the favor of reflected glory, so to speak, by pointing readers to go buy the original. Eh.