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Disturbing... maybe...
Feb. 7th, 2010 08:25 pmI just found a story - not familiar with the author or characters, but I believe it's fanfiction - which inserted part of one of my stories into it, only changing the POV so it was like Hannibal telling these other characters about it. Now, the author did credit both me and the story at the beginning of the chapter, but I found it disturbing that she took my work without at least asking me first.
Obviously, I can't lay claim to the guys, but just as obviously, I put a copyright on all my stories simply so people won't take those stories and claim to have written them. As far as someone "using" my stories (such as in this case), I don't have a problem with that per se, as long as they acknowledge my authorship, which this person did. It's more the idea that she didn't ask first. Had she emailed me, there's a 99% chance I would have said no problem. (The 1 percent chance being if it were a totally atrocious story that took *my* story totally out of its context.)
But it also raised some questions for me as a writer of fanfic. Because, after all, we're borrowing from someone else. And we don't exactly ask. So on the one hand, is this any different? On the other hand, fanfic writers are all a few steps down in the food chain from the people who actually own the shows/characters and make money from it, and being together in that spot kinda behooves a certain "code of conduct", ie, you don't poach from other authors without at least asking first. I mean, it's not like the author couldn't find a way to contact me. And her own website states,
However, [original character], her family, anything connected with her, and various other characters/things that dos not belong to someone else (but may be derived from someone else's ideas, which I'll credit) does belong to me. They will be so noted! Please ASK if you wish to use them!!
So I guess my main beef is that she should have asked me.
Obviously, I can't lay claim to the guys, but just as obviously, I put a copyright on all my stories simply so people won't take those stories and claim to have written them. As far as someone "using" my stories (such as in this case), I don't have a problem with that per se, as long as they acknowledge my authorship, which this person did. It's more the idea that she didn't ask first. Had she emailed me, there's a 99% chance I would have said no problem. (The 1 percent chance being if it were a totally atrocious story that took *my* story totally out of its context.)
But it also raised some questions for me as a writer of fanfic. Because, after all, we're borrowing from someone else. And we don't exactly ask. So on the one hand, is this any different? On the other hand, fanfic writers are all a few steps down in the food chain from the people who actually own the shows/characters and make money from it, and being together in that spot kinda behooves a certain "code of conduct", ie, you don't poach from other authors without at least asking first. I mean, it's not like the author couldn't find a way to contact me. And her own website states,
However, [original character], her family, anything connected with her, and various other characters/things that dos not belong to someone else (but may be derived from someone else's ideas, which I'll credit) does belong to me. They will be so noted! Please ASK if you wish to use them!!
So I guess my main beef is that she should have asked me.
