If any activities on the internet could be termed “pirating”, they would probably be the sharing of music files, pictures, and other such media without the permission of the author. However, there’s another aspect of slightly illegal use of other people’s property that often escapes the spotlight because of its fuzzy and unclear nature: use of someone else’s work used to construct something new and original. Examples of this might include fan fiction, fan art, wallpapers of TV show characters, re-mixes of popular songs. As with piracy, these things use the original artist’s work without permission.
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But are they wrong?
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I, myself, am a writer of fan fiction and an artist of fan art. As a lover of “the Chronicles of Narnia”, I found myself longing for more than just seven books...so the idea occurred to me, why not write another one? To my surprise, lots of other people have had the same idea. The most popular website for fan fiction, “Fanfiction.net”, boasts over 2,680,000 members. That’s 2 million people who are reading (if not writing) stories about characters and plots that legally belong to someone else. Personally, I think that fan fiction is a good thing because it allows young writers who may not have enough practice with creating characters and worlds to hone their skills by using already existing characters and worlds. Eventually they will reach a point when they feel confident enough to branch out and create “original fiction”, but until then, I think fan fiction is a great opportunity for growth as a writer while expanding the fandom you love in the process.
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The downside of these things are the rights of the original creators. Often one hears stories about an author who was sued because her latest book sounded too much like a fan’s story that was posted on a site like fan fiction. To combat this, many authors prohibit the public creation of fan fiction for their stories.
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This is an interesting dilemma, though, and one mentioned in our textbook “Born Digital”. There is little information being created on the internet today (pictures, stories, music) that is actually original. However, I’m not sure that is a bad thing. By using someone else’s creation and adapting it to fit their purposes, people are becoming more adept at changing and molding what already exists into the form they have in mind for it to become. That doesn’t sound like piracy to me.
Very good post. I like how you are looking at the conflict of plagiarism v. inspiration from the inside looking out. Its good to hear an argument of the nature made my someone who is actively involved in fanfiction and fanart.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I agree with you. Given my experience with fanfiction, I've found the people who use it to be aspiring writers who use it to hone their craft and mean absolutely no disrespect to the source material.
Very well thought post!
Just a heads up, your text on this post is in black and is invisible against your background. You might wanna change it to white like your other posts. I agree with this. Plagiarism and piracy, in some situations, can be a fine line to walk. I think an author shouldn't have to worry about getting sued because of fan fiction written on their works. In my mind, if a person is writing fan fiction (which I think is awesome), then they are entering that author's created world and has to follow the author's rules.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you opinion on being able to re-create already existing work, as long it is not for profit or for personal gain though. I think it's ridiculous that a writer could be sued for writing something close to what one of their fans made up online. It was their ideas and stories in the first place so the "fan" needs to calm down. I think it's great though that they have places like fanfiction on the internet to help those who want to pursue that type of work.
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