ruffboijuliaburnsides:notnanami:ruffboijuliaburnsides:voredrake:bludragongal: you kids have fun The
ruffboijuliaburnsides:notnanami:ruffboijuliaburnsides:voredrake:bludragongal: you kids have fun The fuck is this supposed to mean? I write and read fanfic, and have my own stories.If any lawyer comes at me, I will shove the book right up his ass. Seriously, I will print out a book of what I’ve written, I will bind it, and I will shove it up his ass. Or her ass. Or their ass. Doesn’t matter, whose ass, it just matters that whatever person wants to enforce any laws like this, will have it shoved there. It’s not about fanworks being bad or anything, it’s about how people who are creating a published original work (like OP, who is working on a comic and is a storyboarder, or like any published novelist with ongoing properties) generally are discouraged from doing things like reading fanfic bc if they don’t do it and they come out with a story that has a similarity to a fanfic, they can truthfully say it was a coincidence, and not leave themselves open to legal action, because while fanworks might not own the IP they’re writing about, they still technically own the copyright to their writing.So in order to not be potentially accused of reading some fic if they publish something similar (or to avoid having to change something that was already there but not released bc of coincidental similarities, or to avoid accidentally working something they saw in fic into their work bc it was hanging out in the back of their head), creators generally make a point to specifically not engage with fanfic and stuff like that. It’s just y’know sometimes it’s hard because you’d really like to see what ppl are doing in fanfic, which is what OP’s talking about - being careful to cover their ass legally but also wishing they could engage ethically. Okay so sorry if this is a stupid question but if I don’t ask I will be forever bothered by this. Can’t creators just……lie? Lie about whether or not they’re reading fanfic? Yes I know of course, unethical. Not everyone is willing to lie. But then in that case my question is, how would the fanfic author that wants to sue, prove in court that a specific creator read their fanfic? I don’t see how not reading fanfic protects creators when there’s no way (that I know of) that they can prove someone did or didn’t read a fic. Sure, but most of the published creators I know are aware that even if they’re trying not to, it’s very plausible they might read something, mostly forget they read it, but have a little plotbunny or something stick in their head, and they’d feel bad if they created something they thought they’d come up with but have it turn out to be something they got from some fanwork. Or even just “i can’t remember if I read this very similar fanwork or not, and now it’s going to haunt me that i might’ve gotten the idea from there”.And if they’re lying about it then they can’t even apologize to or credit the fan creator in question without outing themselves and open themselves to potential liability even of the stuff they KNOW isn’t inspired by fanworks, bc now ppl know they HAVE read them and it’ll be hard to prove they came up with it on their own without any inspiration from fanworks. Is it likely there will be any legal action? not for most ppl because a large amount of fandom is not gonna have the resources to try to bring legal action against them. But it could still wreck their reputation and their career.Plus it would be shitty to do even if it was accidental, and they don’t want to risk it.So… yeah of course they could just lie. I’m sure some creators do just lie. but a lot of them don’t want to for a number of reasons. -- source link