Fannish Property Rights
Jul. 28th, 2002 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenI saw this post in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metablog about conversations people are having re: fannish property rights. For those who haven't read the posts, the basic situation is that someone took a photo manip somebody else did, cropped it to make a LJ icon and then posted said icon in a community without credit being given to the people who did the photo manip. When asked about it, the person in question said she didn't know why it was such a big deal and heaved huge sighs about people nagging her to ask the artists for permission.
The concepts of "can you steal fanart" and "can fanfic writers really bitch about plagarism" come up now and again in fandom and whenever I see them I can't help but feel a tiny bit like we're heading into the area of "but can you really rape a hooker?"
TBQ's short answer: Two wrongs don't make a right.
TBQ's long answer:
Obviously fanart and fanfic are illegal. We all get that. But separate issue. If you're in this community and you're enjoying the art and the stories then obviously you're on board with the rest of us in saying that amazingly enough fanfic and fanart aren't going to put a huge hole in the ozone layer or, for that matter, put the copyright holders out of business. You, by being in this part of fandom, have accepted the okayness of this as your given. You can't haul it out as an argument now.
On top of that there's another point. Yes, we who do fic or art are "cannibals". But we do it with the understanding that you know where we got our source material from. And just on the odd chance that you somehow think one of us created Lex Luthor/Buffy/Frodo/Brian/whoever, we put helpful little disclaimers on things.
Why? Because credit is our bread and butter.
We're in this for fun, guys. Yeah, for our own fun first and foremost, but if we're putting fic and art out there for y'all to see then the only thing (if any) that we get out of this is somebody writing us a letter which says "Atta girl".
Steal my story idea, steal some artist's picture and you have stolen from them. Reason being - there's no way for anybody to tell who it came from. Sure various authors have distinctive styles and various artists have their own way of doing things, but strip the headers/signature/whatever and the chances of anybody being able to trace it back to the source are slim to none.
We put work into this. We put creativity into this. It takes anywhere from hours to weeks to even months to craft a good story or good picture. That's our effort. Swipe it, put your name on it - hell yeah, you stole it. You can't wiggle your way out of this by talking about your disbelief in honor among thieves, or pointing back to the victim and saying "But you ripped off the canon first!" Separate issue.
Look, kids, I could steal all the gold in Fort Knox if I wanted. It's not right, but for the sake of argument let's say it's possible. If you come to my house, put the gold in your pockets, walk out the door and then claim you were the bad-ass who figured out how to break the codes well guess what? You're a thief and a liar. It's just that simple. My illegal act doesn't mitigate you being an asshole.
Moreover it's called common fucking courtesy. We cite the source material in our works - if you like our cannibalism so much then you cite us. It's just that simple.
metablog about conversations people are having re: fannish property rights. For those who haven't read the posts, the basic situation is that someone took a photo manip somebody else did, cropped it to make a LJ icon and then posted said icon in a community without credit being given to the people who did the photo manip. When asked about it, the person in question said she didn't know why it was such a big deal and heaved huge sighs about people nagging her to ask the artists for permission.The concepts of "can you steal fanart" and "can fanfic writers really bitch about plagarism" come up now and again in fandom and whenever I see them I can't help but feel a tiny bit like we're heading into the area of "but can you really rape a hooker?"
TBQ's short answer: Two wrongs don't make a right.
TBQ's long answer:
Obviously fanart and fanfic are illegal. We all get that. But separate issue. If you're in this community and you're enjoying the art and the stories then obviously you're on board with the rest of us in saying that amazingly enough fanfic and fanart aren't going to put a huge hole in the ozone layer or, for that matter, put the copyright holders out of business. You, by being in this part of fandom, have accepted the okayness of this as your given. You can't haul it out as an argument now.
On top of that there's another point. Yes, we who do fic or art are "cannibals". But we do it with the understanding that you know where we got our source material from. And just on the odd chance that you somehow think one of us created Lex Luthor/Buffy/Frodo/Brian/whoever, we put helpful little disclaimers on things.
Why? Because credit is our bread and butter.
We're in this for fun, guys. Yeah, for our own fun first and foremost, but if we're putting fic and art out there for y'all to see then the only thing (if any) that we get out of this is somebody writing us a letter which says "Atta girl".
Steal my story idea, steal some artist's picture and you have stolen from them. Reason being - there's no way for anybody to tell who it came from. Sure various authors have distinctive styles and various artists have their own way of doing things, but strip the headers/signature/whatever and the chances of anybody being able to trace it back to the source are slim to none.
We put work into this. We put creativity into this. It takes anywhere from hours to weeks to even months to craft a good story or good picture. That's our effort. Swipe it, put your name on it - hell yeah, you stole it. You can't wiggle your way out of this by talking about your disbelief in honor among thieves, or pointing back to the victim and saying "But you ripped off the canon first!" Separate issue.
Look, kids, I could steal all the gold in Fort Knox if I wanted. It's not right, but for the sake of argument let's say it's possible. If you come to my house, put the gold in your pockets, walk out the door and then claim you were the bad-ass who figured out how to break the codes well guess what? You're a thief and a liar. It's just that simple. My illegal act doesn't mitigate you being an asshole.
Moreover it's called common fucking courtesy. We cite the source material in our works - if you like our cannibalism so much then you cite us. It's just that simple.
