Dear Ms Gabaldon
May. 4th, 2010 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heidire: your dismissal of fan-created works, which was weird, dismissive of Pulitzer prize winning works and other classics, and most frustrating to me, inaccurate regarding the legal issues (although, of course, what you feel is ethical or not is a decision that is entirely your call)
I have a question.
What would the first minute of the May 3 episode of Chuck, which sets the show to the classic opening of Hart to Hart, be?
What about when Richard Castle wears a costume from Firefly?
Or, in fact, all of Studio 60, which is a names-changed-RPF of Saturday Night Live?
What about when Supernatural names a demonic character after a character from Good Omens?
Where does all that factor into your world-view?
I really want to address the discussion of![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
help_haiti, but I am having a hard time doing so without crying. People - not just fanfic writers and fanartists and vidders and iconers but novelists and musicians from around the world - got together to do something positive to help people in need.
I was involved in bothhelp_haiti and Helping Haiti Heal - both were grass-roots projects and collectively, they raised about a quarter of a million dollars which went to Partners in Health, UNICEF, the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Yele and over a dozen more organizations. We sent five-plus planes full of supplies to Haiti this spring because of fannish efforts.
And both projects included thank-yous from fan-creators and notable authors. For example, Helping Haiti Heal's thank-yous included wizard rock memorabilia, and a signed set of Harry Potter books donated by JKR. It included fanart, and signed books from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Naomi Novik donated the ability to name a character in an upcoming book of hers, and Melissa Anelli personalized copies of her book about the Harry Potter fandom.
Fans and creators came together to do something wonderful, and it helped lives.
Now, how is that like seduction of someone's husband (and, btw, doesn't it take two to tango? Nobody cheats unless they want to.) or for (oh my God I cannot believe this comparison) hell's sake how is that like rape or even taking flowers from a garden?
No, no author has to be as understanding of her fans' urge to create stories or art or vids based on her works as JK Rowling has been.
But I can think of at least a dozen women who, in the last decade, have written (or beta read) Harry Potter fanfic and gone on to publishing contracts and best-sellers and sales of the movie rights to their books - and I know a dozen more who're going to reach that milestone in the next year or two. Yes, people would still be writing Harry Potter fanfic even if JKR wasn't relatively okay with it, because it would still be transformative and fair use and since fair use is a lawful use of copyright...
And that's a good thing.
Oh, and I have one last question for Ms Gabaldon.
When people make icons that include bits of your book covers, how do you feel about that? Because I am really kind of curious...
I have a question.
What would the first minute of the May 3 episode of Chuck, which sets the show to the classic opening of Hart to Hart, be?
What about when Richard Castle wears a costume from Firefly?
Or, in fact, all of Studio 60, which is a names-changed-RPF of Saturday Night Live?
What about when Supernatural names a demonic character after a character from Good Omens?
Where does all that factor into your world-view?
I really want to address the discussion of
help_haiti, but I am having a hard time doing so without crying. People - not just fanfic writers and fanartists and vidders and iconers but novelists and musicians from around the world - got together to do something positive to help people in need. I was involved in both
help_haiti and Helping Haiti Heal - both were grass-roots projects and collectively, they raised about a quarter of a million dollars which went to Partners in Health, UNICEF, the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Yele and over a dozen more organizations. We sent five-plus planes full of supplies to Haiti this spring because of fannish efforts. And both projects included thank-yous from fan-creators and notable authors. For example, Helping Haiti Heal's thank-yous included wizard rock memorabilia, and a signed set of Harry Potter books donated by JKR. It included fanart, and signed books from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Naomi Novik donated the ability to name a character in an upcoming book of hers, and Melissa Anelli personalized copies of her book about the Harry Potter fandom.
Fans and creators came together to do something wonderful, and it helped lives.
Now, how is that like seduction of someone's husband (and, btw, doesn't it take two to tango? Nobody cheats unless they want to.) or for (oh my God I cannot believe this comparison) hell's sake how is that like rape or even taking flowers from a garden?
No, no author has to be as understanding of her fans' urge to create stories or art or vids based on her works as JK Rowling has been.
But I can think of at least a dozen women who, in the last decade, have written (or beta read) Harry Potter fanfic and gone on to publishing contracts and best-sellers and sales of the movie rights to their books - and I know a dozen more who're going to reach that milestone in the next year or two. Yes, people would still be writing Harry Potter fanfic even if JKR wasn't relatively okay with it, because it would still be transformative and fair use and since fair use is a lawful use of copyright...
And that's a good thing.
Oh, and I have one last question for Ms Gabaldon.
When people make icons that include bits of your book covers, how do you feel about that? Because I am really kind of curious...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-04 04:26 pm (UTC)I want to read it more thoroughly after work and try to come up with a more coherent argument but for now? I'd recommend finding more friendly sandboxes to play in. And you know, don't buy her books. (Who is this chick, anyway?)
I'll leave the transformative things to the copyright experts, but wasn't her point about said Pulitzer works that they were written after said work had passed into the public domain?
If she doesn't want other people playing with her toys, that's her opinion. Calling that equal to RPF between people who know each other (and seriously, it's creepy enough with celebrities, IMHO) is... I mean... Grr.
OK, I should work on my notebook now. I'll try to be more.... Yeah.
I think I'm too pissed to be coherent.
ETA: Read it (and some of the comments) over lunch. I'm not familar enough with copyright to know about the legality, but I learned fanfic Old School: which was (especially for books) if the authors asked nicely for you not to, you didn't do it. A few people who haven't obeyed this are causing some problems for the rest of us. I always figured lack of wholesale C&D letters was equivelant to: Ok, whatever.
Why she just can't nicely ask everyone to take stuff down and manage to not call us rapists to our face (so to speak) is beyond me.
Of course, the great WB fansite purge attempt when things started getting murkier. (That and I recall Joss giving fans permission to bootleg Grad Day part 2 when the WB pulled it.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-04 09:54 pm (UTC)Seriously, I do usually respect it when authors request that no one write fanfic of their stuff. But she is so far off the mark, and so hurtful in the process, that not only would I not give a damn, I also won't ever read her books now or touch anything she's part of without extreme care.