Authors, fanfic and kids

[heidi]

I kept Harry out of school this morning so we could go, with two other friends, to see Mary Pope Osborne do a reading from her new Magic Treehouse book - it's #35 - Harry's had us read all 35 to him so far, and has gone back to 3 or 4 himself (we pay him a penny a page, because while he's a good reader, he hates to do it).
She didn't actually read from here books but did speak about three of the new ones she's working on, and had the kids - and parents & teachers - vote on the titles. And she thinks she's going to change her Da Vinci title from Morning with the Mad Genius to Monday with the Mona Lisa.
She also spoke about getting great ideas for books and plots from kids she meets, and advice from grown-ups too. So of course, I'm thinking how her statement that she loves reading the stories that kids send to her would be viewed by fanficcers - I'm sure a lot of you just gasped and said "omgLAWSUIT!" when you contemplated the idea of an author reading fanfic set in her universe. OMG-what-if-she-used-a-plotline!

Of course, the answer - the legal answer - is so what?

Yep. So what if she uses a plotline someone else comes up with? Copyright law doesn't give anyone ownership of a plotline, only the words used to express that plot. Otherwise, Neil Gaiman could've blocked JKR's writing about a dark-haired boy with an owl at magic school, right? The Opal book that recently generated so much angst could have a plot that is, detail-and-concept, identical to any othere book - the only thing that should matter is the sentences she used to tell that same story - were many of them - not one, not six, perhaps not twenty - the same, word for word.

So in Mary Pope Osborne's case, I'm sure the likelihood of her using the same multiple-sentence phrasing in any plot as an eight or twelve year old fanficcer is pretty close to nil, and that's all that would matter in a copyright-infringement situation, as I'm sure her lawyers have told her.

So she can read fanfic and admire what the kids are doing in here universe - and that's fine and lovely. Isn't it?

Comments

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

So she can read fanfic and admire what the kids are doing in her universe - and that's fine and lovely. Isn't it?

Well, I think so. The question of lifting plots, etc., is more about market taste than legal plagiarism. If the market is weary of a plot, or simply disinterested in a plot, it won't sell. If a stale plot can be made to seem fresh, on the other hand, it is fresh, for all intents and purposes.

In the case of your Gaiman example, The Books of Magic, I don't really even see the plot-level resemblance, the extraordinary visual and demographic parallels between Harry and Tim to one side. I know we've talked about this in IM.

Now, that said, I have gone on record that I see plot parallels between HBP and the movie Dragonslayer and have made predictions about the seventh book as a result. If they come true, I won't see it as plagiarism at all; I'll just think Rowling was, like me, a child of the eighties and was consciously and unconsciously influenced by the media of that era. (Another example: the parallel endings of PoA and Back To The Future.)

I just reread the first Sherlock Holmes story. We think of the Holmes canon as the dawn of modern detective fiction, but in the very first few pages Conan Doyle went way, way out of his way to have Holmes briefly mention, and dismiss, previous detectives from previous stories by other writers.

I was sure he did that just to say "Hey, yeah, my guy is basically like Dupin, etc., but still different! Look, see... here's how."

[casfic.livejournal.com]

that's fine and lovely. Isn't it?

Of course it is. Until you get nonsense like literary patents - seePatent Nonsense, although I expect you've seen this before.

I'm a great believer in the idea that there are only a few possible plot lines anyway - I'm holding out for 7, as described by Christopher Booker

Cas

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

YAAY for your Harry and for Mary Pope Osborne. Maya has a few of the Magic Treehouse books but she hasn't read all of them. She did start writing a HP/MTH crossover fic last year. She called it Harry Potter and the Showdown at Sundown. Alas, her hard drive crashed, she had not backed it up and she lost the story.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

Posted something and deleted because it seems like a slightly different situation on reread, but I've still seen enough cases that make me worry about overgeneralizing too much on sharing fanfic with the source....

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I agree! It is fine and lovely. :)

[melodylemming.livejournal.com]

Mary Pope Osborne is very cool. My brother and I were both far too old for the Magic Treehouse books by the time she started writing them, but I have a bunch of books of myths and fairytales that she's done, and one on the religions of the world, and I highly recommend them.

[msbhaven.livejournal.com]

So she's not a deranged, control freak like Anne Rice? That is too cool. Terri Windling is another author that is okay with fanficers. I wonder if there's a list of authors okay with fanficcers.