Authors, fanfic and kids
May. 1st, 2006 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heidiI 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?
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?
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Date: 2006-05-01 08:47 pm (UTC)