Fanfic, ownership, and metaficcing

[owlmoose]

So I was talking with bottle_of_shine about getting ideas from other people's fic, and today she posted about it, and it got me to thinking.

It seems to me entirely natural that those of us who write fanfic would get story ideas from reading other people's fic. Because isn't that the whole reason for the existence of fanfic? We look at the canon and we say "But what happened next?/But what came before?/But what if it happened this way?" And seems to me that the impulse doesn't go away just because the story we happen to be reading is written by another fan rather than by whoever produced the original.

So I don't see how anyone who writes fanfic can object when someone looks at a story she's written and says "I want to see more" or "I wonder if I could take it in this other direction?" Because that's what she did when she wrote her fic in the first place. I won't quite say it would be hypocritical to object, but I think it leans in that direction. I'm not talking about someone who copies a story word-for-word without proper attribution, of course, or someone who does a "find-replace" on names but otherwise leaves the story intact or otherwise obvious acts of plagiarism. But fic about fic, or a remix, or whatever you call it when one fic is inspired by another, should be legit, and I think that should be a basic understanding among anyone who writes fanfic.

Or am I missing some completely obvious reason that this would be a problem?

Anyway. Part of me would love to see remixing etc.just become assumed as part of fandom culture. I'm not sure the Final Fantasy fandom has a coherent enough community to spread any kind of overall social norm, though. So in the meantime, I vote for releasing fic under a Creative Commons license, which has the advantage of coming in various flavors, so everyone and label their stories with whichever level of protection they're comfortable with. Just this morning, I put up the Attribution-NoCommercial-ShareAlike notice both here and on my FF.net page, and I invite anyone who agrees to join me.

Comments

I

[kunstarniki.livejournal.com]

I am on board with you and have posted the same license on both my journal and my FFN profile page. This is a grand idea. ;)

[regann]

I think there are degrees, where it becomes something more than just being inspired by something and more like theft. Like if a story has A-G plot/character points and you get inspired by B and D and write a fic, that's entirely cool and well within the spirit of fanfic-dom. However, if a story (though entirely re-written in new words) is written and they used A, B, D, F, E, G points -- that starts to get ridiculous without some kind of authorial dialogue or credit.

Of course, every fandom has tropes or cliches or what-have-you and no one owns those ideas and there's nothing I love better than to rework them myself or see them reworked. But I don't think it's hypocritical to get propertiary over our fics even if we have no legal reason for it. We still wrote/created much of it and everyone who reads it knows we didn't create the world we're playing in -- not necessarily the case if someone reads a "remixed" fic that isn't properly credited.

That said, I've been accused of copying fic because I wrote a story long ago where Quistis is kidnapped and so did this other girl (she was the one who accused me) even though my fic was a Quistis/Seifer story whereas she had her Seifer rape Quistis, and I thought she was out of her mind for even thinking it, let alone harassing me over it.

I've also never turned down anyone's request to borrow an idea from me and I've never gotten too out-of-shape if I see a fic eeriely similar to something I've written and I've certainly never emailed an author or called foul. It has made me cranky on occasion but never as cranky as when my fics have been stolen word-for-word and both has happened several times.

And, one more thing before I shut up, lol -- I think, in some ways, there can be a sense of "I'm better and I can do this better" when you take someone's ideas for remixing and that can feel arrogant and superior to the original author and it probably smarts, no matter who nicely the request is made. I'm sure no one wants to hear "This is a great idea but you didn't do it right, so I'm gonna do it better."

[iamleaper]

The Confessional has been under a Creative Commons license since I made its site. =) It's a grand idea, and I've now put the banner in my writing LJ since I seem to have forgotten it!

[lucil-luzzu.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea-I just put the same license on my FF profile too :)

[rabbitprint.livejournal.com]

I've seen this go by before, and the only reason I haven't picked it up is because something in me hesitates when trying to decide which version of the CC license to use; it's like trying to decide the health insurance plan 'that's right for me!' when all of them look good and you're wondering where the bad parts are. Do you or bottle_of_shine have any recommendations/experience with people having any problems/any advice?


The only thing I can think of, personally, is that I wish I'd get told if someone uses anything I've done! But that's not under any of the licenses, so I think I'm SOL. ;)

[shahrizai.livejournal.com]

I think people have a fit in fandom because when you write fic on the original series, the creator is probably not going to read it, or be in fandom. But the author of the fic one wants to remix or whatever is in fandom, and will likely see it. There's a feeling of 'the creator is never going to see it, so I don't feel bad about writing YuRiPa smut!'. That changes when you know the person you are deriving your work from can see it and be like 'I never meant for Yuna and Rikku to do it at the end of my fic! It was Rikku/Paine OTP forevah!'.

[solitaryjane.livejournal.com]

Hehe, funny you talked about this because I've read a story with elements similar to what I wrote sometime ago, and I dismissed it as coincidence but now I think about it, it might not be completely unrelated since the fandom I write in (or should I say the specific pairing I write) has a pretty small fanbase. I didn't really care because it was totally one of those A-G points and they may have taken only Point A situation, so it's not that big a deal. But if someone takes more than just one point I . . . really don't know how I'd feel about it.

Personally I'd never remix other fics, because if the writing's crappy usually the idea's crappy/cliche/uninteresting in itself. But in the case that the idea's brilliant but the execution poor - I still wouldn't think of remixing it because, well, I have too many of my own ideas that never get finished, I don't have time to write other people's. XD And I think part of the fanfic-remix problem is that the remix is taking someone else's idea - not just characters. Most fanfics take the characters and some plot and add their own ideas to it, be it a subplot, a relationship that wasn't there, etc.; we rarely see a complete retelling of the game/series as it originally happened, because it's already been done. But the remixing of fanfics is basically taking someone's original idea (in various degrees) and then reiterate that, and I can see why folks have problems with it.

[jadelennox]

Following a link to here, and just chiming in to say hear, hear. For quite a while now my lj profile has said
This journal and all its public, unlocked contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. Please attribute all use of this work back to me, and note changes you've made which are not my work. This includes all my creative works: as long as you cite my contributions and note any changes you've made of my words, feel free to modify / disseminate / archive as you see fit. My fic posted on my website has the same license.

I've been quite surprised that more fen *don't* use CC licenses, actually.