Ethics of Fanfiction · 9:49am Sep 18th, 2015
So as everyone who pays any attention to the comments and blog posts and what have you knows, I've been having a really rough time of it. This last year has, frankly, been hell. I've had a couple of people offer to donate money, for which I am extremely grateful, but it actually brings up a topic of some interest to me.
The ethics of fan fiction. As I understand it, and please correct me if you have a better understanding than I do, fan fiction sits on very shaky legal ground. Let's not beat around the bush here; what we are doing, when we write fan fiction, is taking someone else's intellectual property and using it without permission. Now as I understand it, this is technically illegal, but falls under that sort of grey area that allows for all kinds of shady things to be done. Generally speaking, there's no real benefit to pursuing fan fiction authors legally speaking, and why would you? In a way, fan fiction provides free advertisement. Where the line gets crossed, however, again by my understanding, is when you profit from your fan work. In that particular instance, you are directly profiting from something you created, yes, but it has its basis in someone else's intellectual property and is being created without their consent or even knowledge. That puts it right in the unethical territory.
That's one of the reasons I don't accept donations or have a Patreon or what have you. I personally feel that profiting on something, no matter how original it might be, that is based on someone else's intellectual property without permission is wrong.
Now I freely admit that I don't have a full understanding of how the law works in this instance. I also freely admit that this is probably an extreme view of fan fiction. That's why I'm posting this blog. I'm curious to see the opinions of other writers on this site, whether they agree or disagree with me. Again, could also have a mistaken understanding of how copyright law works in this instance. So I would like for folks to speak up. I want opinions here, whether they agree or disagree with me. I'm really just curious.
In legal terms, what you say is true: Original creators do not care what you do with their IPs as long as you do not make a buck off of it. Patreon skirts around this as you are asking for "donations" of unspecified amounts in order to support you "as an artist", rather than directly asking "Pay me to create more of this story/ comic/ art."
In ethical terms, I am in the opposite camp as you. I think modern laws of copyright/ trademark are some ol' bullshit, designed to make money for corporations (who are NOT people) while stifling the global creative drive. Consider the case of mythology in various cultures of human civilization: an open-source collective narrative which everyone can add to, as long as the addition is good/ popular. That's how you create rich art. The notion that ideas can be boxed is abhorrent to me.
That's my personal philosophy, but even on objective terms modern copyright laws have a warped history and is far from ideal.
I’ll be the first person to bang the ‘copyright law is outdated and only serves the big corporations, fanfiction is a labor of love and any company who punishes their fans for a labor of love will only end up with no fans’ drum (because it is, and it does) but I’ve always gotten an uncomfortable feeling at the thought of fanfiction authors asking for 'donations'. I can’t help but think that they are, at least in an abstract way, kind of holding their own work hostage, and fanfiction writers getting into the habit of asking for donations will only tempt companies to bring down the (legal grey area) sword that's been hanging over fanfictions head ever since it became a thing. But at the same time I can appreciate just how much raw blood sweat and tears (an simple time) creating a fanfiction can take, and wonder how many more stories wouldn't still be in update limbo if the author saw something beyond praise, and ever growing expectations, for their efforts.
Since most fanfic only refers to source material instead of actually copying it, it can usually be classified under the protected class of parody. Check out the case of the wind done gone, which was a retelling of gone with the wind from another character's POV.
Honestly, I'd be more worried about the hosts of the fimfic sites, they're the ones hosting images of trademarked characters and putting ads to monitize the site. Plus, they're a legal entity, much easy to send legal nastygrams to than the pseudonymous authors who make the site what it is.
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You can look at it another way too; for my part, if I was receiving donations from people, as an author I would feel obligated to provide them with the entertainment that they're ostensibly paying for. If I wasn't doing so, I would feel that I was taking people's money without providing a corresponding service. This would make producing quality fan fiction a job. That relationship would make me very uncomfortable.
I'm not a writer, but in a bit of an interesting position, as I actually make and sell pony "inspired" items at conventions. And like pretty much every vendor out there, rather definitely in violation of their copyright, and would be very easily shut down with a C&D or even a polite request.
However, from all these conventions, since 2012, vendors have not been shut down by Hasbro, despite the fact that they definitely have representatives who visit cons and walk around the events, and even the vendor hall, so it's not that they are unaware of the people selling their property. And they've yet done nothing. I can think of maybe one exception, for someone who was making a product that they later licensed, and the company they licensed it to was aware of the existing fan work.
Most of this stuff isn't worth them licensing it. In my case it's men's formal wear, ties, bow-ties, and gold/silver lapel pins and tie bars. Stuff I desperately wanted for myself, but will never be provided by Hasbro. And that I couldn't make just for myself, as all the ways for manufacturing it require certain minimum numbers. And much as I enjoy having pony ties, 100/each would be a bit overkill for my personal collection. So for me it was make them and sell them, or not make them at all. Would I love to be licensed? Absolutely. But it's also a market too small for them to want to bother with it, and very well outside their intended target audience.
So when it comes to people with Patreon's, I'm very much living in a glass house and have no stones I'd want to throw anyway. I don't have one for my pony virtual reality project, because I don't feel right taking money for that, but that's as much an indication of my skill level in it as anything else.
If you set up a Patreon, you don't have to promise pony fanfiction, it's a thing for people to help support you with. You aren't selling the stories, but instead letting people help put you in a position to create more stories.
On the other hand, feeling obligated to create content may make you more resentful towards it, so not every artist benefits from that setup, but if it would work for you, I'd say give it a try.
3400864 And again, I would like to point out that I am in no way condemning people who DO have a Patreon or sell copyrighted material. It is enough of a legal and ethical grey area that I'm willing let to each their own. I'm only saying that it makes me uncomfortable, and to be honest, most of my discomfort doesn't stem from the legal or ethical issues with profiting from someone else's copywritten material. It's mostly because I'm a lazy fucker who does this for fun, and I don't want to feel like I HAVE to produce material that everyone likes in a timely manner ALL the time. You are exactly right, that's how you come to resent your own work, and my muse is flighty enough I'm not even willing to TRY fucking with that equation.
3400875
Oh no, I didn't think you were! Just wanted to explain my situation in regards to the whole profiting off a fandom activity thing, as it most certainly affects my views.
And yeah, I definitely understand that, I mentioned my pony V.R. project, and I'm the same way on that, if I make it into a job, or rather a revenue stream, I'll feel obligated to provide regular updates, whether I've put in enough time to make a quality update or not, if I'm ready or not, if I want to or not. And it would make me more resentful of working on it, and may even slow my progress down in the long run.
On the other hand, when I'm running the VR demo at conventions, people do offer to donate, and sometimes do donate. Those I have an easier time with (I've started bringing a piggy bank after a while, as keeping those few dollars separate from what I'm actually making is important to me). One time donations for what people have used (or in your case read) and liked feel different than letting people subscribe to me for potential future work.
It seems to me that the laws are more designed to cover larger more lucrative forms of theft. Mane 6, for example. The Wiki article also has some good info, though it seems to lean in the "it's OK" camp. Personally I look at it like how I'd commission a picture, I'd pay for the SERVICE, not necessarily the CONTENT. That's coming from a consumer and not a creator mind you.
On a side note, the Statute of limitations on infringement is 3 years so if you stop writing now you'll be safe in only a year!!!
reactiongifs.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Kristen-Bell-Laughing-to-Crying.gif
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And if you are only writing stories because you are receiving donations, that technically makes your fanfiction a commission. And then you find yourself in the awkward position of having who knows how many commissioners, each one donating under a different impression of where the story will / should go.
And if the story you're writing is purely your own vision. What happens if the people funding it dislike something intrinsic to that vision? Do you keep it as it is and risk upsetting people you may think you owe? Or do you twist and brake your own vision to keep them happy?
This is a big enough problem with popular stories without adding money into the mix.
Why not set up a Patreon/Donation account that is specifically to support you as a writer and nothing else?
I for one enjoy reading your material, be it pony or not, and would not be against supporting you overall as "just" a writer.
If Pony would result from this, great. If non-pony work would result from this, also great.
Perhaps having an extra source of income would make the rest of the year less "Hell" and help revive your muse/motivation?
Just a thought.
Yes, most fanfiction is unlawful, in the same way and for the same reason that producing unauthorized sequels is unlawful.
Hasbro mostly doesn't care; Button's Adventures and Fighting Is Magic just became too prominent to ignore.
Some fanfiction is legal - parodies and what might be called commentary works.
But a lot of it is not.
3400756
Incidentally, a lot of people misunderstand what "corporations are people" means.
Corporations are legal entities, and therefore, are treated as so-called "legal persons" for purposes of convenience. It is their nature as a legal person which makes it possible to sue them and for them to hold property.
The reasons that corporations have many of the same rights as individual people is because all actions taken by corporations are, in fact, actions taken by people (or groups of people). Ergo, corporations have the right to freedom of speech because persons have the right to freedom of speech, and once you strip away the so-called legal fictions, it is a person who is taking those actions.
Indeed, if corporations did not have the right to freedom of speech, it would be legal for the government to ban the publication of books or censor newspapers, because guess who prints those?
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I know the history and origins of the phrase, but it does also make a good catchphrase for a variety of pulpit uses!
This is the boneheaded interpretation which allowed the most absurd injustice of this decade. Absurd not because it happened, but because there's no groundswell of public outrage causing immediate change. As absurd as politicians wearing swastikas and nobody batting an eye.
I will choose to interpret that you're simply trying to give the basic definition and basic reasons behind the supreme court ruling, rather than saying that you believe in the contextual validity of the infantile conclusion.
Edit: And more on the topic of this blog... No, I do not feel that corporations should have the same rights to copyright as individuals.
3401359
You've been reading too many anti-free speech websites.
Citizens United was a very simple ruling.
The Constitution of the United States of America says:
The law in question abridged freedom of speech and the press.
Ergo, it was unconstitutional.
It wasn't a hard ruling.
It doesn't even really matter if corporations are "people", as the first amendment doesn't say anything about people there.
The ACLU - you know, the organization in charge of safeguarding Americans' civil rights, including freedom of speech - supported the ruling.
The reality is that anti-Citizens United folks are universally opponents of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. There are no exceptions. They lie about this constantly, but that's hardly surprising - just as Kim Davis's supporters claim that they are for religious freedom, so such folks claim they're not against freedom of speech. But they are, as the ACLU correctly points out.
The Supreme Court has long ruled that the government cannot restrict speech based on its content. This is hardly the first ruling on the subject matter. You can't bar people from saying "I don't like Hillary Clinton" or "Mitt Romney has bad tax policies"; indeed, that's the reason why the first amendment was passed in the first place - they were protecting the rights of everyone in the US to express their opinions on political, social, and other matters.
This was a response to the British censoring newspapers and other such things.
In the US, you cannot do this.
And, as the Supreme Court has previously ruled, money you spend on producing such materials cannot be restricted - you cannot prohibit someone from buying a printing press to print a book, or prohibit someone from buying a video camera to make a movie. You cannot prevent them from paying for paper and ink. This is because all of these things are necessary to produce said materials - freedom of the press is meaningless if the government can prevent you from printing your newspaper or posting it online.
This is reality.
Anti-freedom of speech advocates don't like that. They want the government to be able to repress freedom of speech. They want it to be able to restrict it. But the entire point of the first amendment was to stop said people from doing so.
Are you for the government being able to censor newspapers which are critical of politicians?
Are you for the government being able to prohibit the production of movies which criticize the government?
Because that is precisely what the Supreme Court ruled the government wasn't allowed to do in Citizens United.
The anti-Citizens United folks dress it up in other clothes because the cold, dark reality of what they're actually doing - trying to get rid of freedom of speech - is not terribly popular.
3401907
Oh hi, Mr. Aspiring Lobbyist. Lucrative career choice there. Keep hiding behind Freedom Of Speech while encouraging a dystopian oligarchy previously only accepted in sci-fi movies and video games, it's obviously working out splendidly.
People who specialize in spin use a common strategy: They use ideology to obscure the context of the real world. That's why hot button ideological topics such as abortion or marriage, which are in actuality minor societally, are so popular in their practice. What you're doing is claiming that you're defending the Constitution, when the reality is destroying it. It's the same as free market ideologues arguing for even less restrictions against corporations, when we damn well know what happens to uncontrolled capitalist markets. America isn't a pure capitalist economy to start with, because those lead to monopolies and robber barons. But that's not the reality they want you to understand.
I'm not going to argue technically with you. Youtube and News comments section debates are worthless, a debate here triply so. You should be studying for your poli-sci class exams rather than wasting your time voicing your talking points here.
Edit: I seem confrontational and accusatory because IMO your well-worded post is disingenuous. While you explain eloquently about defending the words of the Constitution, you don't utter a peep about how the poor foresight of the details regarding Citizens United decision is rapidly dismantling the American democratic process, i.e. the intention of the Constitution. Someone with your demonstrated knowledge cannot possibly be ignorant of that, yet your posts are purposefully one-sided. My only conclusion: disingenuousness.
I think you should let Fimfiction.net worry about the legal aspect of making fanfiction and protecting their users, because many, many authors here have their own donation websites set up. If Hasbro does come knocking, I'd imagine that the administrators of this site as well as your own fanbase would help you to the best of their ability.
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The ACLU is trying to destroy the Constitution?
Really?
Is that the position you're taking?
The group whose sole purpose - its raison d'etre - is to protect our freedoms, and has been at it for decades, is trying to destroy the Constitution?
Read these articles from the ACLU:
The ACLU and Citizens United
“Fixing” Citizens United Will Break the Constitution
Quit insulting me and do some research.
And if you think that the only thing that determines who wins an election is how much money is spent on TV ads, guess what? Not only are you wrong, as proven by the many candidates who have spent more money than their opponents and still lost, but you're also saying that democracy can never work. If the people are really so desperately stupid, then they should not have the power to vote, because they are incapable of making informed decisions.
That's fine; many people have suggested that democracy doesn't work. But trying to get rid of freedom of speech is not the solution.
I'm not the one suggesting that movies, books, and newspaper articles about candidates or the government should be put under government control. The founding fathers are spinning in their graves, as that is one of the very things they fought to prevent.
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Like I said, disingenuousness. You're not having an honest conversation, you're trying to "win" a Youtube argument with misdirection and spin. You have valid points, but you're sabotaging them yourself by your unwillingness to admit that this is not a black-or-white issue. When you had said "Oh, you're just reading too many anti-free-speech websites" for the very serious issue of open corruption of the American electoral campaign process, we know you're not trying to engage seriously. It's sad that someone who is knowledgeable takes this tactic. Don't aspire to be a Marc Morano.
I love jumping into Youtube arguments on silly fluff like whether NMM possessed Luna or is a part of her, but I'm not interested in engaging a Youtube argument on truly serious topics like this one.
3402451 Personally, my problem with Citizens United wasn't really about the decision the Supreme Court made, it's that I felt Citizens United itself was being largely hypocritical.
The Supreme Court ruled, rightly, that Citizens Uniteds case held no water in this instance, so....
And the Supreme Court, rightly so, ruled against the lower courts ruling and reversed the decision. Citizens United was not a bastion for freedom and free speech. They were just as partisan and anti-free speech as their opponents, BUT... they had every right to have their message heard as their opponents did.
So am I anti-Citizens United as in am I anti- the organization Citizens United? Absolutely. I disagree with their message on several key points and I dislike them being used as a symbol held up for free speech rights intensely, because again, they tried the same bullshit that their opponents tried on them. I am not, however, anti-free speech. I observe their right to say what they want to say, regardless of whether I like it or not.
I agree with the Supreme Courts ruling regardless of my personal feelings about the Citizens United message.
If you're calling me anti-free speech because I dislike the organization Citizens United then as Mlai said, you ARE being disingenious. That's a Straw Man fallacy. It's right up there with saying that because I happen to dislike the Patriot Act that I'm unamerican and hate freedom. In that instance, I have 9 1/2 years serving my country in the US Navy that would disagree with you sir.
But again, maybe I misunderstand what you're saying here. That's entirely possible. Reading your post, I get the impression that what you meant by your statement was "People who disagree with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC are Anti-Free Speech". If that's the case, well... I would just say that people get passionate, especially about politics. They don't want their opponents to be right. Ever. I think that fervor gets the better of folks some times.
Also for the record, I happen to think Michael Moore is a sensationalist crackpot. I don't really agree with either side here. I just think they should be allowed to say what they're going to say.
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You misunderstand the main thrust of Dragon's posts. Yes, he is indeed saying "People who disagree with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC are Anti-Free Speech." The problem isn't that he was using that particular strawman fallacy as you described, but that he is using a different strawman fallacy. Don't fall into the trap of acknowledging his strawman as your position.
The real fallacy he's using, is equating opposing the supreme court decision with opposing free speech. That's why from early on, I told him not to use ideologue spin-tactics. It's the ideologues who "don't want their opponents to be right. Ever."
For further explanation, you need look no further than the comments section of the ACLU articles he linked. Most of the commenters there correctly explain that it's not a case of "opposing free speech" at all.
3402670 Hmm. Well, I free admit to ignorance here. I suppose that's what you get for speaking in generalities and attempting reading comprehension when you have a head cold.
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Yeah, I was talking about the court decision, which is often called Citizens United instead of its full proper name because people are lazy and we love to shorten court cases like that (Brown and Loving are also often shortened in the same way). Unfortunately, it is much more confusing because Citizens United is actually a group that does stuff, while Brown and Loving were private individuals that no one really cares about.
I have no love for Citizens United (the group); they're are, to put it bluntly, dicks.
Indeed.
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The case was about Congress passing a law which prohibited people from airing materials critical of or supportive of politicians or the government.
The Supreme Court ruled (quite correctly) that the group had the right to show the film, and that Congress's law was clearly unconstitutional.
It really was that simple.
The reason some people got upset by this decision was that they were angry that people they didn't like had the right to say whatever they wanted as much as they wanted.
They didn't want people or groups they didn't like to have the right to speak as much as they wanted.
That's what drives the whole thing.
You don't like it when it is phrased like that because it makes the anti-Citizens United people sound bad.
But it is factually exactly correct.
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It is a black or white issue. The Constitution is extremely clear:
What part of that is not clear?
The law is the law. The Supreme Court rules on the law.
Freedom of speech is incredibly important, and restricting it is very bad. In fact, I would argue that freedom of speech, along with equal protection under the law, are the two most important things in the entire Constitution.
The law in question had nothing to do with bribery. Bribery is already illegal, and continues to be illegal.
The purpose of the law was to limit people's ability to speak about political issues by limiting the amount of money they could spend producing and distributing said speech.
This is unconstitutional and is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. And everyone who had any knowledge of the court's history of decisions on the subject matter knew this. The court has repeatedly ruled that content-based restrictions on speech are a violation of the first amendment, and likewise, that limiting someone's ability to spend money on speech was the same as limiting their speech, because it costs money to produce things like movies and ads and books and newspapers.
There was no way this was going to pass muster, and the fact that any of the justices disagreed proved just how little many of them care for the law when it doesn't suit them personally, just as the opponents to gay marriage proved in that 5/4 decision.
What the anti-Citizens United people claim is that people with money will now forever rule American politics because they can spend more money on ads and videos and movies and books and printing pamphlets.
This is a great example of this:
That's all anti-Citizens United is about. When you phrase it as "the anti-Citizens United people want to ban books based on their political content", that doesn't sound so good, does it?
And yet, that is precisely - precisely - what their goal is.
They don't phrase it that way because it makes them sound bad, and because they don't even understand it that way. But it makes them sound bad because their goal IS bad. Their goal is precisely to restrict people from spending money printing books, producing television ads, or whatever else.
They want the government to be able to restrict freedom of speech. They just don't recognize "stopping THE EBIL CORPORATIONS" as the same as "giving the government the ability to regulate speech", but that is precisely what it is.
And let's face it - even beyond this, the reality is, this is their real fear:
They believe that the American people are deeply stupid and will simply vote for whoever spends the most money on promotional material.
That is precisely what their arguments all boil down to. That's their basic fear - they fear that the EVIL CORPORATIONS or RICH PEOPLE or INSERT PEOPLE WE HATE HERE will control all our elections because the American electorate is too dumb to do anything other than vote for whatever they see on TV.
That is what they fear. That is the fear you expressed here:
Even if this were true, then it still wouldn't be a legitimate reason to get rid of free speech, because it would simply mean that democracy doesn't work and THE PEOPLE shouldn't have the right to vote in the first place. The problem in that case is that the people are drooling morons who cannot be trusted with political power and thus it should be taken away from them; restricting freedom of speech won't solve anything, because they'll STILL be incompetent to make decisions, and will simply make them on some other arbitrary metric.
And if it isn't true, then there's no reason to worry about it.
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I think the reason that you continue to pull up this same strawman, except with longer and longer posts, is not that you're being dishonest but that you've managed to convince yourself that this is the truth. When I said "Just look at most of the comments following the ACLU articles he linked" I was being serious; I don't have to type it up because those commenters have thoughtfully done so already, refuting the ACLU article as putting up an ideological conflict strawman.
Do you really think those ppl who follow ACLU articles are less intelligent or less informed than you, a fellow ACLU articles reader? Do you think they don't share much of your politics? Do you think they don't believe in civil liberties? Why are you painting them with a brush? Nobody wants to repeal the First Amendment. That is stupid and a blatant blatant strawman. You cannot boil this issue down into a short list of talking points based on irreconcilable ideological divide or willful stupidity, because that is not what this is. Again, I really don't feel like re-typing all the good comments in those links.
You probably think I don't read your posts or your links. Read my posts carefully and you'll notice I've read every word. Every word I used to respond to you is not for the goal of winning a Youtube argument, but to succinctly point out where you're leaning astray despite having the correct basic values.
Whatever the original intent of the ruling, its real-world fallout is that it (further) legalizes bribery. We look askance at doctors because they accepted some boxed lunches or a couple of ballgame tickets from pretty pharmaceutical reps, and we outlawed that. And yet you're sitting here and telling me that a few individuals funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into building and furthering a politician's career, does not unduly influence that politician.
The public is losing faith in the democratic process, precisely because the public is not that blind or stupid.
I know that the crazies and the white seniors make up a good chunk of Donald Trump's surge. But I'm guessing that another good-sized chunk are ordinary ppl who do not have crazy notions, who are simply so fed up with the open corruption that they will take any clown as long as he's not a part of that corruption. Trump saying stupid shit constantly had the side effect of proving that he's not anybody's puppet, because politicians bankrolled by special interests do not out themselves like that.
3403014
Ah, projection.
You're confusing "agreeing with you" with "thoughtful".
A common mistake.
Uh, yeah? Most people are.
No, very few people share my politics, because I actually think for myself.
Nope! Most people don't, not really. I mean, they're happy to pay lip service, but most people aren't actually in favor of civil liberties - they're just in favor of themselves. A lot of people style themselves liberals who aren't.
Being a liberal is hard for a lot of people, because it includes the understanding that people are going to use their freedoms in ways you don't approve of.
In reality, most of them are herd animals - they side with the liberals not because of deep ideological reasons, not because they're thoughtful, but because they're part of our "tribe".
Indeed, Citizens United is a very good way to distinguish between the tribal followers and the actual liberals - the actual liberals understand that freedom of speech includes people promoting or attacking candidates you don't like, or advocating for or against positions you don't like.
The tribal members, however, see corporations as the enemy - they're a member of another tribe, not theirs, and are hostile towards them. Therefore, when a decision favors them, clearly it must be wrong and evil!
This is why MSNBC is so successful with "liberals" - it is obvious tripe, like Fox News, and yet a lot of so-called "liberals" watch it. That's because they're members of the liberal tribe more than because they truly embrace the idea of liberty.
Why are so many liberals pro-gun control? The right to bear arms is in the constitution, and the right to own a gun is obviously a civil right. Why are they opposed to people owning guns?
The actual answer is because they see gun-owners as belonging to a different tribe, hostile to them, and fear them. They see guns as evil.
There's no actual link between the rate of firearm ownership by state and the homicide rate; there is zero correlation.
The list goes on.
Many of these things are not a result of liberal ideology, but of tribalistic behavior. There's no reason why a liberal would be pro-gun control, or anti-corporation.
Indeed, the decline in religiousity in the United States can probably in some part be attributed to tribalism - religious people have become the enemy to many in liberal circles due to their opposition to liberal ideas. A lot of liberals struggle to categorize the Pope properly as friend or foe - is he a foe for his opposition to birth control and abortion? Or is he on our side because he's for dealing with climate change, and is for being nice to people, especially the poor?
Did you even read the articles?
No, obviously not.
Yes, they want to repeal the first amendment. It isn't a blatant strawman; it is literally what they're arguing for.
That is very literally one of their proposals. That literally repeals the first amendment, which says very much the opposite:
To be able to prevent people from spending money on speech is exactly the same as preventing them from speaking out, because it prevents them from printing books, pamphlets, and newspapers, and producing movies and airing ads.
The reason they want to enact that amendment is because the First Amendment bars them from doing it.
I'm sorry, but the claim that "they don't want to" doesn't hold any water, because that is precisely what they are trying to do, because that is precisely the grounds on which the ruling was made.
There weren't any. Sorry!
The first anonymous poster (who reposted repeatedly) had no clue what he was talking about. "Corporations don't get to vote!" This is such a ridiculously vapid statement - of course they don't get to vote! They're legal persons! They don't exist! But the people who own and work for corporations DO get to vote.
(Actually, technically speaking, that poster is actually wrong - there are indeed some situations in which corporations do get to vote on certain things. They don't get votes in, say, the election for the president, but they do get to vote on some local ordinances in business districts which have no residents. A lot of people don't know this.)
He whines about something being "realistically unavaialable to the average individual". This is utterly irrelevant. Most people are stupid - does that mean smart people aren't allowed to do a better job than them? Of course not!
You are granted freedom of speech; you are not granted the world's largest megaphone. Some people are talented writers; others are not. Some people are good at drawing, or movie-making; others are not. Money, too, is not evenly distributed. But this is utterly irrelevant. The constitution doesn't care how much money you have, or how awesome a writer you are, or how good or bad you are at making movies; it grants you the right to freedom of speech, and you're free to express it, but it doesn't give you the right to use other people's money or stuff.
And it most certainly does not say that we must all speak as quietly as the least among us.
He whines about corporate domination, but there is no way, shape, or form in which a corporation speaking prevents anyone else from exercising their right to free speech. I can post videos on Youtube. or write angry letters to the editor, or pay a vanity publisher to print my book, and in no way, shape, or form does a corporation printing a book or showing "Why Hillary Clinton is Secretly Hitler" on television prevent me from doing any of those things. He draws a false comparison with corporations enforcing their religion on people, but that is an entirely different situation - a corporation which forces its employees to engage in religious practices, or which prohibits them from doing so, is clearly violating their first amendment rights. But a corporation which is shouting about how Romney eats babies on commercials on CNN is in no way preventing its employees from expressing their opinions.
So, thoughtful? Hardly. More thoughtless. They're spewing out liberal talking points without understanding them - extremely typical of tribalistic liberals who don't really understand liberalism. The pieces just don't fit together.
Let's see some other "thoughtful comments":
Tribalism. People on the right like this! It must be evil!
Again, no actual content here, just wailing and gnashing of teeth. No thought, just a bunch of liberal talking points which don't actually make any sense.
Another example of jealousy - WHY DO OTHER PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN ME?
I AM A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE!
PAY ATTENTION!
Pure spoiled entitlement, like you see from small children.
Everyone is equal before the law. You have as much of a right to buy TV ads as they do. The fact that you don't have the money to do so is wholly irrelevant.
Also, to be fair, you probably do; apparently a 30 second spot on CNN is only a few thousand bucks.
Here's why people felt betrayed:
But as he points out, the ACLU is about civil rights, and that means civil rights for everyone. He later goes on to complain about how "Like the libertarians, its good friend, the ACLU sees the government as the danger, not the rulers that would run the government even more effectively than they now do."
The problem is, he fails to recognize that the government is run by rich people; that's how it works. Everyone in Congress is in the top 2% of the population, and many are in the top 1%. That's already the case, and it is hardly surprising. And it isn't a bad thing; in a meritocracy, you'd expect the best and the brightest to both be in the government and to make a lot of money.
Defending the people from governmental tyranny is to protect them from the oligarchs.
What this guy fails to recognize is that corporations are utterly incapable of independent action. And again, we see the liberal tribalist "us vs them" attitude.
Ideological tripe. Again, failure to understand that these entities are incapable of independent action - the corporation isn't doing anything, it is the people who compose it who are.
When you create an organization like the ACLU, what it allows you to do is pool a bunch of money from a bunch of small people and actually get stuff done. To restrict these organizations from doing this is to prevent anyone but the very wealthiest people from doing things like the ACLU does, which is bad, and makes the US more oligarchical.
Pure stupidity. And all while claiming they're for the little guy!
Again, this is an example of failure to be thoughtful. Thoughtlessness, not thoughtfulness. But you're confused because they're agreeing with you. Clearly, they must be thoughtful!
But if you look at it carefully, it is all hash and liberal talking points. They're saying things that say, "I'm on your side! We're part of the same tribe!"
But they aren't actually making any sense.
Again, you can see the general pervasive fear underlying them, as was neatly summarized by another poster:
That's not how it works in real life.
In real life, few politicians are corrupt. You'd know this if you had ever interacted with them.
Then how do bad laws get passed?
Because most politicans aren't experts. They're incapable of differentiating between an idea which sounds good and an idea which IS good outside of a very narrow domain of interest.
This is a problem that most people - yourself included - share. In fact, this is why they get elected - people like you vote for them because they say things that align with your tribal alignment. But this doesn't select for competence. In fact, it frequently selects against it, because almost all tribes have at least some idiotic beliefs, and someone who is competent is going against the tribe by telling you that you're wrong.
So how do these politicians make decisions?
They ask for help!
And the lobbyists are always happy to help them. As are their personal friends.
The problem isn't that the politicians are corrupt - the problem is that the politicians are incompetent, and therefore have to rely on others to make good decisions for them. But because of the Dunning-Kruger effect, this means that they're ALSO incpable of telling whether someone who is giving them advice is actually competent or not.
Thus, they may well listen to the wrong people, and subsequently make bad decisions.
That is what the problem is. And the only solution is to elect less incompetent politicians. But how can the people do that when most of them don't even recognize comepetence, and mostly vote along tribal lines?
Also, hundreds of millions of dollars is a gross exaggeration - very few politicians spend so much money. The presidential race has recently gotten very expensive (to the point where people are questioning the ROI on it), but most politicians, even at the federal level, are only spending a few million dollars on their campaigns. The average house seat had $1.6 million spent on it in 2012. That's a chunk of change, but that's the same as 3200 people donating $500 each. Given the average house district has over 700,000 residents, that's not ridiculous - it's about $2 per voter.
Then why do they keep electing the same politicians who they apparently hate, time and again?
In 2014, 95% of house reps were re-elected. 95%! And over 80% of senate seats had the incumbent put in for another term.
The "people" are the ones responsible for this! They're the ones who vote!
The reason for this is that they see their own politicians positively, and everyone else's negatively.
They just don't want to blame themselves by recognizing their own beloved politicians who give them money at the trough are as bad as everyone else's.
Thing is, you're not putting your story behind a paywall. You're not even asking for donations in the comment section of your story. You're just talking about how life has been hard and the implication is that donations would stop the second you could afford rent and ramen noodles for the month. In no way are you making Quantum Castaways a steady source of income.
You'd simply be asking for help on Fimfiction because that's where people know you.
Can't I just give you a few dollars so that someone whose living a harder-than-it-should-be life can lead a life that doesn't suck blistered syphilitic testicles? I'd do the same if you weren't a writer, if you were just a fun intelligent person in the comment section.
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You know, you're the reason I got married to the wonderful man I did. I'm far happier now than I was before. It seems like you already did me a service, completely unrelated to fan fiction. If I can't give money to you as a friend, then can't I at least reimburse you?
3404342
A representative example of your attitude (there are others, such as the tinfoil theory on "religion is under attack by tribalism"). Tripe like this shows your true colors, which incidentally is the same color as that brush you're holding. You use misinformation.
No reasonable person thinks instantly repealing the Right To Bear Arms is realistic. But it's ridiculous that ppl with mental illness can purchase guns, and ppl can purchase guns without any background checks at gun shows. But you don't mention that, because I see now you're only trying to be "right".
I read your wall-of-text, but I see now that I was wrong about you initially - you are not worth responding to at length, after all. I thought you are knowledgeable -> therefore thoughtful -> therefore can be reasoned with and reminded to discard willful dishonesty, regardless of whether you "agree with me". I was wrong.
You make some good points. Some very good. Which is why I tried to remind you in the first place. But all of your good is spoiled by being immersed in a soup of misinformation.
I'm not sure what you tried to accomplish here. Willful dishonesty only turns ppl away. Which I guess in Youtube terms means you "win." Congrats.
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3404342
This is what happens when you discuss politics in the comments section of a fanfiction blog post.
3405002
Politics doesn't have to devolve into this type of exchange. From the beginning I realized that he had good things to say and good facts to spread around, if only he would stop with the ideologue tactics. I tried to veer it into a productive direction, because from the outset I wanted to avoid a Youtube thread. He wouldn't allow it.
3405002
To be fair, it really isn't. I've had fine discussions about politics on FIMFiction before with intelligent individuals like Bradel and Bad Horse, and they did fine. They can sometimes get a bit heated (I'm a bit, well, caustic), but they can be reasonably enjoyable.
Really it depends on the person involved. People who are highly emotionally driven politically tend not to be the best people to engage with, and I should have recognized it and avoided the confrontation, as it was really entirely off-topic.
Sorry for the comment spam, Dust.
3404699 Holy shit... I don't mean to pry if it's too personal or anything but I'm responsible for you getting married to someone? What's the story there?
At the same time, as flattering as that is, you guys don't owe me anything. A large part of why I write fan fiction is for my own amusement and gratification. You married the man you did due to your and his compatibility and life choices, and while I'm glad that one of those life choices happened to be, "read the same pony words", that doesn't make me responsible for the choices that made you happy.
It works the other way too. If someone reads QC and decides that life is a meaningless speck in a sea of apathy, and offs themselves, well, I'd be pretty devastated that someone killed themselves after reading my words, but I wouldn't feel responsible for their choices or actions.
When it comes to fan fiction, call it, enlightened self-amusement. That both of us are entertained to various degrees is entirely serendipitous.
However, I am still curious about the story behind that. I understand if you don't want to share in front of everybody, but you can't blame me for my curiosity.
Technically, fanfiction is no more illegal than drawing a picture of something you like in school and showing it to your friends. What makes it illegal is when you start to profit off of others intellectual property. And I'm totally on your side when it come to NOT being paid for writing fanfiction. That IS copyright infringement and that IS illegal. Just thought I'd point that out.
P.S, I'm ObeyBunny's husband.
3405741
Before I made an account, I'd been hanging around fimfiction for a small number of months. I didn't want to speak to anyone since I didn't want to be under anyone's scrutiny. What did I even have worth saying, anyway? I loved being a silent fan or silent critic to different stories here. But then one of the stories I was reading, my favorite, Quantum Castaways, featured a chapter where Rainbow Dash get teleported to Bullshit Island while she's sonic rainbooming and she smashes against the inside wall of be barrier at the speed of sound. The description of Marshall coming across her hoof and a few scattered feathers and thinking nothing about other than "neat" really, really ripped at my soul. God damn, it was a powerfully sad moment. That day, I created a FimFiction account because I wanted to leave exactly one comment on that chapter. If I remember, it was one sentence long and misspelled.
I wanted to sit on my inactive account for a while longer. But then I started making forum threads because I periodically felt the need to whore out for attention a little. Mostly anthropology and sci-fi threads--these are the posts that got him to like me.
Long story short, I was completely unmotivated to create a Fimfiction account before your story. Because I created an account, I became far less shy and far more vocal. I kept seeing this one person again and again in the comment section of my anthropology and sci-fi threads. We went from talking about myth creation publicly to doing the same thing in private messages. Eventually, he asked if I was single. I was, we started flirting, one thing lead to another...
It doesn't make you responsible for who I married any more than my shitty public school education that taught me to read and write. It's a small amount, but it's not 'zero.'
...also, damn we're getting off topic. All I wanted was to convince you to shut up and take my money.
3406054 Well, I am deeply touched by your support and I wish you two a happy belated congratulations on your wedding. Also, interestingly enough, my buddy Nugar was the one who wrote that particular Omake, and it did indeed leave a very powerful impression on the folks who read it. Nugar's writing is like that. The two of us have been friends and conspirators in fan fiction for so long that I honestly can't tell where his style ends and mine begins. I'll mention something to him when I talk to him next.
Again, you guys have given me something to think about. I probably won't be starting a Patreon or donation site, I still find it difficult to reconcile what I do with something I could or should be paid for. Personally, it feels a little wrong to me, and generally speaking. Accepting donations as an artist would be very easy, and generally speaking, if something feels wrong, and it IS the easier path, experience has taught me that it's probably wrong.
Again, not making any judgement calls on anybody who does, this is something I honestly need to think about, maybe discuss with my family, because I respect and value their opinions.
Long story short, regardless of any musings on the subject, again, thank you very much for your kind words. They really DO make a difference, and they are a form of support that I have absolutely no problem accepting without reservation.
I always viewed donations to artists as the classical form of patronage: giving money to people who do things you like. Beyond all the obfuscation and layers of legal/ethical conundrums that come with derivative works, its just that simple.
I enjoy your work, and want to see it continue. If, at some point, I stop enjoying it, the money stops flowing. Simple.
And an artist should never view patronage as the same relationship as a commissioned piece of work. A commission is a contract between two people: money for a specific work. A patron want to see more of an artists' voice, not their own. Or they should, anyway.
Just my two cents.
I'm inclined to agree with everything you just said. These fanworks should ultimately be creative works of passion first and money making activities good for a quick buck last. However, just because it's a fan work doesn't mean that you should flat out refuse any payment from fans who are truly willing to help you and support you. Just don't focus on the money. Focus on the art, because that's what it's all about.
Late to the party again. Damn.
FWIW, it has always seemed to me that Patreon accounts, "tip jars" fueled by PayPal or Google Wallet, or other forms of electronic funds transfers as applied to fanfiction, always struck me as being a modernized version of a busker on a streetcorner with passersby throwing dollars into his open guitar case - the folks who hold the copyright to "Classical Gas" or what-have-you aren't going to sue a busker for a transient performance that only serves to keep a roof over his head. Hell, consider the number of club and garage bands that get away with performing covers every night for coffee and donuts, plus "pass-the-hat" and a share of the cover charge. (OTOH, if said busker rents a venue and has folks holding guitar cases out by the doors, that might be a different story...
)
But, I do get the moral reservations of which you speak. I couldn't write my way out of a wet paper bag, but I have offered my services to writers as a subject-matter expert on fics that involve cops and forensics. Frankly, I wouldn't feel right about asking money for that, any more than you do. I do it for the ego-boost I get from the shout-out in the "Author's Notes" and the satisfaction of putting a little bit of Truth out there to be picked up. Getting paid for it would make me very uncomfortable, as well.
Bottom line: do whatever you think you need to do that lets you look at yourself in the mirror, man.
3436192 Uncle Mike, that is one hell of an expertise to have. I do hope that at some point, if I require your expertise, you would be available to talk, yes?
3436254 Usual lawyerish disclaimers apply, but yeah...
I agree with you.
I was going to say something in the same vein as Uncle Mike, but with way inferior articulation.
So instead of doing that, I will simply agree with him.
I share your views in that I have never accepted nor paid for anything in the fandom. While a lot of talented people work hard to create things, I have a hangup about profiting on someone else's work. It also feels more personal this way, doing favors for friends if you want them to do some for you.
3400756
Before copyright law existed, there were no novels, no popular entertainment, and no arts except what was produced either by very rich people in their spare time, or by artists who were supported by very rich people and made whatever those very rich people asked them to make. Their art, for the most part, sucked, except when it was done for the Church, in which case it sucked unless you were Catholic and liked seeing seven hundred variations of the Madonna.
Copyright law was created to protect individual artists from corporations. Corporations were already making money off of artists before copyright law--they just copied whatever artists had made and sold it. It was more profitable for most of them.
Copyright has been extended too much by lobbyists from Walt Disney, who are trying to keep Mickey Mouse in copyright. This is an abuse of copyright law, but it doesn't make the concept of copyright law bad.
The people who have been advocating the "Consider the case of mythology in various cultures of human civilization: an open-source collective narrative which everyone can add to, as long as the addition is good/ popular", most notably Roland Barthes, are post-modern literary theorists who never produced any art themselves. It is transparently just another attack on private property from the only place in Western society that's still largely Marxist--English departments--and part of their overall program to dismantle modern civilization.
4010772
You had me seeing your POV until...
Man... it's getting harder and harder to tell real thought from tinfoil conspiracy theories nowadays, at least at first glance.
No wonder Titanium Dragon thinks you're legit.
4010837 It does sound like a conspiracy theory, doesn't it? But you must admit that Marxism is, in fact, a conspiracy to dismantle modern civilization. If you haven't been in an English graduate department lately, as I have, you're not in a position to judge. Graduate English literature courses are the last refuge of Marxism. In my last English literature class, we read about ten times as much writing by Marxist theorists as we read fiction and poetry combined. Not just because the teacher sympathized with Marx. Because that's how the course textbooks were designed. Most English departments today believe that the purpose of literature is to heighten consciousness about and liberate the oppressed classes; they mainly disagree on who the oppressed classes are. (This year, transsexuals and fat women are in, and gays are out.) It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but this is what their journals and grad-level books say. They aren't trying to hide it.
4013721
Mm-hmm. Fear the English professors, for they will destroy America. Fear the poor saps who decide to use their student loans to pursue a useless liberal arts degree, for they are the most powerful and influential demographic in America, the gleaming eye on top of the golden pyramid.
Yes, your anecdotal experience makes you privy to a vast coordinated conspiracy to topple our civilization - I don't even have to put words into your mouth. And ofc "Marxist" is analogous to all cultural changes which you disagree with. Heaven forbid some small marginalized class of ppl is finally given some basic respect. Next thing you know, those Marxists will demand we cast actual non-white actors for non-white movie roles.
I want to sort of apologize for the sarcasm, because you've been polite. But I also want to let you know that you're talking to someone whose entire family fortune and entire extended family was wiped away by Communists (both sides of my family). You're talking to someone who HATES commies, whose hate for them transcends gender, racial, and national boundaries. So I don't like it when the word is hijacked for what I consider to be an unserious POV.
4014961
I use the word Marxist for Karl Marx, for Friedrich Engels, and for people like Georg Lukacs, Louis Althusser, Franz Fanon, and Terry Eagleton, who call themselves Marxist and cite Marx as the basis of their theories. English literature departments in America today are controlled by Marxists, post-modern theorists, feminists, and race and LGBT-based activists, and I don't mean secretly or by a minority. They get along so well despite their differences because they all agree that modern Western civilization is bad and needs to be extensively rebuilt.
For example, let's look at the primary textbook in my latest class, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, 2nd edition, 2010. The old entries, from Plato to the 19th century, are mostly the usual dead white men talking about literature. Starting on page xii of the contents (which are organized chronologically), we have: a feminist existentialist phenomenologist, a post-modernist, a linguist, a literary theorist (Northrop Frye), a post-modernist, a Marxist, a post-modernist, an essay about Indian poetry, an essay on literary history, a reader-response phenomenologist, a Marxist, a Marxist, a post-modernist, a post-modernist, a post-modernist, a reader-response phenomenologist, a post-modern historian, a post-modernist, a phenomenologist, a lesbian writing about the oppression of lesbians, an African writing about racism in Conrad, an introduction to Arabian poetry, a conservative Freudian (Harold Bloom), a materialist but not explicitly Marxist theory of artistic culture (Pierre Bourdieu), a post-modernist, a Chinese aesthetic theorist, a genuinely interesting empirical study on the power of marketing on the literary canon, a Marxist post-modernist race theorist... I'm running out of time to list them, but this pattern continues for the last 1400 pages of the book, covering the period 1949 to the present. That section contains only a handful of essays out of over 100 that actually look at literary texts, and most of those were included only because they either exclude or excoriate Western texts. There are also a handful each that consider aesthetic principles, literary history, and continental philosophy (which is linked with post-modernism), but dozens of post-modernist attacks on Western thought and culture, followed by dozens of essays lambasting Western culture for its sexism and dozens lambasting it for its racism.
The study of English literature in America today is controlled by people who hate English literature. In this most-authoritative collection of important literary criticism and theory, only one writer from the past 50 years (Barbara Johnson) has anything good to say about English literature. Few of them (mostly phenomenologists) seem to have any conception of literature other than as a political tool or a sociological or linguistic data set.
The Marxists and post-modernists have always held extremist views that imply that modern civilization is so corrupt that it needs to be torn down. The others are in the majority now, and most of them don't want to destroy civilization, but they do want to have a (Marxist-inspired) "command economy of culture", in which the world's culture is rationally dictated by
an enlightened classthem, and they set target quotas for things like how many people of each race attend the opera and how many people of each sexual orientation watch each television show, and then adjust which authors are hired and which books are published until they meet their target figures. They do want to destroy Western culture, only they don't realize this; they call everything Western "white male culture" or "the patriarchy".4013721
4015088
This has remained pretty civil so far, and for that I thank both of you gentlemen, but I DO think it has gone beyond the intent of this blog's main subject, and I worry that it's going to dissolve into name calling. While everyone is still being polite, can we put the subject to rest, or at least move it to private messages? I'm not trying to curb spirit discourse mind you, I'm just trying to head it off before it becomes actual hurt feelings and insult.
4015088
Well said.
Have you ever heard of Milo? The most ironic creature to ever walk the earth.
He's a Gay Christian Republican and I dare say that he has made me question myself many times over the years about my sexual orientation.
Oh, hey! This blog is still alive!
I was randomly checking out some old stories that I fondly remember and saw that you are still active.
This is probably well past the expiration date of this blog, but if you are still doubtful on this subject I'd like to toss in my two cents.
For the longest time, I was strongly against taking any money for fanfiction. For a lot of the same reasons you are. I felt that taking money any use of copyrighted chatacters was not only legally wrong, but morally wrong as well. I had done my research, looked up fair use laws, read articles... the works.
But then I came across a youtube video by Crowne Prince where she talks extensively about fair use law and what's legal and not. I learned that I was overlooking a huge part. Copyright material may be used under fair use when it is satire, educational, or transformative and does not harm the image of the copyrighted matrial or its owner. It's the transformative one that I didn't know enough about.
Transformative works are things that fans CANNOT get from the copyright owner. Hasbro does not deal in books. No production of any fanfiction will ever compete with anything produced by them.
You are not taking anything from Hasbro. You are not competing with them. And you are not doing any damage to their image. You are both legally and morally in the clear to accept money for your work.
If you still don't want to feel obligated to perform after accepting money, start a patreon. That way you are blocked from receiving the money until after you produce a chapter. But personally, I think you should be open to people donating for work you have already done. QC is an exceptional work, and we'll deserving of compensation, even in its unfinished state.
Edit: Did a little last minute research. Turns out Hasbro does produce books, but they are straight retellings of the cartoon. Fanfiction still falls under the transformative exception, as it is a version of the story the Hasbro will never tell. Everything I said earlier still applies.
4080251 I wasn't familiar with Milo, but I googled, & I guess you mean Milo Yiannopoulos. I don't want to get sucked into liberal / conservative politics, though. I want to expose the manipulation of literary theory for any kind of political purpose. DustTraveller has asked us not to do this on his blog. It will come up in the future on my blog.