I think a lot of protest you get from pro writers is because they feel ownership towards the characters and worlds that they worked hard to create - as you put it, it's their 'baby'. If they are making a living of it, it matters a lot. I found it interesting to know that you bought the actual HP books because of reading fanfics. That's a surprisingly positive outcome which has made me change my opinion somewhat that perhaps *good* fanfic is way better than totally misrepresented fanfic. But then bad or worse yet, totally misrepresented fanfics can have the opposite effect on new potential readers of said book.
I like the idea of copyright privileges being enforced during a writer's lifetime. After their death, then it's open ground for anyone who wants to play with them. I don't think protecting pro writers' rights stifles creativity as people can always write their own stories without resorting to using published novels' characters. I think there's a difference between a person writing a scratching review telling readers what they didn't like about a work to fanfics that totally misrepresent the characters of a published work. For one, reviewers are not taking *ownership* for the said published characters (though they can cause much damage to sales, etc, which can be devastating to the writer). Fanfic writers on the other hand (though they do not legally own them) take ownership (by default) by placing the said characters in situations and making them react to how they want them to react. As someone mentioned in this post (it might have been you - I only skipped though the other comments quickly), there is power in the pen. Words can heal or they can hurt.
A pro writer who might want to spread a positive message to their readers would not want to see the characters they took long and hard to create being represented as bad role models in fanfics. Of course, they can't prevent such things from happening but pro writers, I think, are happier not knowing about them. Then there's the whole issue of what if the pro writer unknowingly wrote a story that had similarities with a particular fanfic? It just makes things messy with slanders of 'you stole my idea' etc.
no subject
I like the idea of copyright privileges being enforced during a writer's lifetime. After their death, then it's open ground for anyone who wants to play with them. I don't think protecting pro writers' rights stifles creativity as people can always write their own stories without resorting to using published novels' characters. I think there's a difference between a person writing a scratching review telling readers what they didn't like about a work to fanfics that totally misrepresent the characters of a published work. For one, reviewers are not taking *ownership* for the said published characters (though they can cause much damage to sales, etc, which can be devastating to the writer). Fanfic writers on the other hand (though they do not legally own them) take ownership (by default) by placing the said characters in situations and making them react to how they want them to react. As someone mentioned in this post (it might have been you - I only skipped though the other comments quickly), there is power in the pen. Words can heal or they can hurt.
A pro writer who might want to spread a positive message to their readers would not want to see the characters they took long and hard to create being represented as bad role models in fanfics. Of course, they can't prevent such things from happening but pro writers, I think, are happier not knowing about them. Then there's the whole issue of what if the pro writer unknowingly wrote a story that had similarities with a particular fanfic? It just makes things messy with slanders of 'you stole my idea' etc.
Yes, that was me who posted above…
Tyme