I may be wrong, but I really do think the chances of a reader being turned off a book by a bad or inaccurate fanfic is very small. The reason: most people who are regular fanfic readers understand that fanfic is probably not an accurate reflection of the source canon. People who aren't regular fanfic readers (who would be most likely to misinterpret a fanfic) are also very unlikely to accidentally stumble across and read fanfic for a book that they haven't read. Why would they go looking for it? If they found it, why would they go ahead and read it? Surely it should be obvious even to someone who doesn't know what fanfic is (and I think that's getting rarer as the public gets more educated about it) that this isn't the book they're looking for. And if they have only a vague idea what fanfic is, the things they've heard are likely to be uncomplimentary enough that they'd realize they were looking at fanfic and stay far away from it.
I know it probably sounds like I'm downplaying the chances of such a thing happening, but the conditions that would have to be true for such a thing to happen seem very unlikely to me, and it seems like the remote possibility is poor grounds for dismissing an entire body of endeavor that brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people.
It would suck very much to be the rare writer to have that happen to them. But there are also writers who are gaining new readers via the "advertising" of fanfic at the same time. So, some people benefit and some people lose. Take away fanfic, and some writers might benefit in terms of a handful of readers not lost, but others would still lose in terms of a handful of readers not gained.
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.
See ... here's the thing. I think that readers take "ownership" of characters in their own heads the minute they read or watch something. Just listen to a bunch of fans arguing about a film or TV show. They've all watched it with great attention to detail, yet to listen to them, it appears that they've all been watching completely different shows.
As soon as you make the decision to share your creation with other people, you lose control of the way they see it. You cannot control how your readers see your work, and you can't control their discussions about your characters. To me, it's only a small step from discussing the work to making up new, amateur stories about it. It's a matter of degree, not of kind. The community aspect to fanfic, the way that it gives fans a medium for interacting and expressing their opinions about the source material, is one of the most rewarding aspects of fandom for me and for a lot of other people I know.
There are real, practical benefits to using copyright to grant writers a limited, financial monopoly over their creations -- i.e. no one else can sell it. But I can't see any real benefit to granting them a creative monopoly as well. I certainly don't think that a writer has a moral right to full creative control of their work because they lost THAT the moment that they put their work out in the public eye -- the moment that other minds got hold of their characters and started thinking and re-interpreting them. (And I'm speaking as a writer of original fiction here, as well as a fanfic writer.)
I also think that buying and selling copyright, as our current laws allow one to do, is morally repugnant. My greatest fear for my own original works is not having someone else write about my characters. It's being tricked or forced by financial necessity to sign a contract that prohibits ME from writing about my characters. And just the fact that copyright has the power to do THAT -- to take the stories and characters that I've devised in my own mind and take them away from me forever -- terrifies me far, far more than the possibility that someone might get the wrong idea from a fanfic they read about one of my characters.
no subject
I may be wrong, but I really do think the chances of a reader being turned off a book by a bad or inaccurate fanfic is very small. The reason: most people who are regular fanfic readers understand that fanfic is probably not an accurate reflection of the source canon. People who aren't regular fanfic readers (who would be most likely to misinterpret a fanfic) are also very unlikely to accidentally stumble across and read fanfic for a book that they haven't read. Why would they go looking for it? If they found it, why would they go ahead and read it? Surely it should be obvious even to someone who doesn't know what fanfic is (and I think that's getting rarer as the public gets more educated about it) that this isn't the book they're looking for. And if they have only a vague idea what fanfic is, the things they've heard are likely to be uncomplimentary enough that they'd realize they were looking at fanfic and stay far away from it.
I know it probably sounds like I'm downplaying the chances of such a thing happening, but the conditions that would have to be true for such a thing to happen seem very unlikely to me, and it seems like the remote possibility is poor grounds for dismissing an entire body of endeavor that brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people.
It would suck very much to be the rare writer to have that happen to them. But there are also writers who are gaining new readers via the "advertising" of fanfic at the same time. So, some people benefit and some people lose. Take away fanfic, and some writers might benefit in terms of a handful of readers not lost, but others would still lose in terms of a handful of readers not gained.
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.
See ... here's the thing. I think that readers take "ownership" of characters in their own heads the minute they read or watch something. Just listen to a bunch of fans arguing about a film or TV show. They've all watched it with great attention to detail, yet to listen to them, it appears that they've all been watching completely different shows.
As soon as you make the decision to share your creation with other people, you lose control of the way they see it. You cannot control how your readers see your work, and you can't control their discussions about your characters. To me, it's only a small step from discussing the work to making up new, amateur stories about it. It's a matter of degree, not of kind. The community aspect to fanfic, the way that it gives fans a medium for interacting and expressing their opinions about the source material, is one of the most rewarding aspects of fandom for me and for a lot of other people I know.
There are real, practical benefits to using copyright to grant writers a limited, financial monopoly over their creations -- i.e. no one else can sell it. But I can't see any real benefit to granting them a creative monopoly as well. I certainly don't think that a writer has a moral right to full creative control of their work because they lost THAT the moment that they put their work out in the public eye -- the moment that other minds got hold of their characters and started thinking and re-interpreting them. (And I'm speaking as a writer of original fiction here, as well as a fanfic writer.)
I also think that buying and selling copyright, as our current laws allow one to do, is morally repugnant. My greatest fear for my own original works is not having someone else write about my characters. It's being tricked or forced by financial necessity to sign a contract that prohibits ME from writing about my characters. And just the fact that copyright has the power to do THAT -- to take the stories and characters that I've devised in my own mind and take them away from me forever -- terrifies me far, far more than the possibility that someone might get the wrong idea from a fanfic they read about one of my characters.