Playing in Someone Else's Sandbox
| Synonyms: | |
| See also: | Transformative Work, authorial intent, shared universe |
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Playing in Someone Else's Sandbox is sharing others’ creativity/intellectual property via the creation of fanworks: fanfic, cosplay, vidding, scanlation, RPGs, fanart, fan films, and much more. This sharing may be an involuntary collaboration, a recognized collaboration, and it may be a completely invited one. Those involved in this participatory and transformative culture understand that someone else has created the text/world, but that the creator no longer has the final say over their creation.
This "sandbox" may be a professionally-created canon universe, one owned by TPTB. It may be a universe or characters created by another fan.
"Garden," "Backyard," "Playground," "Universe" are variations fans themselves employ. Another variation is "playing with someone else's toys." The addition of the word "play" and "toys" perhaps suggest that fandom and fanworks are fun by definition. "Play" may also suggest childish, or at the very least, something not as serious as "work."
Examples of Use
1980
[Marion Zimmer Bradley's statement at The Keeper's Price]
I regard myself not as the “inventor” of Darkover, but its discoverer. I others wish to play in my fantasy world, who am I to slam its gates and in churlish voice demand that they build their own? If they are capable of it, they will do someday. Meanwhile, if they wish to write of Darkover, they will.... Or, look at it this way. When I was a little kid, I was a great lover of ‘pretend’ games, but after I was nine or ten, I could never get anyone to play them with me. And now I have a lot of fans, and friends, who will come into my magic garden and play the old ‘pretend games’ with me. [1]
1981
[Maureen Garrett at Open Letters to Star Wars Zine Publishers]
Dear STAR WARS Fanzine Publishers and Contributor: As you may have heard, Lucasfilms Ltd. recently sent letters to a number of fan publications expressing our concern about the unacceptability of certain material in STAR Wars Fan Fiction. This letter raised many questions from fan editors and contributors.[…]
I suppose I have a rather simplistic view of the subject. If George Lucas and his friends come to my house and went out to play in my backyard, I'd expect them to abide by my rules that you don't stamp on the fuchsias, play basketball in the vegetable garden or tear fronds off my eight foot tall Tasmanian tree fern.[2]
1992
[Mercedes Lackey at Queen's Own Newsletter]
Having established that I am a Good Guy for letting you play in my sandbox, following in the footsteps of my mentor Marion Zimmer Bradley, let me continue. Some folks have been horribly incensed because I asked, politely, that you not post Valdemar fanfic over in Prodigy, because that service lists itself as a PUBLISHING SERVICE and not an information service, and it is a FOR PROFIT entity. This was to protect YOU." (December 1992)[3]
1993
[Nora L. Mayers' letter to Southern Enclave #38]
I'd looove to address Yvette Ghilan's question about zine piracy! My dear Yvette! I venture to say that your letter is going to cause some heat in the next SE! But, since you probably expected that (brave soul that you obviously are!) let me put my two credits worth in. First of all, you suggest that it's complimentary when someone pirates a zine.[…]
To address your concern that we're taking from Uncle George anyway, so what right do we have to gripe? Lucas knows we're playing in his sandbox -- he once even had a panel set up to read the zines to ensure that nothing he considered unfavorable got through. And since we're not making a profit on George's work -- although we are putting out money to get the zines produced -- I think we're entitled to gripe when someone steals from us.[4]
1994
[Herald Housemother at Queen's Own Newsletter]
It's a big sandbox that we're playing in; if you don't want to share your toys at least don't pick on the other kids.[5]
2001
The Nephrite and Naru Treasury's Moon Momma/Housekeeper, a Sailor Moon fan also referenced a garden in her 2001 essay about why she felt fanfiction should adhere to canon as strictly as possible:
[Moon Momma]
Yes, fanfiction is about exploring the possibilities. Within reason. We fanfiction authors are not creating our own characters and our own worlds; we are using characters and stories and ideas that were created by someone else. We owe the original creators the courtesy of treating their creations with care and respect; it's their garden we're playing in, as uninvited but tolerated guests.[…]
People who would say that these are the real characters are pulling up carrots from the Sailor Moon garden and trying to convince the reader that they're eggplants.
[…]
When we're playing in someone else's garden, it isn't nice to uproot the plants. Instead, we should treat them carefully while admiring their beauty. And hope to heck we don't get sued for being there.[6]
2002
[FanDomination.net's TOS]
[The site] was founded based on a set principle of ethics. This affects to a degree the material that we allow. It is our belief that if a professional author objects to people playing in their universe and playing with their characters that we, as fan fiction writers, should respect those wishes.[7]
2005
In August 2005 cesperanza spoke about the Cousinjean and Profit Wank in an untitled post in her LJ that generated several comments over the time, one of them is listed below:
[sssenza]
The sheer anger when people realize, "She's playing in our playground, using the very same toys that we use, BUT SHE'S NOT ONE OF US," is astounding. Though that might not be quite what happened. That's just the impression I get from your post. Like I said, I didn't get to read her post, cuz it's gone now. From what I gather, though, I don't really approve of her behavior either. I just find the fan reaction rather interesting. [8]
2006
[victoria_wayne's comment at Does plagiarism matter in fanfiction?]
I think plagarism in fanfic matters, definitely. It's not a monetary issue, because almost everything is being borrowed...I think of it as misbehaving in the sandbox, so to speak. We're all here to play, and even if it "doesn't really matter" in the long run, it makes things less fun, it makes people angry, and it makes the author feel hurt.[9]
2011
[jelazakazone]
I give blanket permission to use any fic I've created […]We're all playing in the same sandbox and I'm happy to share my sand. Would love to see what you do with it![10]
2013
References
- ^ Zimmer Bradley, Marion (1980). The Keeper's Price. New York: DAW Books. p. 14.
- ^ Maureen Garrett's letter dated October 7, 1981, was published in Judland Wastes #5/6 (November 1981) and in News of the Rebelion #10 (December 1981). Also available in Open Letters to Star Wars Zine Publishers by Maureen Garrett.
- ^ Mercedes Lackey. "Queen's Own Newsletter--December 1992". Dragonlords of Dumnonia. Archived from the original on 2004-12-24. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
- ^ Nora L. Mayers (1993-12-16). "Southern Enclave Issue #38, pg 23 - Winter 1994". Southern Enclave Archive at 1001 Trek Tales. Archived from the original on 2014-05-29.
- ^ Herald Housemother. "Queen's Own Newsletter--March 1994". Dragonlords of Dumnonia. Archived from the original on 2006-03-23.
- ^ Moon Momma (2001-05-01). "Orthodoxy vs. Exploration". The Nephrite and Naru Treasury. Archived from the original on 2022-11-20.
- ^ Laura Hale and Jim Partin. "If you build it... They will come... Terms of Service". Fandomination.net. Archived from the original on 2002-11-29.
- ^ sssenza's comment at cesperanza post (2005-08-11). "The sheer anger when people realize, "She's playing in our playground, …". livejournal. Archived from the original on 2024-06-23.
- ^ victoria_wayne (2006-08-07). "Does plagiarism matter in fanfiction? - Fanthropology - The Study of Fandom". livejournal. Archived from the original on 2015-11-06.
- ^ jelazakazone. "User Profile". AO3. Archived from the original on 2013-05-06.
- ^ JumpingJackFlash (2013-03-04). "User Profile". AO3. Archived from the original on 2013-05-06.