Talk:Professional Author Fanfic Policies

I don't have time to go through all the Fan Works Inc listings at [1] to get all the pro/con fanfic listings (and besides, some of them are outdated & have changed--Lackey is listed as anti-fanfic).

One of the concepts that I noticed is "Author is okay with fanfic; corporate sponsors aren't." Rowling, listed on that archive under "Harry Potter," is listed as not-tolerated because of WB's policies. There are other companies who are anti-fanfic: Sony, owners of Everquest; Glidrose, owners of James Bond; WoTC-who-bought-TSR and continued their weird claims about intellectual property. The Burroughs Estate gets wonky over Tarzan (which is fascinating because the orig books are public domain). Perhaps there should be a list somewhere of "Corporate/Estate Fanfic Policies," which have nothing to do with author opinions.

Also--would like a list sorting out "authors who are anti-fanfic because they believe it encroaches on their legal copyrights" and "authors who are anti-fanfic because it squicks them and they don't like it." --Elfwreck 00:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

While that would be interesting to divide up the reasons, I think it would be hard to make a hard line between many of them. I also kinda like reading along in the "pro" and "con" and then discovering myself why they are saying it. Reads a little bit like a mystery story to me. :-) --Mrs. Potato Head 16:44, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Poppy Z. Brite recently posted: so this would probably be a good time to mention that I used to be anti-fanfic (and personally squicked by the idea of people writing about my characters), but no longer am.--æthel 00:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I followed this link and thought this was a neat post. Would someone with more skills in doing those proper references hook it up on the main page? *begs a little* --Mrs. Potato Head 16:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, facetofcathy. I'll figure out how to do it myself at some point, but wanted to get that thing in via Doro right away. --Mrs. Potato Head 18:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Think nothing of it, I actually found formatting refs to be one of the hardest things to learn about wiki editing. --facetofcathy 18:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I just got the WARNING: This page is 35 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections. page length warning. Is this something we need to take very seriously and act on now? Is that a very conservative number at 32kp? --facetofcathy 18:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

A number of zine pages have this warning, as does my own user to do list. I've ignored it and never had a problem. Off topic: I think, though, a better set-up for this page may be in order. Perhaps an introduction about authors' policies (personal thoughts/versus publisher's thoughts, trends, is there any breakdown in authors' policy's vs type of transformative work?, different attitudes regarding fiction/vidding/..., any change in ideas about transformative works over the years, a link to Mercedes Lackey's release form, ...) and then put the PRO and CON onto subpages. That, and perhaps calling this page something more encompassing than "fanfic" so it covers all the bases (with redirects for such leading here). JMO. Personally, I love this page and think it's fascinating. --Mrs. Potato Head 18:18, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Bold author names - ILU Mrs. Potato Head!

Thank you for bolding the author names: I had the page open in a tab to do exactly that. --msilverstar 21:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It's so much easier on the eyes, eh? LU2. --Mrs. Potato Head 22:15, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Dave Duncan? Right List?

Should "Dave Duncan" be on the anti list? The quote suggests that he's fine with people writing for their own pleasure; he will only get involved if a writer tries to profit from his work. That's a fairly common position and hits on noncommerciality fairly strongly. I would move him myself but I wonder if whoever added him knows something I don't beyond this? --Fcoppa 20:05, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Spam?

It seems like user Hetchienna18 created a new section containing a spam link.... Shall we just delete the stuff or report the user or what? --Rebecca 08:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I deleted it. --Meri 10:26, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think these past few spamming folks need to be blocked. I can see the form to do so on the bottom of "Special Pages" but I think it needs an admin to follow it through with an IP address.--Mrs. Potato Head 11:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I blocked the two spammers I found. Let me know if you see any more!--æthel 12:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

fanfiction.net exclusion list

I'm not sure if this list is visible unless you go through the process of starting to post a story. It's at http://login.fanfiction.net/story/story_tab_guide.php

"FanFiction.Net respects the expressed wishes of the following authors/publishers and will not archive entries based on their work:"

   Anne Rice
   Archie comics
   Dennis L. McKiernan
   Irene Radford
   J.R. Ward
   Laurell K. Hamilton
   Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb
   P.N. Elrod
   Raymond Feist
   Robin Hobb
   Robin McKinley
   Terry Goodkind

Should we put this on the page itself? A note under the negative list with stars to indicate which ones are there or something? --msilverstar 08:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The full list might fit better on the Fanfiction.net page, though ff.net's policy is worth mentioning here. --æþel 09:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Fanwork content issues

The "How does slash alter the landscape?" section maybe should be broadened to "How does fic content alter the landscape?" ...I suspect some authors react to m/m or f/f content without necessarily minding explicit erotic works, and vice-versa. And then there are the fandoms featuring underage characters, where the authors might be disturbed by the idea of explicit works which do not age up the characters. --Lorem_Ipsum 16:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

That seems reasonable, although I think slash is worth mentioning because it's a specific thing that freaks some people out. --msilverstar 03:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Various authors quoted from emails

Various authors are quoted from emails, in http://www.whoosh.org/issue62/ecks2.html but I'm not sure how many of those are sufficiently clear to be worked into entries in this list. — Katherine 21:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

A few pro-fanfic authors to be added?

I'm very new here and I'd rather not mess anything up, so I'd rather not try and add anything myself, but I've recently come across a few authors that haven't been mentioned here but who don't mind fanfic, so maybe they could/should be added to the list as well?

Jonathan Stroud (Bartimaeus sequence and other books) has answered a question about fanfic directly in a forum post ("I'm honoured that anyone would want to write new stories with Bart and co. It's a sign that the characters have life beyond the confines of the page, which is pretty much the holy grail for any author. More power to your pens!") and has a link to the Bartimaeus category on fanfiction.net on the official site of the series.

Derek Landy (Skulduggery Pleasant) has answered a question about fanfic in a blog post ("Corporal Wolf asked if people can reference Skulduggery in their own stories. This is absolutely fine, so long as those stories aren’t then put on sale- for instance, referencing, or even using, Skulduggery characters in fanfiction is fine, but this is not the case if you write a book or a short story you want to get published. My advice, however, is to do whatever you want, and then if you’re lucky enough to have one of your stories printed/published/sold, you can go back in and change Skulduggery’s name to something else, so you won’t infringe on copyright."), following it up later with asking for fanfiction recs and commenting on the fanfics he read, with a nice quote in the end ("I think it is incredibly healthy for you, my Minions, to continue doing this. I think everyone should write, even if you think you’re rubbish at it, because I, personally, find writing so fun and so rewarding.").

--Mint Stick 07:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Orson Scott Card

He's currently on the discouraging list but the second quote makes me think maybe he should be moved to ambiguous? Sobqjmv sphinx (talk) 22:16, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

same for George R. R. Martin Sobqjmv sphinx (talk) 22:18, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Martin has already made it clear that he does not support fanfics created on top of his books, but that since there is a series and he does not have full rights to it, he knows that there will be works based on that media. Ellakbhesse (talk) 01:30, 13 November 2022 (UTC)