Why I’ll Never Pull My Fic
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Why I'll Never Pull My Fic |
| Creator: | vampireisthenewblack (aka vamp) |
| Date(s): | January 4, 2012 |
| Medium: | Posted to a wordpress blog |
| Fandom: | Panfandom, with some references to Twilight |
| Topic: | Deleting Fanworks, Filing Off the Serial Numbers, Pull to Publish |
| External Links: | On Wordpress, archive link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Why I’ll Never Pull My Fic is a 2012 essay by vamp posted to their wordpress blog, vampireisthenewblack. In the essay, the author takes a position against both pulling fanfiction from the internet for personal reasons and for professional publication. The essay makes several references to the Twilight fandom, where filing off the serial numbers was more common than other media fandoms. The author also discusses the moral implications of publishing altered fanfiction since the base work is on intellectual property that you do not own.
The essay is divided into several subheadings:
- I’ll never Pull2Pub for many reasons
- Most fics aren’t pulled to publish though.
- File Sharing
- The Future
Excerpts
I’ll never Pull2Pub for many reasons:
"I think it’s wrong to profit from someone else’s intellectual property unless permission is expressly given, and when Steph allowed fanfiction to be written using her world and her characters, she wasn’t giving us permission to make money off it. [...] I’m too lazy to retcon my stories into true original fiction. I may as well use the energy to write a new story."[1]
Most fics aren’t pulled to publish though.:
"I put a shitload of hours into my writing. Why on earth, when it’s been up for so long and well received, would I want to pull it and keep it in a dusty old file on my computer that could crash and burn at any moment, never to be seen again? I treasure every review that I get. No way would I devalue those by yanking the fics they were given for."[1]
File Sharing
"I’m aware that there are google docs and file share repositories where pdf’d fic is held when a fic has been pulled2pub or just pulled, and fic is getting archived just on the possibility that it might get pulled. Personally, I think this is fantastic in the case of Pull2Pub because charging for fanfic is bad, m’kay?" [...] but I really don’t want to see it [my fanfiction] end up there. No, I don’t have any right to Stephs characters but I did write that shit, you know? I want my penname on it. I want a link to my FFn or AO3 profile on it."[1]
The Future:
Responses
The essay has several responses on Wordpress:
"This was a great article and as a reader, I appreciate and admire writers like yourself who do not pull their fics. The writers really do not own the stories, fan fic is technically a violation of copyright. Hence why many authors do not allow their characters to be used in fan fics. But I do understand when a writer creates these stories, it is their idea of the story line. It’s a no win situation to an extent. And as for the published fan fic, no idea how that happens. The publishers must be walking a very fine line to get away with it. Not to blather on and take over your column, but I did buy a very well known fan fic. I loved it as a fan fic but the published version was the exact same, just name and characterization changes. Very disappointing and pretty much cured me of ever buying published fan fic again. So thank you for being you and not pulling your stories as well as standing up for what you believe. [...] Regardless, you are a wonderful writer and your stories are always stories. Not cookie cutter as so many others are." [1]FandomFanatic
"you brilliant woman. thank you."[1]AnnaLund