Where does "own content" start? And Copyright Issues?

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#16 Post by papillon »

People aren't generally criminalised for making fan content, but for what they do with it.

That said, it's a messy issue that's full of all sorts of special cases. You mentioned 'completely original characters but in a recognisable style' - this is a gray area, afaik, that's not exactly illegal most of the time but can still cause an awful lot of ill will, depending on how it's done. And if you try to pass yourself off as the artist whose style you're copying, then it's fraud.

Selling fanfic with the serial numbers filed off is generally not illegal. I mean, we all know 50 shades was inspired by twilight, but it's also obviously NOT twilight. Still, some people will get very snooty about your inspirations not being 500 years old, and if your fanfic is TOO close to the original then problems might arise.

If I become rich and famous and then die and people sell off my estate for souvenirs, is it legal for anyone to purchase my teenage tracings of Larry Elmore pictures that I did for practice if they're purchasing them as mementos of me rather than as art, or would they have to be burned? I have no idea. And I don't expect anyone here to know either.

Trying to set hard and firm guidelines isn't a good idea because people would just game it. It has to be a fuzzy issue.

Also, remember that any individual creator has the right to give people permission - which has no effect on other creators rights!

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#17 Post by Mad Harlequin »

papillon wrote:Selling fanfic with the serial numbers filed off is generally not illegal. I mean, we all know 50 shades was inspired by twilight, but it's also obviously NOT twilight.
But apparently there are whole sections of text in the book that are the same but for the name changes. So . . . that's problematic to me as far as characterization is concerned.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/fi ... ine_b49124

The original fanfiction version of what is now Fifty Shades was set in an alternate universe with no vampires or werewolves, but starred Bella and Edward. That's probably the only reason E.L. James hasn't been sued---the setting is different.

I have seen people try to "sell fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off" before, and I wouldn't assume it's "generally not illegal." It's best to evaluate each case separately. (I once saw a self-published book offered for sale that was pretty clearly an Inuyasha fanfiction with the character names changed, and the Shikon Jewel became the "Heart Jewel" or something.)
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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#18 Post by Sharm »

I thought I heard somewhere that Fifty Shades would have been in legal trouble but there was some money exchanged between the publishing companies to make the problem go away.
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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#19 Post by papillon »

I haven't read either 50 shades or Twilight so I don't really know how close it is. If there really are passages lifted that's a bigger issue than character archetypes, but if those were removed before the published version, it's not really relevant to the commercial fanfic issue.

In general a straight-out name swap is not going to be enough, but a few backstory changes with their consequences carried through might be. But there cannot be actual rules for this and that's why I said 'generally' rather than 'always'. There are a LOT, a LOT of novels that started as fanfic and slowly wandered further afield before digging out their new 'original' niche. In many cases you wouldn't know unless you were a serious fandom nerd or the author admitted it. There are comic book characters invented totally because the author couldn't get the rights to use the character they wanted and made a knock-off version. And so on.

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#20 Post by Sharm »

My point with the Fifty Shades thing was that it really was plagiarism, the author was caught and they had to pay for it. So just because there's something that exists that looks like it broke the rules and got away with it doesn't mean that it's what actually happened.
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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#21 Post by papillon »

[citation needed]

The link Mad Harlequin talking about comparing passages for plagiarism is talking about comparing 50 shades to the fanfic version she wrote first, not to Twilight.

Quick searches for 50 Shades lawsuits turn up a dispute between Universal pictures and a porn company, and a dispute involving some people who believe they are entitled to a share of the profits because of their involvement with the site it was originally published on.

I don't see anything anywhere about her having to pay off the Twilight publishers. There are a lot of people who hate the book insisting that clearly there SHOULD have been a lawsuit, but from what I can see none of them actually know anything about the copyright details and just hate fanfiction on principle. It's very easy for gossip to spin out of control.

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#22 Post by Ayutac »

Lesleigh63 wrote:Might be worthwhile to have a look at what deviantart considers fanart to be - FAQ572 plus there's an interesting link on that FAQ to an article about it.
Indeed, with a proper citation and link I might add :)
DeviantArt wrote:Original fan art are those works in which the submitting artist has done 100% of the work but the work itself depicts characters, scenes or other themes which were properly created by another creative person.

When creating fan art, which essentially copies from an established source, it is considered good etiquette to credit your inspiration. Please note that it may be considered unacceptable to precisely duplicate your inspiration by directly tracing or copying every single detail so that it is difficult to tell your work from the original, so please be certain to add your own personal touches and style.

DeviantART will not print fan art in its prints program.

CAUTION: Fan art may be copyright infringement and you may be forced to remove it by the copyright owner who may also choose to initiate other legal action. Please consult our Copyright Policy. This Article may provide further information.

Fan art should not feature screenshots, official artwork, scans, copyrighted photographs, or similar items.
Indeed this would render example 1 as "not fan art", while e.g. the adding/changing of (additional) face expressions as in example 3 and 4 would count. The examples 5 (color change) and 7 (combining of parts from different though all traced sources) would still stand to discussion.

BarabiSama wrote:The US imprisons people a lot longer in general than Germany, so I don't think it's a reasonable comparison to make.
Okay, that's probably true. Child abuse was just my first thought and fitted so nice with the 10 years. I see the general problem in punishment of crimes that physically or mentally hurt people in contrast to crimes that do mainly virtual money damage as in "more money we could have earned if if if". The years behind prison allow a comparation between these two kind of crimes, therefore (as well as some money penalties) putting a discrete value to humans. I don't like that very much. But oh well, I think I'm going offtopic here...
BarabiSama wrote:The basic concept was that, by not properly enforcing a law for a period of time, law enforcement shouldn't be permitted to pick and choose cases later on to prosecute when it becomes convenient.
I would like that...

Sharm wrote:How does how much time you spend on it change anything?
If my child spents hours in the woods to find a stone he can give me for my birthday, I would way more happy and proud of it than if he just grabbed that stone outside the moment he realized he forgot my birthday. Time and Effort are valuable things. Even more in office jobs, even though because of a different reasoning. On the other hand, I'm 100% sure that there exists paintings out there which are only famous because artists put an incredible amount of time into them.
Sharm wrote:If you tried to pull that kind of logic in some mundane 9-5 job and had the gall to ask to be treated the same as the person who did it properly you'd get fired.
And here are you implying that my work is worse than that of the other one. Please look at the original and my trace and honestly tell me which looks better to you. Of course quality isn't the only factor, time/quantity is important to. My boss would have to decide which quality-quantity-ratio he/she prefers.
Sharm wrote:Since you're spending all that time recreating something that has already been done by someone else faster than you did all it proves is that you're horribly inefficient and uncreative.
I appreciate your praise, but I have to disagree. I think tracing the characters is both efficient and creative, not for the sake of art, of course, but for their purpose of being in a game. By copying the original art I'll never have a problem with changing overall art style because of leaving/dying artists. By tracing it rather than taking original images I get the freedom to scale the images to whatever size is needed without having to fear quality loss. This two things are the exact reasons I chose tracing over rendering original images.
Sharm wrote:Tracing other's work has a place, as a learning tool. That's it.
Besides the reasons why I chose it as something useful (learned it for that purpose, by the way), I'm curious to know: Learning tool for what? Except tracing of course. Maybe how to work with the vector program? I'm not really a graphical artist, so I'm honestly having problems too see what one could all learn from tracing. What I don't learn is how to model bodies from scratch, that for sure (in my case at least).
Sharm wrote:You don't get an award or props or special consideration or anything other than practice for doing it. And you shouldn't.
Am I trying? Besides from the mentioning if it is used in other work of course. You sounded like I insulted you somehow. If so, I apologize, I didn't mean to.

papillon wrote:Trying to set hard and firm guidelines isn't a good idea because people would just game it. It has to be a fuzzy issue.
That's an interesting viewpoint I haven't considered at all until now. I think you are indeed right, but there is my fear again it won't stay fuzzy forever. So basically I would rather have good laws now and have some people suffer under them immediatly, than having bad laws 20 years in the future and almost all people suffer under them. People who create fan-inspired content of course.
papillon wrote:There are a LOT, a LOT of novels that started as fanfic and slowly wandered further afield before digging out their new 'original' niche.
My stuff too. Have about 100 A4 pages, could make a book. Hm. In fact it's amusing how people sometimes tell me "This reminds me of X and this of Y." when I never have heard of either one :D
papillon wrote:and a dispute involving some people who believe they are entitled to a share of the profits because of their involvement with the site it was originally published on.
Haha, that's why known authors never admit to read fanfiction or even say they can't.

@Mad Harlequin: Interesting article!
Up next: An original, open source, text-based Dating Sim. Stay tuned ;)

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#23 Post by Kiki »

Ayutac wrote:
If my child spents hours in the woods to find a stone he can give me for my birthday, I would way more happy and proud of it than if he just grabbed that stone outside the moment he realized he forgot my birthday. Time and Effort are valuable things. Even more in office jobs, even though because of a different reasoning. On the other hand, I'm 100% sure that there exists paintings out there which are only famous because artists put an incredible amount of time into them.
Then by your own logic, that person who spent those three hours creating their own piece put far more time and effort into their work than you did with that seven hour tracing.

Good art skills are not something people just start out with. That person creating that piece has spend a long period of time, possibly years learning how to draw and learning how to draw fast. They've put time into practicing, studying other people's work for techniques, learning anatomy and shadowing and perspective and color theory. They may have taken classes, gotten professional critiques, had their portfolios reviewed. They put countless hours into learning how to create that work you seem so quick to decide didn't have as much effort into it as you tracing.

And that person you traced from? They are a hired professional, correct? You spent seven hours tracing their work but they've likely spent the better part of their lives getting to the point that they were considered good enough to draw that piece.

Time and effort are valuable. But you aren't the one putting in more of those in this situation.

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#24 Post by Mad Harlequin »

papillon wrote:The link Mad Harlequin provided is talking about comparing 50 shades to the fanfic version she wrote first, not to Twilight.
That's correct. I apologize for the confusion. (This is what I get for posting at 1:17 AM. :?)

I linked this because I find it a little problematic from a creative standpoint---not a legally viable one, mind you---that AU "Bella" and "Edward" became "Anastasia" and "Christian." (Though I will say it can't have been that difficult to create the new characters since Bella and Edward have all the personality of a pile of pencil shavings.) But as you stated:
papillon wrote:That's why I said 'generally' rather than 'always'. There are a LOT, a LOT of novels that started as fanfic and slowly wandered further afield before digging out their new 'original' niche. In many cases you wouldn't know unless you were a serious fandom nerd or the author admitted it. There are comic book characters invented totally because the author couldn't get the rights to use the character they wanted and made a knock-off version. And so on.
I'd be interested in knowing which former fanfictions became "original" (aside from that Inuyasha one, because that's a clear case of wrongful appropriation of ideas).
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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#25 Post by Holland »

Ayutac wrote:
Sharm wrote:How does how much time you spend on it change anything?
If my child spents hours in the woods to find a stone he can give me for my birthday, I would way more happy and proud of it than if he just grabbed that stone outside the moment he realized he forgot my birthday. Time and Effort are valuable things.
Yeah, but what about the earth that spent the past few thousand years tumbling that rock into existence? I'd value that a little more ;0
Ayutac wrote:
Sharm wrote:If you tried to pull that kind of logic in some mundane 9-5 job and had the gall to ask to be treated the same as the person who did it properly you'd get fired.
And here are you implying that my work is worse than that of the other one.
I doubt they're saying it's done "badly", just not "properly" - properly as in learning to do it yourself and creating it on your own. Making something better from something that's already been made is quite easy because you're looking at a finished product and can see all the faults to be fixed. Making something like that from scratch is the hard part. There are a lot of artists that actually trace over what they make afterwards and completely remake it so it looks better. That's just the effect tracing has, but the original artist can only spend so much time on one piece.
Ayutac wrote:
Sharm wrote:Tracing other's work has a place, as a learning tool. That's it.
Learning tool for what?
Tracing allows you to examine the work of others and to get more used to the flow of creating something in that style. You can see the good and the bad of the work someone else made. It's also a great way to learn 'the flow', especially with characters - getting used to making the curves and edges of characters' bodies and faces or the gravity of (/lackthereof) the hair has a major impact for some people who fit its learning curve. It's a great way to boost your drawings when you're just starting out. I'm sure there are other positive effects of it, as well. You can create scenes and designs without plotting them all out before hand. It's just *practice* - which is learning in and of itself.

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#26 Post by papillon »

Ayutac wrote:
papillon wrote:Trying to set hard and firm guidelines isn't a good idea because people would just game it. It has to be a fuzzy issue.
That's an interesting viewpoint I haven't considered at all until now. I think you are indeed right, but there is my fear again it won't stay fuzzy forever. So basically I would rather have good laws now and have some people suffer under them immediatly, than having bad laws 20 years in the future and almost all people suffer under them. People who create fan-inspired content of course.
I think you're missing the point. I'm talking about protecting the rights of the original.

If I set a hard rule that it's an allowed original work if there's no more than 60% copied, and you carefully adjust your pixels so that at least 40% of them are a very-slightly-different color but still looks pretty much exactly like the original, you may be technically following the stated rule but for all practical purposes you are completely and utterly copying. That's gaming the system.

Trying to find the exact point at which a ripoff becomes illegal gives the impression that a creator is trying to rip off the original, which is in itself proof that the work is derivative. :)

Look, I support the existence of fanart and fanfic. I think people should be able to make things and be involved in fandom and do whatever. I'd even support a law change that allowed compulsory licensing (that is, the ability to sell fan work so long as it's clearly labeled unofficial and a percentage of profits is sent to the copyright holder). But not being able to sell a traced pokemon sprite is not exactly suffering. :)
papillon wrote:and a dispute involving some people who believe they are entitled to a share of the profits because of their involvement with the site it was originally published on.
Haha, that's why known authors never admit to read fanfiction or even say they can't.
[/quote][/quote]

Again, you're misunderstanding what that was about. Nothing at all to do with authors reading fanfiction, it had to do with who owned the publishing rights.
Mad Harlequin wrote: I'd be interested in knowing which former fanfictions became "original" (aside from that Inuyasha one, because that's a clear case of wrongful appropriation of ideas).
Starting points:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... ndedFanfic
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... tainErsatz
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/L ... /SolarPons is basically Sherlock Holmes.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/L ... tiveAgency was originally Doctor Who (though not exactly fanfic)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strang ... _series%29 was REALLY OBVIOUSLY Doctor Who

Those weren't all published as fanfiction in the ff.net sense, of course, but the connections are clear.

For that matter I freely admit Magical Diary being based on Harry Potter fanfic (much more so than on Harry Potter itself, I have no interest in chosen ones and dark lords here). New LPers often expect the setting to be a straight swap and make weird connections at first before slowly settling in. And then, some Magical Diary fanfiction (yes, it exists) keeps trying to re-introduce HP elements that don't make sense in my setting! It's tangly. :)

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#27 Post by Mad Harlequin »

papillon wrote:Starting points:
Ah, thank you. I'll have a look at these a bit later.
For that matter I freely admit Magical Diary being based on Harry Potter fanfic (much more so than on Harry Potter itself, I have no interest in chosen ones and dark lords here). New LPers often expect the setting to be a straight swap and make weird connections at first before slowly settling in. And then, some Magical Diary fanfiction (yes, it exists) keeps trying to re-introduce HP elements that don't make sense in my setting! It's tangly. :)
I respect that you admit it.

As for the fanfiction . . . it sounds rather meta. That must give you a headache! :shock:
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Re: Where does "own content" start? And Copyright Issues?

#28 Post by papillon »

The fanfic writers are my main source of motivation for sequels so that I can explain all the things they're getting wrong! :)

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#29 Post by Ayutac »

Kiki wrote:Then by your own logic, that person who spent those three hours creating their own piece put far more time and effort into their work than you did with that seven hour tracing.
I don't get how my example leads there but it's true anyway.
Kiki wrote:And that person you traced from? They are a hired professional, correct?
One could argue about that, but let's say yes.
Kiki wrote:Good art skills are not something people just start out with. [...] They put countless hours into learning how to create that work you seem so quick to decide didn't have as much effort into it as you tracing.
Don't misunderstand please, I KNOW that. That's why I always say that tracing is easy and could be done by anyone within some hours of practice. I didn't intended to make the effort of the actual painters to look like nothing compared to tracing, in fact I think the opposite is the case. My reasoning was different:
1. Putting effort and time into something makes it valuable.
2. People put effort and time into tracing (although not as much as most painters).
3. Vector images have certain advantages compared to raster images as I explained earlier.
=> 4. Therefore a traced image is valuable and the act of tracing and providing the vector image is an act of creating own content.

I hope my reasoning here is more understandable now. I'm sorry if my inability to communicate in English caused confusion.

BarabiSama wrote:
Ayutac wrote:
Sharm wrote:How does how much time you spend on it change anything?
If my child spents hours in the woods to find a stone he can give me for my birthday, I would way more happy and proud of it than if he just grabbed that stone outside the moment he realized he forgot my birthday. Time and Effort are valuable things.
Yeah, but what about the earth that spent the past few thousand years tumbling that rock into existence? I'd value that a little more ;0
That is true and an interesting story to tell the child :D
Also, I find the concept of Earth creating own content amusing :D
BarabiSama wrote:Making something better from something that's already been made is quite easy because you're looking at a finished product and can see all the faults to be fixed. Making something like that from scratch is the hard part.
You made it sound like these faults can be seen immediatly. That may be true for graphical art. But I beg to differ in other cases. As writing goes, fixing a bad story that has a good idea can be as hard as creating it from scratch. When it comes to programming, 2000 lines of code might just work fine for what they are intended, but are impossible to maintain becaus the programmer screwed up (which is possible in many ways). Then it costs a lot of time to extend the code because the new programmer either has to understand all of the old (which will cause much frustration) or make it completely anew. This is a serious issue in the business. Here it can often happen that the somewhat slower way is the better way, because 4000+4000 < 2000+(4000+4000) (in lines as code, implying in the bad case the new programmer makes the old code good and not only fitting his narrowed needs. The good case is that the first programmer took more time and care to make a program which at first glance does the exact same thing).
BarabiSama wrote:
Ayutac wrote:
Sharm wrote:Tracing other's work has a place, as a learning tool. That's it.
Learning tool for what?
[Explanation]
A very interesting insight. As someone who knows only the very basics and is in no way trained in drawing, this was new to me, thanks :-)

papillon wrote:
Ayutac wrote:
papillon wrote:Trying to set hard and firm guidelines isn't a good idea because people would just game it. It has to be a fuzzy issue.
That's an interesting viewpoint I haven't considered at all until now. I think you are indeed right, but there is my fear again it won't stay fuzzy forever. So basically I would rather have good laws now and have some people suffer under them immediatly, than having bad laws 20 years in the future and almost all people suffer under them. People who create fan-inspired content of course.
I think you're missing the point. I'm talking about protecting the rights of the original.
So we just looked at it from different perspectives? Part of the misunderstanding could come from me having not really understood what you meant by "people would just game it." But you explained well :-)
papillon wrote:[60%-rule and it's misuse]
I see that as a technical problem. We're advancing at artificial intelligence, one day a computer program may tell if some images look similiar as well as we humans would do. This is not mere fiction, I assure you. Face recognition is just the first step at this. Of course there would be a lot of work that looks similiar even though not related, alone from established anime series for example. That's because there is just a limited range of colors, hair cuts and facial features.
papillon wrote:Trying to find the exact point at which a ripoff becomes illegal gives the impression that a creator is trying to rip off the original, which is in itself proof that the work is derivative. :)
Of course it is when you start speaking about the "ripoff". In some way the line will always be fuzzy, because there is no one-pixel- or one-word- or one-line-of-code-change that makes a derivate completely original. There is just some percentence of similiarity. I bet some of the work put to display here has bigger similarities to some other work out there, without copying or intention of that in any way.
I'm not trying to find an exact point between "ripoff" and "original", or, as I would prefer to say "content" and "inspiration" :P With the "laws" I spoke of in my post you quoted I didn't mean a lawful seperation between what's original and what's not. I meant a good seperation between what's allowed and what's not.

Ex. (not in law terms, mind you):
Bad law: Fan Art is forbidden forever.
Almost good law: Fan Art is allowed as long as no money is earned by the publication and multiplication of the work and as long as the borrowed characters are not shown in any kind of sexual intercourse or violence.
Almost bad law: Fan Art is allowed as long as no money is earned by the publication and multiplication of the work and as long as the original creators aren't offended by the work.
(It's "almost" because it implies checking on single images.)
(And of course this is preceeded by a definition of Fan Art, which would most likely include "Name", "typical haircut" and "typical clothes", the latter ones to be interpreted by courts. They would serve as the final fuzzy line, just like they do now.)

What I said is that I would have rather an almost good law right now than a bad law in 20 years.
papillon wrote:But not being able to sell a traced pokemon sprite is not exactly suffering. :)
Do I seem so inclined on the tracing? Well, somehow I am probably, haha. I guess it's because it's a nice borderline example (see reasoning at start of this post). Btw, the only reason I published them on DA is because I seriously believe some people might make good use of it. In fact they already started: My Nurse Joy appeared in the Honest Game Trailer: Pokemon Red and Blue. I was/am delighted and I would never dream of charging them or anything like that.
papillon wrote:
Ayutac wrote:
papillon wrote:and a dispute involving some people who believe they are entitled to a share of the profits because of their involvement with the site it was originally published on.
Haha, that's why known authors never admit to read fanfiction or even say they can't.
Again, you're misunderstanding what that was about. Nothing at all to do with authors reading fanfiction, it had to do with who owned the publishing rights.
In this case, you got it wrong. I wrote an example of exactly what you meant: Publishing Rights. Some years ago I've read about a case where a fanfiction writer sued an author for using "his idea" and somewhat won. Wikipedia tells of the fear of authors of something like that, also not providing the source (search for "stealing").
Or did I get you wrong and you meant original creators getting a share of fan content? Because that case is more unlikely.
papillon wrote:For that matter I freely admit Magical Diary being based on Harry Potter fanfic
Oh, right, you created Magical Diary :D Not played yet, but will eventually. Looks promising :-)



I like our different viewpoints, guys, it's fuel for a fruitful discussion. I hope you have some fun too :-)
Up next: An original, open source, text-based Dating Sim. Stay tuned ;)

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Re: [Discussion] Where does "own content" start?

#30 Post by papillon »

Ayutac wrote:
papillon wrote:Again, you're misunderstanding what that was about. Nothing at all to do with authors reading fanfiction, it had to do with who owned the publishing rights.
In this case, you got it wrong. I wrote an example of exactly what you meant: Publishing Rights. Some years ago I've read about a case where a fanfiction writer sued an author for using "his idea" and somewhat won. Wikipedia tells of the fear of authors of something like that, also not providing the source (search for "stealing").
Or did I get you wrong and you meant original creators getting a share of fan content? Because that case is more unlikely.
No, you're not listening. It had nothing to do with authors reading fanfiction. Why would I say that if it was, in fact, entirely about an author reading fanfiction? :) I'm quite familiar with the principle you're citing but it has absolutely nothing to do with the case. Nor does it have anything to do with the author of Twilight. It was about people involved with a website arguing about the legal restructuring of the business entity to affect who was entitled to a share of the millions involved when they sold the publishing rights to 50 Shades to a larger publisher.

(Sorry, pedantry mode engaged, but I did say!)

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