derivative works in context

[seperis]

Via cofax7, Boing-Boing on Bookshop's Post

From boing-boing comment:

If fanfic wants to be something that expresses a love of / obsession with a particular cultural product and reinforces a shared, often subcultural, identity built around it - which is surely, what fanfic is - then it is unlikely to have much impact beyond that. But as soon as it starts to mean something independent of the original product, it ceases to be fanfic and becomes part of wider culture. Exactly like most of the things on this list, whatever their origins.

A lot of arguments about fanfic revolve around the idea of the lack of creativity--which is absurd--the lack of quality--because pro novels are uniformly good, let me refer you to Brian Fucking Herbert before you even bother--but this one, this one....

But as soon as it starts to mean something independent of the original product, it ceases to be fanfic and becomes part of wider culture.

No, it ceases to be fanfic when authors can legally publish it and potentially get paid for it. Diane Duane's Spock's World had exactly as much context to wider culture as D'Alaire's Voyager fic Word Painter.

Cofax goes into the context bit here, which I agree with and keep thinking I want to add to, but it's more complicated than that.

Derivative works already mean something independent of the original product; that's why they were written. So it comes back to the context issue; a derivative work isn't fanfic if it can stand alone without context.

I could say this; all fiction requires context.

I could say this; some fiction requires more context than others.

I could use this: tell me that Apocalypse Now would work if you were not American, did not know the military existed, and lived on the moon. Fiction accesses context consciously and unconsciously all the time, from general cultural context to historical context to language context--Bastard Out of Carolina, hard Southern: Mairelon the Magician, cockney: Ghost Story, very British. The Yellow Wallpaper requires knowing about the treatment of women by society and the patriarchy in the nineteenth century; Raj needs a basic understanding of India's state under British rule and the effects of colonialism.

And samdonne's Your Cowboy Days Are Over requires some understanding of colonialism and Stargate: Atlantis.

At some point, someone needs to just admit it; it's not about context, and in some ways, it's not even about copyright; it's the subculture around fanfic that makes it unacceptable. Derivative fiction that comes out of mainstream is literary and critical and meaningful and art; derivative fiction that comes out of fanfic communities isn't.

Or as one poster put it:

I read (and watch, and listen to) plenty of things that aren't pushing any artistic boundaries. But I don't pretend it's anything more than popcorn, and for the most part the producers don't pretend it's anything more than popcorn.

Yeah. I miss coffee right now.

ETA: Link corrected.

Comments

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's a question that fanfic should and mostly* does acknowledge the original creator; no argument I've read doesn't establish first the original ownership, since that's not only the reason it's called derivative, it's the entire point of fanfic.

It would be nice if there was room for us Original Creators (sic) to be acknowledged, at least to our faces, at the very least as primum inter pares.

If most of us had the opportunity to talk to the original author that we base fanfic on without the worrisome zombie problem showing up, we would. As a fanfic author I'm also a meta writer; the fic I write is my conversation not only with the community I belong to, but with the original text I based fic from, with myself, with the world I live in. To have that conversation with the original author as well isn't something many of us would avoid, as in, we would throw ourselves at it excitedly and devote thousands of words of discussion and argument and enlightenment and sheer excitement--we could say you wrote this and it meant something to me; it was amazing/confusing/enraging/exhilarating/shocking. Thank you. Here is what I thought about it. Here's what I wrote about it. Here is what it meant to me.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

The first paper I read at ICFA was my reading of Bujold's stealth feminism (my term); I didn't realize she'd be there as respondent. I sat there the whole time controlling the urge to throw up, read my paper, and was immensely relieved that she didn't immediately tell me I failed, failed, failed (at that point, I could see the good points of only writing about "dead authors"! though actually it didn't stop me from continuing to write academic work about living authors, especially sff) because I love their work so much. But it's "here is what it meant to ME," not what "it" meant to the author, and if the author tries to control those meanings, I think it's worrisome.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

But it's "here is what it meant to ME," not what "it" meant to the author, and if the author tries to control those meanings, I think it's worrisome.

Fandom taught me what I wish I'd learned in my Lit classes about multiple interpretation; not only the author is dead (that in itself was a revolutionary concept) but the desirability of multiple interpretations of a text instead of reference to a single or a few canon ones.

The first paper I read at ICFA was my reading of Bujold's stealth feminism (my term); I didn't realize she'd be there as respondent. I sat there the whole time controlling the urge to throw up, read my paper, and was immensely relieved that she didn't immediately tell me I failed, failed, failed

You know, I wonder sometimes how I'd feel if the author actually interacted with my interpretation of a story; in fandom, it's usually not done directly (passive aggressively in locked LJ entries, yes, but direct, no). Most review boards don't allow it, and I understand the reasons for it and they're very good ones; on the other, I wish there was a way it was possible without it turning into--well, a situation exactly like that which made those rules about authors on review boards necessary.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

...without the worrisome zombie problem showing up...

Now see what you've done. You've left me with the image of zombie authors staggering down the halls at some zombie-author-con somewhere, moaning and pursuing the terrified fandom, breaking up the panels, barging through the bar... (where doubtless no one would notice that anything unusual was going on, just another con bar, never mind that part of the image...)

Meanwhile, it would be fun to talk with one's fans about their in-your-universe fic... but there are difficulties with this: legal ones. Myself I do not read, for example, any YW fanfic whatsoever, for two reasons: (a) I'm terrified that I might accidentally internalize someone else's character business or whatever and use it in a book: it's my goal to make sure that whatever goes into an original YW novel has come solely out of my head. Think of it as my style of gameplay in the "Great Game" of prose creation. But there is also (b): my legal advisers have told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from YW fanfic, in order to avoid the possibility of lawsuits and similar legal complications. (While I was still working with Trek, the same advice came down as regarded reading any Trek fiction whatsoever except what had been published.)

And (a) and (b) taken together mean I have to forego the pleasure of such discussions. Which is a shame, as the whole bunch of us would probably have a lot of fun.

Ah well.

(Zombie authors. Argh.)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

One of the things I enjoy most about fanfic is the (occasional) direct reader-to-author discussion; while most fic review boards don't permit authors to participate, discussion in comments of fic goes on at fairly regular intervals on complicated or controversial stories.

Writing off the same canon means the writer and reader's interpretation can't be anything but equal; writing in response to each other is another form of conversation that's much more widespread and much, much more fascinating to watch; what we carry with us not only from the fandom we're in but the ones we were in before becomes added to the current fandom. Sometimes, it's complicated thoughts about colonialism, feminism, the effects of homophobia, and spirituality; sometimes, it's leather pants. And by sometimes, I mean always. We always, always bring the leather pants. Community involvement in interpretation is, at least for me, part of the point of writing fic; we're all asking and answering questions every time we post a story, both our own and those of other people and other stories.

It's a different type of interaction than professional authors have with their readers, and I'm not sure the same interaction is even desirable, much less possible (and God knows I wouldn't bother with most of the professional authors I've come in contact with) because the relationship cannot ever be equal, even in the realms of dead (not zombie) authors. And in professional fiction, there can't be the same encouragement of community interaction and synergy; there's no way to translate community interaction and discussion into professional work.

If it's any consolation, the zombie metaphor is officially haunting me as well; it also is making me stare at amazon's Romero movies thoughtfully. This cannot end well for my credit card.