free speech has nothing to do with commercial enterprises and personal property.
Yes, it does, when what makes a property commercial is the government's restriction of other people's right to free speech. Copyright law--all IP law--is a direct restriction of free speech rights. And that doesn't mean it should be overthrown (perjury law is also a limitation on free speech rights), but the law needs to consider how it restricts speech, and whether society benefits more from the restrictions than it loses.
The continued expansion of IP law interpretation to benefit corporations at the expense of public exchange of knowledge is indeed a free speech issue.
You can stop writing fanfic. You cannot stop being gay, bi, or straight.
You can stop writing fanfic, but you can't stop being inspired to do so. And you can't stop being gay, but you can "refuse to act on your immoral urges."
Which is what a lot of fanfic authors are being told--"why don't you just write original fic instead?" As if it were a simple matter of "change what you're interested in, what inspires you, and how you think about life."
Which is pretty much what the "gay is curable" crowd claims about sexual orientation: that you can, with practice and guidance, change your interests to something more socially acceptable, and legal to express in public.
fanworks is a lot like borrowing a car.
Fanworks don't put miles on your car. They don't touch the original at all. It's a lot more like someone took a picture of your car, photoshopped it to look like elves were driving it, and posted it on the web.
Which you may not like, but it doesn't wear out the brakes or grind the transmission, because intellectual property is not like real property... it's not something that diminishes with use.
The copyright owners have every single right to stomp out fanworks if they want to.
I strongly disagree. Certainly, they don't have the right to stomp out those fanworks that are parodies. Whether they have any right to restrict other fanworks is not established; it depend on whether they're "merely derivative" or "transformative."
no subject
Yes, it does, when what makes a property commercial is the government's restriction of other people's right to free speech. Copyright law--all IP law--is a direct restriction of free speech rights. And that doesn't mean it should be overthrown (perjury law is also a limitation on free speech rights), but the law needs to consider how it restricts speech, and whether society benefits more from the restrictions than it loses.
The continued expansion of IP law interpretation to benefit corporations at the expense of public exchange of knowledge is indeed a free speech issue.
You can stop writing fanfic.
You cannot stop being gay, bi, or straight.
You can stop writing fanfic, but you can't stop being inspired to do so. And you can't stop being gay, but you can "refuse to act on your immoral urges."
Which is what a lot of fanfic authors are being told--"why don't you just write original fic instead?" As if it were a simple matter of "change what you're interested in, what inspires you, and how you think about life."
Which is pretty much what the "gay is curable" crowd claims about sexual orientation: that you can, with practice and guidance, change your interests to something more socially acceptable, and legal to express in public.
fanworks is a lot like borrowing a car.
Fanworks don't put miles on your car. They don't touch the original at all. It's a lot more like someone took a picture of your car, photoshopped it to look like elves were driving it, and posted it on the web.
Which you may not like, but it doesn't wear out the brakes or grind the transmission, because intellectual property is not like real property... it's not something that diminishes with use.
The copyright owners have every single right to stomp out fanworks if they want to.
I strongly disagree. Certainly, they don't have the right to stomp out those fanworks that are parodies. Whether they have any right to restrict other fanworks is not established; it depend on whether they're "merely derivative" or "transformative."