No, copyright is not the excuse. Copyright is the reason.
George Lucas issuing a "cease-and-desist" order because he doesn't like what a fan is doing with his intellectual property is in any way, shape, or form is not exactly like denying someone their civil rights on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion (or lack therof), or sexuality.
You can keep saying the two are exactly the same, you can keep trying to stretch it to make a connection, but the fact is, the connection is not there no matter how hard you try.
Copyright law is a civil matter and it pertains (only) to property. People who create, pay for, and provide the media have the right to own it. They have a right to make a living off of it. Fanficcers are (as someone pointed out above) like skateboarders or graffiti artists. They're not doing anyone any harm, really. They're having some fun. Sometimes they can produce something artful out of the mess. Some are hobbiests. Whatever.
But still...fanficcers are using someone else's property, not matter how you slice it.
Now, lucky for us, most copyright holders look the other way when it comes to fannish activities, until some fan gets stupid and tries to earn a buck off the deal. Some copyright holders forbid it entirely (which is, again, their right). And even smaller population of copyright holders actively hate on fanfiction and will bunk on it continuously and will get litigious, but guess what, that's their right, too.
Now, GLBT civil rights, of which the same-sex marriage debate is just one facet? That comes down to who a person is and not what they do. That is a very different thing. GLBT people in many parts of the world at risk. They can be arrested. They can be beaten. They can be killed.
So I don't accept at all that there is any equivalence whatsoever between non-acceptance of fanfic and non-acceptance of GLBT.
Because, seriously, with all the people commenting on this thread, exactly four people (two commenters, Aja, and MsScribe) have come up as stating that they had RL revearsals over fanfic. The MsScribe story turned out to be a complete lie. The Aja story was a porn-at-work issue. And the two commenters ran into homophobic reactions in which the fanfic was just one piece of physical evidence used against them.
no subject
George Lucas issuing a "cease-and-desist" order because he doesn't like what a fan is doing with his intellectual property is in any way, shape, or form is not exactly like denying someone their civil rights on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion (or lack therof), or sexuality.
You can keep saying the two are exactly the same, you can keep trying to stretch it to make a connection, but the fact is, the connection is not there no matter how hard you try.
Copyright law is a civil matter and it pertains (only) to property. People who create, pay for, and provide the media have the right to own it. They have a right to make a living off of it. Fanficcers are (as someone pointed out above) like skateboarders or graffiti artists. They're not doing anyone any harm, really. They're having some fun. Sometimes they can produce something artful out of the mess. Some are hobbiests. Whatever.
But still...fanficcers are using someone else's property, not matter how you slice it.
Now, lucky for us, most copyright holders look the other way when it comes to fannish activities, until some fan gets stupid and tries to earn a buck off the deal. Some copyright holders forbid it entirely (which is, again, their right). And even smaller population of copyright holders actively hate on fanfiction and will bunk on it continuously and will get litigious, but guess what, that's their right, too.
Now, GLBT civil rights, of which the same-sex marriage debate is just one facet? That comes down to who a person is and not what they do. That is a very different thing. GLBT people in many parts of the world at risk. They can be arrested. They can be beaten. They can be killed.
So I don't accept at all that there is any equivalence whatsoever between non-acceptance of fanfic and non-acceptance of GLBT.
Because, seriously, with all the people commenting on this thread, exactly four people (two commenters, Aja, and MsScribe) have come up as stating that they had RL revearsals over fanfic. The MsScribe story turned out to be a complete lie. The Aja story was a porn-at-work issue. And the two commenters ran into homophobic reactions in which the fanfic was just one piece of physical evidence used against them.
So, really, you point has not been proved at all.