You did not just go there...

[liz_marcs]

I should just not read metafandom on LJ and meta_roundup on IJ some days.

Because when I see posts like this where fanfiction is compared to "gay marriage," I want to break things. (The correct term is equality marriage, BTW. Edit: I've been told that "gay marriage" and "same-sex marriage" are as acceptable as "equality marriage." Just throwing that out there so it doesn't detract from my point.)

[NOTE: DO NOT go over and flame the OP or cause her problems. I'm providing the link so you can read the post and for no other reason.]

I first heard/seen it on LJ a few days ago. Then I saw it linked to on JF. It's now been linked to meta_roundup on IJ.

I've seen this same comparison three times in something like three days.

Each time I read it, I get a bit angrier.

Look, I understand that the Organization for Transformative Works (hereafter referred to as the OTW) is a big deal to some people. I've read the various arguments in support of it, and I'm still not horribly impressed. I see a lot of biiiiiiig words arguing why I should think the OTW (whatever it's supposed to be) is the greatest thing evah, but what I don't see is a lot of operational details that a wonk like me sees as remotely feasible.

Personally, when it comes to the OTW, I say the jury is waaaaay out on that one. Because all those words I'm reading really don't tell me a damn thing of what it's actually supposed to be and what it's supposed to accomplish. I feel a bit like someone who's listening to 5 blind men describe an elephant without knowing that they're describing an elephant. No one seems to actually agree on what "it" is supposed to be.

But far be it from me to harsh anyone's Big Idea That Will Change the World. Knock yourself out, sez I. Who knows? Maybe I'm too naturally suspicious of the Big Idea That Will Change the World. Maybe the supporters of OTW are right. Maybe it will actually turn out to be something pretty special. I could be wrong, and I'm willing to be wrong.

However, based on what I'm reading/seeing so far...let's just say I have my doubts about OTW and leave it at that.

That said, posts like "fanfiction is like gay marriage" is not going to win me over.

In fact, it really pisses me the hell off.

As someone who lives in the only state in the U.S. that actually recognizes equality marriage as a matter of law and who lived the 4 bruising years between 2003 and 2007 where the fight raged non-stop over any and all attempts to amend our state constitution to make our gay and lesbian friends, family members, and neighbors into second class citizens to the point where it overrode all other state issues I'm pretty fucking sure that fanfiction is not like "gay marriage" at all.

Let me explain something:

• No one has ever been beaten into the hospital or the morgue because they wrote fanfiction
  
  
• No one has ever found themselves put out on the street because their fanfic writing partner died and their writing partner's family didn't want that dirty little co-writer around
  
  
• No one has ever been prevented from attending their fanfic writing partner's funeral by members of their fanfic writing partner's family who were fanficphobic
  
  
• No one has ever been prevented from seeing their fanfic writing partner in the hospital because they wrote fanfic
  
  
• No one has ever been treated as a second class citizen by society at large because they wrote fanfic
  
  
• No one is arguing about making amending the U.S. Constitution to make fanfic illegal, thereby relegating you to permanent second-class citizenship because of your hobby (as opposed to, y'know, your very existence)
  
  
• No one has ever had their civil rights violated because they wrote fanfic
  

I'm sure that list could be a lot longer, but that's just for a start on how writing fanfic is not at all like "gay marriage."

Listen, I'm not saying that fanfic writers haven't found themselves in shit RL situations like the ones I've listed above. I'm also not arguing that all fanfic writers are gay, lesbian, or bi any more than I'd argue the reverse.

However, 99% of the time verging on 100% of the time, when RL (as in: not on the Internet) sexism or racism or sexuality bias rears its ugly head and slaps an individual across the face, it's not because they write fanfiction. They may happen to write fanfiction, but it's not because they write fanfiction, damn it!

You see the difference, right? Because I see a pretty big difference between the two.

Listen, I understand that the very idea of the OTW inspires fanatical devotion among some in fandom to the point where they can be pretty annoying about it, but posts like this are not helping your cause.

And this isn't the first time I've seen/read posts in favor of the OTW that lacked any sort of perspective at all. I mean, for the record, writing fanfiction is not at all like being in an interracial marriage. And questioning the purpose of the OTW is not at all like being homophobic or racist (examples of arguments I've actually read).

Posts like this piss people off. It sure as hell pisses me off. And when you piss people off, you turn them off. Maybe permanently.

Hyperbole is no one's friend. Please keep that in mind for the future. Thanx.

Comments

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I...what? Are you serious?

No, really. I've read your response several times and you're still not making any sense.

For the zillionth time: free speech has nothing to do with commercial enterprises and personal property. Free speech means that the U.S. government can't quash your right to say what you want where you want, provided you're not falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater, or defaming or libeling someone.

It does not, and never has, applied to fanfic. It does not, and never has, apply to private property, copyrighted materials, commercial enterprises, or the like. Free speech doesn't even apply to LJ, and that's even when it was owned by a U.S. company. Why? Because LJ is not a governmental institution.

Furthermore, being told by people who think fanfic writing is a stupid hobby and by copyright owners that they don't want you appropriating the source material for your own fanworks is not harshing on your "right to free speech" and is not squashing your civil rights, no matter how hard you squint. And saying it's true, does not make it true no matter how many times you say it or make that argument.

Opposition to fanfic is not at all like opposition to someone's right to get married to someone they love.

One is a hobby. One is a real live human being.

You can stop writing fanfic.

You cannot stop being gay, bi, or straight. Sure, you can go into denial, and act like you're not any of those things, but it doesn't change who you are.

You see the difference, right?

And no, one pattern is nothing at all like the other.

For a start, there is no inherent right to fanfic. No, really. There isn't. The issues around fanfic are commercial issues, not an issue involving someone's right to have equal protection under the law. Fanfiction has no legal protection in the U.S. because we don't own the source material. Now, we may be in fandoms where the copyright owners are just fine with fanfic and other fanworks to the point of encouraging it (provided they're the only ones to make money off of it). There are other fandoms where the copyright owners are not okay with it and will stomp it out if they see it.

Know what? The copyright owners have every single right to stomp out fanworks if they want to. They own the source material.

A better analogy is this: fanworks is a lot like borrowing a car. Some car owners are perfectly cool with giving you free access to the keys and letting you take the car for a spin, provided you don't start charging all your friends when you decide to give them a ride. Some car owners don't want you touching their car at all, and will call the police and/or their lawyer if they see you looking at the car funny.

I write fanfiction, so guess which car owner I think is right? But know what? I respect that car owner that wants me to stay away from the car. That's my choice, because I think it's the right thing to do. But I'm not going to get on anyone who decides to write fanfic in fandoms where the copyright owner is opposed, either.

And, yes, I agree, commercial issues may impact you professionally should you get outed, but they're not going to take away your civil rights just because you write fanfic. However, it's happening less and less these days. There are authors out there right now who've gotten book contracts because of their fanfic (Hello, Cassie Claire). There are teachers using fanfic to teach creative writing (I have a couple on my Flist).

So the whole, "Onoes! I'm being oppressed because I write fanfic!" does not fly, especially when you make such an insulting, not to mention offensive, comparison between someone's hobby and someone's civil rights.

[elf]

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."

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

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."

So fan fic isn't just like gay marriage, it's like being gay? Oh, I see - you're completely insane!

Please get some perspective.

[elf]

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche, and not removable without bizarre brainwashing techniques which pretty much destroy the entire personal identity.

I'm fully aware that various artistic drives are a lot less important as societal issues than the right to marry.

I'm aware that Lee Goldberg's anti-fanfic rants are teacup storms, the proper reaction to which is the occasional fandom_wank entry, and that Phelps' protesting gay funerals is oppression, the proper reaction to which involves police activity and congressional rulings.

But a difference in scale doesn't mean a difference in core issues. And as long as the right for equal marriage is perceived as "gays want to have legal sex," it'll be ignored--it has to be framed as "all people deserve equal rights to express their love and commitment."

Please get some perspective.

I'm happy with my perspective. I'm open to more, if you're sharing.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Ummmmmm, no. You're still not making sense.

I the drive to write fanfic is nothing like being gay, because one is an action, the other is a state of being. It's still a piss-poor analogy. And how you keep missing this point positively boggles my mind.

Now, if you said "the drive to write" is an intrinsic part of someone's personality and psyche and affects the way one views the world, you'd have a better argument. I probably would still think you're overstating your case (i.e. the drive to write = equality marriage) but I could actually see something in it, especially since the Committee to Protect Journalists keeps a running tab of journalists who've been disappeared or killed because of what they write.

However, comparing reporter deaths worldwide and/or gay marriage to fanfiction is really overstating the case and obscuring whatever argument you're trying to make.

What I'm trying to say here is that this course of argument is not helping you at all. You seriously need to step back and really rethink the argument, and argument you've already admitted was an exaggerated one.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche

I... uh... WHAT?!?

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche, and not removable without bizarre brainwashing techniques which pretty much destroy the entire personal identity.

The drive to write maybe. I'm a queer writer. I cannot divorce myself from one thing or the other. As liz_marcs points out, writers have been persecuted for their writing. And as her original post explains, gay men and women have been persecuted for their sexuality.

Fan fiction writers - that's a whole other ballgame. I have little authority to speak on that matter. Very occasionally I am inspired by a television series to write a short story or a script. Actually, for years I wanted to get into TV and wrote a heap of spec scripts - which is really in no way different to writing fan fic, except for the intent. So I get the idea you can be inspired to write fan fic - but I kind of balk at the idea that this is as intrinsic to you as my sexuality is to me.

I'm queer because I am queer. I write because I am a writer.

Marriage and fan fic hold little interest for me - but I understand why people want them. But beyond that the comparison is terribly weak.

[elf]

So I get the idea you can be inspired to write fan fic - but I kind of balk at the idea that this is as intrinsic to you as my sexuality is to me.

A smaller part of the persona, but just as intrinsic. Couldn't remove it without destroying me-as-a-person.

I politely submit (as politely as you can imagine me being, at this point of the discussion) that you aren't able to judge what elements of my psyche are crucial to my identity.

The drive to write maybe.

Do you think the "drive to write" is intrinsic, but "the drive to write poetry" or "the drive to write essays" or "the drive to write plays" are separable from that, and the drive can be redirected to a different format if the main one isn't available or acceptable? (This is a serious question. I see the drive to write fanfic as no different from the drive to write songs... writing software documentation will not fulfill the drive.)

[blade-girl.livejournal.com]

Let's call it the "drive to create," then, shall we? This makes it clear that non-creative writing such as software documentation isn't what's referred to.

The creative urge isn't usually specific to only one kind of creativity. If you have that drive, you have it; you can and do choose what form you employ to express it. Anyone who's only driven to write fanfic is usually motivated by a need not to create but to find a way to insert him- or herself into the universe of the fandom in question. It's more like an externalized fantasy than a true "drive to create."

Anyone who is driven to create can and usually does find multiple outlets for that drive. To suggest that fanfic writing can be as intrinsic to one's identity and existence as one's sexuality is, at best, naive.

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

I politely submit (as politely as you can imagine me being, at this point of the discussion) that you aren't able to judge what elements of my psyche are crucial to my identity.

To be clear, I was using the collective "you" rather than the specific you. You're right, I have no idea what elements are crucial to elfwreck's psyche.

Do you think the "drive to write" is intrinsic, but "the drive to write poetry" or "the drive to write essays" or "the drive to write plays" are separable from that, and the drive can be redirected to a different format if the main one isn't available or acceptable?

Now that's an interesting argument. And for me it's all about the story I want to tell. If it feels like a short story I write that. If it feels like a poem, I write a poem. If it feels like a stage play, I write a play.

I understand that some writers have their preference of medium. And a preference for genre. And their own style.

I personally don't understand the pull to writing fan fic over original fic, but I support your right to write it. However, it doesn't compare to centuries of persecution of homosexuals nor the lengthy battle for same-sex marriage.

[rann.livejournal.com]

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche

You are an offense. By this I do not simply mean that you are being offensive. I mean that the very fact that something like you exists, to go around and say things like that with no sense of shame, no sense of proportion, and no sense of what the HELL you are talking about is an offense against the world.

[elf]

I thank you for taking the time to share your perspective with me.

I have, however, no idea how you expect me to react. But I'm sure it was useful to you to rant a bit in my general direction.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I'm still boggling that somehow being told that your time is better spent writing original fiction is just like people telling gays that they can be cured. Ummmm, WAT? Waaaaaay to get insulting there.

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

The whole notion is ridiculous, from the original post to the continuing of the metaphor here. Your post makes it perfectly clear how ridiculous the argument is, but clearly now she's got it in her head, there's no discussing it with her.

And some of my best friends are fan fic writers :-)

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

And some of my best friends are fan fic writers :-)

You're brilliant. :)

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

I don't mind if people write fanfic, just as long as I don't have to hear them talk about it.

(Oh, and here via metafandom.)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

INAL, but I'm very certain that you're looking at copyright the wrong way.

Copyright law does not restrict parody. Nor does it restrict discussion of an original work. Nor does it prevent people from using snippets of the original work in the course of discussion. In fact, copyright does have a "fair use" clause, all of which are the case.

That corporate entities are trying to close that "fair use loophole" is a completely separate argument.

However, in no way, shape, or form can most forms of fanfic or fan works hide behind "parody" or fair use. And protecting a copyright holder's right to, y'know, actually own their creation and decide on how it's used in the public sphere is not a violation of your free speech rights.

And again, it has been ruled time and time again that the First Amendment is: 1) not absolute; 2) applies only to the U.S. government; and 3) applies to political speech.

Fanfiction may in some cases be considered a parody. Fanfiction may in some cases considered a form of political speech. However, in the main, that is not what fanfiction is.

Furthermore, the U.S. Government can't go stomping in and put a stop to fanfiction just because, say, Warner Brothers gets its corporate panties in a bunch over HP slash. If Warner Brothers wants to get pissy about HP slash, it's got to send out a raft of cease-and-desist orders. Which means that fanfiction is a civil matter between two private entities, not a criminal one.

So, again. No matter how you paint this, someone squashing your ability to write fanfiction, be it random corporate entity or your next-door neighbor thinking you're a loon, is not a repression of your civil rights.

here via metafandom

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Without weighing in either way on fanfic = gay marriage, I will say that I, at least, do see corporate entities trying to extend copyright periods for longer and longer and do away with fair use loop holes and writers forbidding fanfic as elements of the same general trend toward more and more extensive monopolies on intellectual property rights. One is matter of legislation and business (the DMCA, for example), and one is a matter of the author's personal opinion/choice, but both stem from the belief that ideas can be owned, and that only a single legal entity should get to benefit from them.

Fanfiction was not always illegal -- unauthorized sequels to and spin-offs of Samuel Richardson's Pamela were practically an entire genre in mid-18th century publishing -- nor was fiction using someone else's characters and plots always looked down upon or viewed as "stealing." The "lazy-derivative-theft" concept of fanfiction I would argue is at least partially a product of the environment created by modern copyright law.

If I recall my 18th century lit classes and that one lecture in Introduction to Archives properly, I think copyright was actually created to prevent printers from printing and selling unauthorized copies of another publisher's books (i.e. piracy), not to prevent writers from using another writers' characters. I believe that element was added later, as copyright laws became more and more extensive and more and more intermingled with trademark law.

I mostly know copyright legislation as it pertains to scholarsand archivists (i.e. orphan works, James Joyce's nephew, and so on), though, so I could be wrong.

Re: here via metafandom

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

You're comparing a past interpretation of copyright law vs. a current understanding of how it works.

While I agree that the current legal environment in the U.S. is far more restrictive than it was even 50 years ago, that still does not get away from the fact that when a copyright right owner sends out a cease-and-desist it is not anywhere near being a violation of someone's civil rights.

So for the purposes of this argument (despite the fact that elfwreck seems to think that the First Amendment somehow applies to fanfiction), enforcement of copyright issues is irrelevant. For as long as all of us here have been alive, copyright owners have every right to control their works, with some notable exceptions (fair use, parody, for example). However, fanfiction does not and never has fallen into any of those categories (at least not in the U.S.).

The reason why fanfiction and the greater category of fanworks has been allowed to thrive is because, in essence, most copyright holders have turned a blind eye or have gone the wink-wink-nudge-nudge route. But watch how quickly that wink-wink-nudge-nudge disappears the second a fan tries to cash in. And rightfully so.

That's not to say that I like the current U.S. climate for copyright law (I don't), but at the same time copyright is very much a necessity because it protects as much as it restricts. (For example, without copyright law, Warner Brothers could've simply taken the Harry Potter books and made movies of them without paying JKR a dime.)

However, at no point in my lifetime has fanfiction ever been considered a-okay with the copyright laws, so it isn't like it's actually new to anyone. (I'm also starting to wonder if anyone actually reads or understands their own fanfiction disclaimers when they slap them on their stories, because I'm beginning to guess they don't.)

Let me circle around back to my point:

There is no sane way you can possibly say that fanfiction is like same-sex marriage (which is what the OP actually said, and is actually what people are taking issue with). They are not even on the same planet of equivalencey. Hell, they're not even in the same universe.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

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.

Dude, I like you, but that's just not a correct interpretation of "freedom of speech" under U.S. law). And this analogy is looking increasingly strained (heading towards offensive) overall.

[devilpiglet.livejournal.com]

...being told by people who think fanfic writing is a stupid hobby and by copyright owners that they don't want you appropriating the source material for your own fanworks is not harshing on your "right to free speech" and is not squashing your civil rights, no matter how hard you squint. And saying it's true, does not make it true no matter how many times you say it or make that argument.

Do you mind if I quote this in my journal? Because I keep stumbling on people who seem to forget it, and I feel that this is a more subtle way of reminding them than laughing openly (my usual response).

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Be my guest.

There are days I want to tattoo that on people's foreheads myself. :-)

[devilpiglet.livejournal.com]

Of course, not that I really needed to ask. I mean, in the context of my future post, the use of your statement will be Transformative.

...Right?

I'm sorry, I just...this whole thing inspires mass levels of "STFU and STFD" in me and yet I can't.look.away.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I...think I luv you.

[devilpiglet.livejournal.com]

Seriously, there's nothing like the humorless self-importance of others to keep me sharp. So many ego-balloons! Which to puncture first?