Fan Fiction is a lot like the Japanese art form of Doujinshi, in which people are influenced by, or use characters from, book and movies (or manga) to create their own story lines in that world. In America, there are plenty of authors that are okay with the idea of fanfiction, but there are other authors that believe it infringes on the copyright laws. Do you think if the fanfiction writers/artists are not gaining any profit from their work, is it still a violation of the copyright laws? While some of it can be pretty ridiculous, the original artists should be flattered that there are people that are so passionate about their work that they come up with whole other worlds for them.
http://www.fanfiction.net/
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This topic is pretty personal to me so it was interesting to see it featured on this site! I have previously read about this topic and similar ones regarding fan artists selling fan works such as drawings/keychains/posters of copyrighted characters. I think that in the case of Fanfiction, the fact that nobody is profitting off of the works means that it should be alright in the eyes of the law. However, if the copyright owners really did want to stop any particular person or groups creating works that they felt didn’t represent the characters, they are also justified to do so especially if it misrepresents their original media.
I don’t think the creation of fanfiction is a violation of copyright law. I think it would be protected under fair use because fanfiction “builds” onto an already-present world and cast, thus giving the universe within that fanfiction added meaning. In other words, I would argue that fanfiction is an author’s original work because their writing is mostly based on their own ideas. Furthermore, most fanfiction writers don’t earn money from writing fanfiction, so they’re not really “competing” with the book/movie/manga that they’re drawing inspiration from.