History Main / FanworkBan

Reasons for such a ban/restrictions vary. RobinHobb wrote an article sounding a bit like a PSA ("Fanfic -- JUST SAY NO!") that had the basic premise of "Those characters are like family to me. You don't like seeing your family put into weird or perverted situations, do you?" Others take the legal ground; that's how they make their living, and that's their intellectual property you are messing with. Others simply don't think anyone else can write their world as well as they can (detractors, however, might comment that they're worried that someone can write them ''[[BetterThanCanon better]]'' [[BetterThanCanon than the author can]]).

-->''"Reactions of character creators to fanfiction have been varied, from polite acknowledgment to legal threats to having their character discuss out loud how disturbing and weird some types of fanfiction are. Fanfictions reacted to all of these things by writing 9,000,000 new fanfics."''

* WarnerBrothers briefly tried to get rid of ''HarryPotter'' SlashFic. This went nowhere.

* ButchHartman is okay with FanFic so long as it's not SlashFic and isn't too violent.

* {{Anne McCaffrey}} originally did a blanket ban save for a few {{RPG}}s. She has since relaxed the ban but imposes rules on would-be writers such as no writing about existing Pern characters, no boys can Impress gold dragons, no girls can Impress bronzes, no dragons of any other colour except for the five standard colours. Ruth is the exclusive exception. Not that anyone actually pays attention to these rules. Oh, the good old days of MSN Groups [=RPG=]s with all kinds of sparklypoo dragon colors.

* In 1997 a group of folks were working on a ''[[{{Game/Quake}} Quake]]'' [[GameMod mod]] based on the ''{{Alien}}'' franchise simply titled ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Alien Quake]]'' until [[TwentiethCenturyFox 20th Century Fox]] issued a Cease and Desist on them.
** Oddly enough, Fox hasn't gone against ''Aliens TC'' for ''{{Doom}}''.

* Any fan remake of a game show owned by Fremantle Media will be quickly C&D'd. This is because they want to make money off their official (shitty) versions made by Ludia.

** Rumor has it that some animators at Disney were fired for jokingly suggesting to make a Mickey Mouse porn flick.

* [[{{Redwall}} Brian Jacques]].

[[AC:AnimeAndManga]]
* Yamakan's adaptation of {{Fractale}} seem to have detered many fans from drawing RuleThirtyFour. To the horror of some fans

This is predominantly a Western trope; bans on fanwork are almost unheard of in Japan due to the widespread popularity and acceptability of {{Doujinshi}}.

** For the most part, [[http://kotaku.com/5585802/nintendo-doesnt-want-to-criminalize-obsessed-fans Nintendo seems to not mind fan output]], so long as it doesn't "diminish the dignity" of their IPs. In short: No making money off of or porn of their intellectual properies and you're good.

-> ''Reactions of character creators to fanfiction have been varied, from polite acknowledgment to legal threats to having their character discuss out loud how disturbing and weird some types of fanfiction are. Fanfictions reacted to all of these things by writing 9,000,000 new fanfics.''
-->-- {{Cracked}}

-> ''I've got the intellectual property cops crawling up my butt.''
-->-- [[SportsNight Dan Rydell]]

A fanwork ban can be particularly annoying if you get into a show/book/whatnot after it's ended. In the internet age, the first thing many such fans will do after the series ends is look for fansites or fanwork. If a Fanwork Ban is in place, these sites will be extremely hard to come by, if they exist at all, and it's usually the case that most fans foolhardy or reckless enough to skirt a FanworkBan usually aren't intelligent or dedicated enough to put together good fanwork. In extreme cases, this may result in a dead fandom, unless the fans are pretty social and don't mind restricting themselves to facts and discussion. It might also result in a BrokenBase between fans who support the author's decision and fans who rail against the ban. Of course, it could work out exactly as the author hopes; instead of reading fic based on ''one'' of their works, you'll probably find yourself looking into the author's other works in the hope of finding something similar.