Pony Fanfiction Thread

It's fairly easy for fanfics to make their way into the real work.

Ex: Comic Books

@Sera

It also prevents a slurry of terrible wish fulfilment episodes about Anon from getting onto the show.

Sigh, I know the reason the rule exists, I just think it's dumb. It's kind of like when in some Asian countries when they run someone over they back up to make damn sure they're dead. It's insane and foolish. The law should simply be, if you do derivative work of someone else's IP, you have no right to it whatsoever, period. Even being credited should be a courtesy.

This said, is there some kind of controversy about some frames of the latest episodes looking like fanart?

Why would there be? And no the rule is not 'stupid' it makes perfect sense. And is there to protect everyone involved. Even in derivative works, the creator still has instant copyright to all unique creations they make. Until there is a MASSIVE rewrite of the draconian bullshit that is US Trademark law, it can't change.

Yeah, but this is the same law that caused people to side with Hasbro when the controversy of destroying a little girl's letter came up.

That one was bullshit. Them doing it, understanable why, but the form letter response, how they handled it, yeah that was bullshit. Plus those corporations HAVE ways of dealing with this well, people who are responsible for going through stuff like that but have no creative input. That letter just ended up in the wrong pile.

There you have it. It's bogus, lame, and whack.

As long as there are people to game the system, pretty much any system is going to end up like that.

Agreed. That way it frees up writers to interact freely with their fans and makes fanwork pure fun like it's supposed to be. If I can find a way to do it that way, I will. The idea that I'll never get to read my fans' interpretations of my characters sucks.

edited 30th Nov '15 12:41:28 PM by Sereg

Well, it's a lot easier to do if money never gets involved. Take that out of the equation and most of the schemers and cons who would try to take advantage of things just won't find it worth the effort.

Of course, this is completely unfeasible for any people who makes their living with such craft...

edited 30th Nov '15 2:06:55 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

Of course, for a lot of people, the idea of making money off of fan work is a bit iffy in general. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, honestly.

I was talking about being someone with an original property dealing with fans (and the response, likewise, assumes that's what Sereg was talking about). Not that people can't make money off of the standard way of making fanworks, but I feel like that's not really relevant. My line of thinking is that if the creator isn't making money, then there's nothing there to snatch for someone who wants to claim their fan work idea was stolen by the creator. They'll find other richer, more attractive marks. If the creator of the original work needs to make that money to continue, living, though, that strategy doesn't really work.

Well, yes. My point is that the law should state that if you copied and pasted a fanwork of your original work and sold it, the fan who made the fanwork shouldn't be entitled to anything. Because the material was created with what wasn't their property in the first place.

Except everything they created for that IS their property. All their ideas are still their ideas. Anything they added is fully and legally theirs.

Ah beg to differ.

Ummm, no this isn't a debatable thing, it's outright how the law is.

But beyond that fact. If not for that, way more people would get screwed hard. The work it takes to create your own characters, stories, environments, everything added to some pre-existing storyline takes just as much effort as anything else, sometimes even more-so given you have to do it withing greater limitations. There is zero difference between any of it as far as whether or not a creator should 'own' their own creations.

And I'm saying it shouldn't be. Just like when working for a University, all your ideas belong to the University and not to you, all ideas you use in fanwork should belong to the original work and not you.

You shouldn't be making money off of fanwork anyway, so as draconian as it seems, I believe that it is what results in the best interaction between creators and fans. I don't want to chase my fans away. But I want to be able to interact with them fully and without fear and for us to be able to bounce ideas off of each other. The alternatives are completely forbidding fanwork, which I just don't want to do, or cut myself off of the most dynamic section of the fanbase, which I consider ridiculous and far more harmful to both sides of the relationship. If I own fanwork based on my original property, I means I can celebrate it instead of hiding from it and my fans can receive feedback from me. I don't know about you, but I'd have adored feedback from one of the writers.

EDIT:Again, I can't use my pony OCs and Equestria-based plots outside of fanfic, so they may as well belong to Hasbro anyway. As someone who has written both original and fanfic, I think that this does the least amount of screwing n both sides.

edited 30th Nov '15 4:05:08 PM by Sereg

But that then screws the people making their own creations, screw over all the hard work and creativity they put into something, and just gives it all to some corporate bullshit that doesn't give a fuck beyond if it can make money off you. No, if you make it, you should own it, unless you make an agreement fully knowing what you are doing to say otherwise.

The current situation is worse in that regard. You can't use it outside fanwork anyway. But this means that you at least have a chance of being acknowledged, which you never did before. If you make fanwork, you knew you weren't going to make a living off it anyway. If you wanted to, you should have stuck with original content.

Which you did by making fanwork. You're including elements that didn't belong to you anyway, so the finished product could never have been yours anyway.

Again, I think that the fans are better off this way. It isn't ideal, but it's the best alternative I'm aware of.

EDIT: Basically, there's going to be crewing over no matter what, but I think this results in the fewest people being screwed over and that the severity of the screwing over is incredibly minor compared to the alternatives.

edited 30th Nov '15 4:39:51 PM by Sereg

No, it does not matter if it is 'fanwork' or anything, your creation is your creation. No matter what, somehow, you are going to be basing some aspect of any story you wright on something else.

Again, the point is that you're using elements that belong to someone else (as you said, they put in the work, just like you did, so they have a right to those elements). You chose to use your elements with their elements instead of in a pure state. That's a donation. The finished work includes stuff that does not belong to you.

EDIT: Does not belong to you and never can unless the parent company loses their rights to them, which screws them over.

EDIT: For example, I created The Four, but I could never use them as is outside of fanwork. I'd rather have that acknowledged and have them appear in official sources (which would thrill me) than leave it unacknowledged to no benefit

EDIT: I realised I'm probably making this sound more draconian than I intend. Let's say that I include element A in a fanwork of original work B by author C. I am not saying that I should be forbidden from using element A in a later original work. I am only saying that I have given free reign for author C to use element A as they wish.

edited 30th Nov '15 5:03:59 PM by Sereg

You can use them in whatever the hell you want, you own their idea because you created it. Once again, it doesn't mean shit if it's a 'fanwork' or not, something you create is something you create.

...Yeah, I'm not even gonna touch this argument.

Now I'm thinking of Bertolt Brecht and his "art belongs to the people" idea. That got him into some copyright problems, yes.

Also, doing the finishing touches on chapter 35 of The Book of Friendship before I put it through the final pre-reading circuit.

I made a third edit I think you'll find significant.

My point is that you didn't create it. You created part of it. And they created another part. So, if you claim it, you're stealing from them. But you chose to use their work. They didn't choose you. So, if anyone should own it, they should. You had another option ie. don't use their work. So, it should be treated as a donation.

EDIT:Art is for the people, but I believe that my proposition of who it belongs to is what best gets it to them.

edited 30th Nov '15 5:10:15 PM by Sereg