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If it's commercial, it doesn't go in Fanfic/.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
I think we generally put published stuff under Literature. For instance, Phantom is a fanfic based on The Phantom of the Opera.
Edited by MichaelKatsuro
Yeah, to my knowledge if it's commercially published then it goes under literature.
For the record, Panda's edit reason was "Proper namespace. Whether the fanfic is published or not, all fanfic should go in this namespace." So I guess it's not universally agreed on.
https://youtu.be/J6gtDRShS3s?t=3
Is there anyway to restore a cut page?
Content Warning: My posts may involve my actions dealing with R-rated or Not Safe For Work content. Same for my edit history.
If a non-derivative work is Literature/ whether it's put out by a publisher or posted to fanfiction.net, it stands to reason that a derivative work without the copyright would be a Fanfic/ whether it was put out by a publisher or posted online.
The Literature.Phantom example isn't exactly 1-to-1 since The Phantom of the Opera is public domain.
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Larkmarn: Not to go all Spock on you, but... your example is not logical. There's no reason why a non-derivative work should be posted on fanfiction.net in the first place, and if it were, hypothetically, it would still go under /Literature because it would be plain untrue to call it "fanfic". It would not, however, be untrue to call a published fanfic "literature," because it is literature.
Edited by MichaelKatsuro
Kinda missing the forest for the trees. I don't know fanfiction.net. I meant it as a general "posted online."
The thing is that online published works are just as much literature as printed works. Fanfiction is literature. Anything written is. But we do differentiate between derivative works and original works. And when it comes to non-derivative works, the format (online posted or formally published) makes no different to the namespace, so why would it make sense to change that for derivative works?
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I mean, if we're discussing fanfiction, and you name a specific fanfiction site, instead of just saying "posted online," then I'm going to assume you're trying to make some sort of point.
Anyway, the difference here is that there is no other obvious namespace for non-derivative written works. But when it comes to fanfiction, well, far from all books that technically count as fanfiction are regarded as fanfics. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is usually called a fanfic. The Two Noble Kinsmen is usually just called a Shakespeare play, even though it's based on Chaucer.
Questions like these are why I would like to scrap the FanFic/ namespace. "Derivative or not" is just far more subjective/inexact than "Which medium is it".
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The problem, as I see it, is that there's no objective criterion for what is fanfic or not. "Derivative work" clearly is to broad. "Derivative work which infringes copyright" is a legal definition, but the problem is that it says very little about the work itself.
To me, it's a bit of a "you know it when you see it" situation. Much of what's labelled as fanfic seems to exist within the fandom of the original work, and to be part of a fanfic community, and to use certain conventions and take certain things for granted.
I'd argue that such works form a kind of meta-genre which warrants its own namespace. Putting all fanfic under literature would be a bit like joining the Anime and Western Animation namespaces into a single Animation namespace - technically correct, but it would squeeze two different cultures into one space.
On the other hand, when a derivative work doesn't "smell like fanfic", so to speak, then we run into these tricky questions about classification. Maybe it doesn't fit in the fanfic namespace anymore, but putting it under literature raises all kinds of issues and leads to confusion. And I'm afraid I don't have any answers there.
Edited by GnomeTitan
On a deeper level, it's worth asking: can you enjoy the work without knowing what it's derived from? Many of Shakespeare's plays are taken from earlier stories (in a way that would violate copyright today) but all were written for audiences who might not have read them, or indeed be literate. Whereas most fanfics today are made with the idea that the reader knows the cast and setting and don't bother re-stating things.
This is a way to distinguish fanfiction from merely derivative works, but granted it isn't always clear or easy to make this distinction. With these novels, how is the legal situation with regards to Minecraft's brand?
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
Unless the IP owners of Minecraft successfully litigate the books out of publication, then I'm inclined to say it stays in Literature/. It is also possible that they simply seek royalties, which retroactively condones the books in exchange for money.
EDIT: Also, if Simon & Schuster are publishing the books, then they already have permission from the IP owners.
Edited by crazysamaritan Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
PrincessPandaTrope moved the Gameknight 999 Series, a series of unofficial Minecraft novels, to the Fanfic namespace. I had originally put them under the Literature namespace because while they weren't officially sanctioned by Mojang or Microsoft they were still published novels I found in the library, and are currently published under Simon & Schuster, the third-largest US publishing company.
What namespace would be correct?
EDIT: Fanfic.Diary Of A Minecraft Zombie is also under that namespace despite also being published for real.
Edited by lalalei2001