Copyright Controversy

Enough to send a shiver of fear into the heart of any fanfic writer, someone within the BtVS fandom had a story tagged as copyright violation and was told to stop posting it. It's kinda horrid when you think about it - obviously the writer and her fans were upset. She must have put a LOT of time into writing the story and her readers had been able to get a taste of what she was doing/where she was going with it. So of course, they're disappointed.

There was a little bit of vague finger pointing as to who reported it and wishes for karma to bite whoever reported it on the ass, but things seem to have settled down again.Apparently the only person who can raise a claim under copyright would be the author or a representative, so it might just be a case of this story caught their eye. Who the heck knows? I can't imagine anyone I know within the fandom going through the effort of contacting the author, providing links, etc all within the time it took to post three chapters just to get the story stopped. I know my life is way too busy to be that interested in anyone else!!

But it does raise the question: when does fair use become copyright theft? A disclaimer was used and there was zero intent to make profit. But the original story/characters do belong to someone else. And that person has the right to say 'please don't use them'.

It's a bit of a 'you can't play in my sandbox cos I bought the sand' kinda thing, but it is understandable. I have been going around in circles thinking about this because one of the stories I am working on was inspired by a book I read nearly 20 years ago. I can't even say whether it's changed enough from the original to be an homage rather than an adaptation. If the author wanted to, and if someone reported me, she could request I take it down. And there's nothing I could do about it but stop writing it.

Spoilsport? Yes. Within their rights? Yes. Brain explosion going round in circles? Triple yes.

I guess ultimately as someone who wants to be published, I have to be on the side of the original writer. Because I think if I put my heart/soul into writing something and was relying on the money from it being published, then discovered someone else was using my characters, my world, my storyline (even vaguely), I would wonder if people would decide to read the free version rather than pay for mine. And I guess I would say please don't play in my sandbox.

As a fanfic writer, that makes me feel a bit hypocritical and that doesn't sit well. I can  tell this is going to go round and round in the washing machine of my mind for a while yet....