Fanfic for short, fan fiction is an
homage to a particular author/creator wherein
fans take characters and situations from a
popular entertainment entity (reffered to as the
canon) and manipulate them to their own amusement.
Some popular
terminology from fanfic includes:
- Ships: A particular relationship between characters that a fanfic author centers upon.
- character_abbreviation/character_abbreviation: A sort of code used to express a ship. For example, in the case of the wildly popular Harry Potter fanfic community, H/He would stand for Harry/Hermione (not Hydrogen/Helium as an upstanding science... citizen would conclude. Yeah, I know. Lame joke.)
- Slash: A "slash" pairing involves a romantic or sexual pairing of characters of the same gender. It doesn't sound so appealing, but it really is the basis for many fanfic communities. For example, in the Lord of the Rings community, a wildly popular Slash pairing consists of Fr/S (Frodo/Samwise.) I once came across Micheal Biehn Slash and was so astounded that I near yelped. Still, the concept of Slash interests me the most because, although very taboo in our own culture, a Slash pairing is perfectly accepted by members of every sexual orientation in a fanfic community--and strangely, especially by straight chicks of homosexual male pairings. You'd think it would be the other way around?
Something to note: fanfic is very well
widespread. I found a popular Harry Potter cycle called "Draco Dormiens" by Cassandra Claire that has been translated into 4 languages. Furthermore, the following of a fanfic to this purportion becomes "fanon," and is
interchanged with the popular "canon." As for "Draco Dormiens," although I can't bring myself to actually read fanfic, I saw that the
hits for this particular cycle on a particular host was in the hundreds of thousands. Dude.
Finally, fanfic is not limited to written words. I have come across sites devoted to
paintings, animated cartoons,
CGI cells, all kinds of things... and all representing scenes from "fanon" as opposed to real stuff. When inquiring whether this whole thing is legal or not, I came across a popular argument. One side says that fanfic is perfectly legal because it is
non profit. The other side proclaims that fanfic is a form of
plagarism and should thereby be eliminated. This argument came to a head with the "
Anne Rice" matter. Rice wrote on her official website:
"I do not allow fan fiction.
The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters.
It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."
She then had her lawyers send a
Cease & Desist to Fanfiction.com.
The
legal ramifications of fanfic is summed up here by one of Rice's lawyers:
Most fanfic is illegal. However, the authors in question have either announced that they do not intend to pursue legal action (Anne Rice has taken this position, for example) or they have been very obliging about giving out actual copyright releases (very very few authors will do this).
Basically, writing fanfic is like copying tv shows on your
vcr, or taping from the radio. It's technically not good, but a lot of
people do it anyway.
*note: my documentation can be found at:
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:QCvieqXPwawC:writersu.s5.com/law/morerice.html+fanfic+legal+illegal&hl=en
sorry, I didn't mean to ralph all over your screen :D. Just covering my ass, you know? Don't want Rice to get me. She's vicious.