What if all fan fiction was legal? (cultural POD)

Under current copyright and trademark laws author/right owner have full control over their creation.
This is however a fairly new phenomenon in ancient Greece (constant retelling of stories and stealing from others creators) as well as in Victorian London (Sherlock Holmes, lots of Sherlock Holmes fics) things were a lot more free.
What if the creators of fictional works only had control about their original work?
So nobody can copy and sell Harry Potter books.
But they could write and sell books about Harry Potter being discovered by Sculley and Mulder from X-Files. There might be TV shows as long as they involve completely original stories.

How could that happen and what would the cultural impact be?

Just to give an example: A nicer, democratic Soviet Union exists to the present day and has those looser copyright laws. People are free to explore and use all kinds of characters, what happens?
 
I don't think it'd quite work. How's this sound: I take Harry Potter book 1, change one word on page 60, and market it as a derivative work. If that's not enough, I'll run search/replace "Hogwarts" with something like "Hogwalts." So the Copyright Act is amended to forbid fan fiction from quoting the original work. Next up, Author sues Fanficcer for quoting his character's stock phrase "Good golly me!" or something like that.

And in practice, China (among other places) already has these looser copyright norms. Take a look at the very interesting article "Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright".
 
So basically... legalized doujinshi?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōjinshi

Japan hasn't had any major problems with it, though in America I could definitely see religious groups getting mighty pissed when people decide to start selling Tijuana Disney Princess Bibles on every street corner. There would definitely be some people who write fanfic all the time now getting quite rich, definitely some of the better Harry Potter and Twilight authors would be raking in the dough.
 
I don't think it'd quite work. How's this sound: I take Harry Potter book 1, change one word on page 60, and market it as a derivative work. If that's not enough, I'll run search/replace "Hogwarts" with something like "Hogwalts."
This isn’t really a new problem. You have the same legal gray areas when it comes to fair use and trademark issues. In the worst case the courts have do deal with it,

If that's not enough, I'll run search/replace "Hogwarts" with something like "Hogwalts." So the Copyright Act is amended to forbid fan fiction from quoting the original work. Next up, Author sues Fanficcer for quoting his character's stock phrase "Good golly me!" or something like that.
The argument applies to all forms of citation and we don’t see whole articles or scientific books cited and sold either.

The article is indeed interesting thank you. But some parts don’t apply.
It is false advertisement since it claimed to be the sequel by J.K. Rowling and plagiarized the hobbit.
But if it were sold as an original story in the Potter-Verse, then it should be legal. However a cheap rip-off which doesn’t lie about being exactly what it is (a cheap rip off) wont steal readers from the real Potter books.
There is a reason those books sold well, people liked Rowlings story so they bought her books. If people think the rip-offs written by Mao44 (which have to substantially deviate form the original story) are better than the real thing the market has spoken.
I’m for competition in this case. George Lucas makes horrible sequels to Star Wars? Than film your own. All the merchandise connected to his movies is still his thou. The same goes for canceled tv shows and other discontinued stuff.
 
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And in practice, China (among other places) already has these looser copyright norms. Take a look at the very interesting article "Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright".

Except there's a slight difference between "Fan Fiction", which is usually published by fans for fans with no profit in mind, and the pseudo-Harry Potters published in other countries. From what I understand, Rowling has absolutely no problem with the former, and in fact actively encourages it as a mechanism to help writers hone their skills. However, Rowling and her various corporate backers have run quite expensive legal campaigns against the latter.
 
Except there's a slight difference between "Fan Fiction", which is usually published by fans for fans with no profit in mind, and the pseudo-Harry Potters published in other countries. From what I understand, Rowling has absolutely no problem with the former, and in fact actively encourages it as a mechanism to help writers hone their skills. However, Rowling and her various corporate backers have run quite expensive legal campaigns against the latter.

Can't really feel sorry for her, seeing how she completely ripped off Groosham Grange.. I've always found it strange that no one seemed to care and Horowitz never tried to sue her. Reading the article it seems to me that those rip offs have as much original content as Harry Potter 1 (same characters and setting but a different plot).
 
When we look at the historical trends of copyright, we must look at the term as centuries progressed. Before 1908, it was 42 years in the United States. Then, from 1909 to 1978, 56 years. Since 1998, it has been 95 years or life plus 70. All works published before 1923 are public domain here.
 
Under current copyright and trademark laws author/right owner have full control over their creation.
This is however a fairly new phenomenon in ancient Greece (constant retelling of stories and stealing from others creators) as well as in Victorian London (Sherlock Holmes, lots of Sherlock Holmes fics) things were a lot more free.
What if the creators of fictional works only had control about their original work?
So nobody can copy and sell Harry Potter books.
But they could write and sell books about Harry Potter being discovered by Sculley and Mulder from X-Files. There might be TV shows as long as they involve completely original stories.

How could that happen and what would the cultural impact be?

Just to give an example: A nicer, democratic Soviet Union exists to the present day and has those looser copyright laws. People are free to explore and use all kinds of characters, what happens?

If it was legal then I could publish my hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction, I'd make some money out of it and my wife would get off my back and stop nagging me to write my own book...
 
Except there's a slight difference between "Fan Fiction", which is usually published by fans for fans with no profit in mind, and the pseudo-Harry Potters published in other countries. From what I understand, Rowling has absolutely no problem with the former, and in fact actively encourages it as a mechanism to help writers hone their skills. However, Rowling and her various corporate backers have run quite expensive legal campaigns against the latter.
Right - the one's posted online for free, and the other's sold for profit. The OP asks, "What if the one could legally act like the other"?

And I like that idea myself, despite the grey areas I noted before...
 
Can't really feel sorry for her, seeing how she completely ripped off Groosham Grange.. I've always found it strange that no one seemed to care and Horowitz never tried to sue her. Reading the article it seems to me that those rip offs have as much original content as Harry Potter 1 (same characters and setting but a different plot).

Interesting, I'd never heard of that, had to look for it on Wikipedia.

After reviewing the plot summary on Wikipedia, I don't think that it's anywhere near the same thing. If she had copied text verbatim, named her characters and settings with the same names, and claimed that her book was a sequel to Horowitz's book, then it would be the same issue as Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon. But, as far as I can see, this isn't the case.
 
Right - the one's posted online for free, and the other's sold for profit. The OP asks, "What if the one could legally act like the other"?

And I like that idea myself, despite the grey areas I noted before...

Well, I think there's a bit more difference between these than just profit, but that's probably beside the point, since the OP's thought still applies to them.
 
If I could profit off it, then I'd have to get cracking and make my Wing Commander stories print-worthy. I won't market them to the fanboys (they wouldn't like it anyway), but towards a larger market.
 
I've actually written a lot of fanfiction, mainly with Naruto and other manga, and even have a following. It's funny that when I don't update a popular story for a while I will get irate reviewers demanding to know why. My usual response is 'this is a hobby not a job.'

That is really the key difference, people who write fanfiction are doing it simply because they love it. If it were some how possible to make money from it I would certainly be in favor. Most fanfiction is not really worth much, but there is a small percentage that is very well done and that I could see some people paying for. The best fanfiction DOES have originality to it when it comes to the storyline. They take familiar characters and settings but then set them moving in unexpected directions.

Many fans simply want more stories of their favorite characters, the original works create an appetite that the author simply can't meet. Thus the growing popularity of fanfiction. Some of the stories I have written have received mover a million hits and thousands of reviews. The demand is there.

If it were possible to profit using someone's imagination I would be all for it. Though I can well understand how an original author would be upset to see their work making profits for others secondhand.
 
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