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Post by DocQuantum on Jul 15, 2023 22:55:09 GMT
Now that I've caught your attention by this "clickbait" title (which isn't true, just to be clear), I want to posit a question:
What if, sometime in the future, DC Comics decided to crack down on all fan fiction based on their works, even those like ours that are made purely out of love and with no financial reward, and began sending letters threatening to sue all websites that host such content? What would you do?
If this ever happened to the Five Earths Project, I think this is what I'd do:
1) Close down the website temporarily.
2) Remove all copyrighted images.
3) Make "private" all stories that are adaptations of copyrighted works (these are already tagged as "adaptations"); possibly as a follow-up these adapted stories could be rewritten later down the line, though that could be a heavy undertaking in itself.
4) For the rest of the stories, I would do a massive search and replace of every DC Comics character and DC Comics location with new names that aren't trademarked.
5) Bring the website back up once the above is done, possibly as a "membership only" site to avoid further legal woes.
Point #4 would take a VERY long time, since it would require essentially creating "pastiche" versions of every major and minor DC Comics character still trademarked, and could also require some legal advice in doing so. New origins unique enough from the original would have to be considered as well. Would it be worth it? I think so. I've already got some ideas for names to use for the heroes that aren't in use or trademarked (as far as I'm aware), but if you have any alternative names we might use, what would they be?
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Post by dans on Jul 15, 2023 23:53:26 GMT
Sturdiman
The Rush
Jade Lantern
Aquatic Man
I think Mad Magazine has trademarked Ratman and Rotten... and Captain Marbles
I think rewriting all that material here would require an AI-assist. Actually I have been wondering if there is an AI yet that can proof all my stuff and make sure everything is consistent - and maybe rename some of the characters in my fanfic to fit into my own universe...
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Post by jonclark on Jul 16, 2023 4:05:54 GMT
First off, you are a very bad man Doc nearly giving me a heart attack like that.
Personally I'd stop writing anything new and accept my lumps if fined for what was done before DC began action. If I found a lawyer able to argue it that cost less than the fine I might try to argue that prior fan-fiction (possibly including stuff like Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex if DC wasn't compensated) weakened the claim since no action was taken at that point to defend the trademarki/copyright. And that argument would be made to lower the fines on past works, not in any attempt to allow future work.
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Post by kaiserleomon on Jul 16, 2023 14:22:53 GMT
Oof! Don't even say that as a joke DocQuantum I swear I got the biggest scare when I read the title of this topic! Honestly, I don't think something like this will happen one day because it directly hurts the freedom of expression of all people who are fans of characters from any comic book publisher! Fanfictions have always been one of the most sincere ways of showing love for these characters because it gave us the right to tell the stories we always wanted to read with our heroes of all media whether comics, cartoons, movies , books, television series, anime and manga , video game characters, etc. The way I see it, if by chance a law were passed one day to prohibit the publication of fanfictions, it would be something as unreasonable as the SOPA Act !
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Post by kaiserleomon on Jul 16, 2023 14:23:46 GMT
If by chance the big comics publishers like DC , Marvel , Wildstorm , IDW , Dark Horse etc reached the extreme of creating a law that made the publication of fanfictions a criminal act liable to punishment , the internet would end the way it does we are familiar with sites with communities dedicated to fanfictions such as Fanfiction . Net would simply have to close their doors since absolutely nothing they currently publish would be allowed anymore. In the same way that publishing fanfictions about comics would become prohibited, in the same way they could prohibit all other intellectual properties belonging to third parties because they understood that making fanfictions would represent a "crime" and sites like ours and others would have to be closed since they would no longer have the permission to publish absolutely nothing and it would be a form of abusive censorship that would return us to darkness in the middle of the 21st century.
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Post by redsycorax on Jul 16, 2023 23:46:38 GMT
I think one way around this is to (a) concentrate attention on satire and parody, which are permitted even under strict copyright and intellectual property regimes; or, (b) switch to AU divergent versions of the characters; alternatively (c) reorient to public domain analogues of the aforementioned characters; (d) abandon the fandom in question altogether.
However, I don't think this is likely. From what I can gather, DC allows websites like this because it may provide useful story ideas, particularly given the new incarnations of multiverse AU versions of recognisable heroes and villains. In return for awareness of our existence and those of other fan websites*, DC uses its fan constituencies to market, test and sell its comics and associated merchandise. It probably got the idea from the success of Star Trek fandom and the transformation of that media property from a three season NBC 1960s SF television series into a sprawling, multifranchise and multimedia success story, and much the same is true with Doctor Who. Probably, much the same is true of Marvel** and other large comics and multimedia companies. Fandom provides ready made markets for their products and what business wouldn't love that?
*And then there's Blakes 7, the 1970s-1980s UK SF series, some of whose actors got precious about some adult fanfiction portrayal of their characters and who succeeded in killing off interest in that media property as a result. Sadly, something similar happened with DC's Legion of Super Heroes fandom- some older fans (myself included) got infuriated with the trashing of the series original continuity and the neverending series of reboots every few years. So, we walked away.
**The converse side of this is overkill. Take Marvel's X-Men. Originally, the writing quality of this series attracted considerable critical applause and ample market returns. This led Marvel to go overboard when it came to X-Men spinoff series and merchandise. And then, consequently, the franchise started becoming conservative and ossified- has anyone kept count of the number of times Jean Grey has been killed off and then brought back to life? The original "Dark Phoenix" storyline was a tragic masterpiece, only to be trashed. And then there's Marvel Zombies. I'm a DC aficionado, but zombie apocalypses are another area of interest, so I brought the first series. And then, Marvel proceeded to milk the concept to undeath.
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