| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
BlookKING
Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 6
Location: The George Washington University
|
 Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: Fan Fiction and its relationship with |
 |
|
| I have been studying fan fiction and I have encountered a lot about some sites being shut down and some authors or directors being against fan fiction in general. An example would be George Lucas' previous hate for Star Wars fan fiction writers. But this site does not seem hampered by this at all. Of course Tolkien cannot write in and complain (lol) but why doesn't Jackson get angry? Why are you guys left alone for the most part? Is there something I am missing? LOTR fans seem quite free, is this because of things you do or follow? Any help would be great. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
inglor
Joined: 26 Apr 2004
Posts: 853
Location: Not here, not there, not anywhere
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 7:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I can think of 2 things.
1) PJ/New Line don't care
2) The Professor said in one of his letters that he hoped people would write in his created world. Now does that mean he wanted Legolas pregant, Maedhros and Fingon sharing a bed, Galadriel doing naughty things behind Celeborn's back and Marysueingwethiel the half maia/half dragon/half hobbit saving Borimir, out shooting Legolas, and usurping Arwen's place at Aragorn's side? We will never know.
In my untrained legal opinion, as long as a fan-fic writer doesn't seek to get paid for their work, I believe the Tolkien Estate's hands are tied.
I would pay a great deal of money to know if Christopher has read any fan fic.
Inglor
_________________
Hi, My name is Inglor and I am a Tolkien Geek (sub-species: Silgeek)
Owner of the phrase: "merciless attention" so authorized by Viv |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ghettoelleth
Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 1804
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 7:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
I don't know about Christopher but I would assume since Royd (his grandson) has, on more than one occasion, attended ORC and other fan conventions, (I have a picture of him making fun of Craig Parker by showing an overhead of slashy Haldir courtesy of Thebanband), is well aware of the fanfic community, he might have mentioned it to his grandfather.
Neither Peter Jackson nor Newline Cinema hold any controlling interest in the literary rights of any of Tolkiens books, they own the production rights alone, they have no say whatsoever in any area, including movie verse fic, of any of this.
Though I'm sure it would piss Christopher off to no end were he to learn of the extent of the slash fic, being that he, as was his father, a devout trid. catholic, I believe Royd is pretty much grain of salt when it comes to this. It all comes with the territory, I suppose.
That said, I strongly suggest you not attempt to make a dime off of any aspect belonging to NewLine/PJ without thinking long and hard about it first. NewLine/PJ have sent the big guns after Theban for using likenesses of their movie characters such as Haldir, Eomer, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, for their fotomanip art. They have also gone after Tyellas for newsletter she generated at one time, or that is my understanding. Theban, I can see, but a newsletter???
This is why you can no longer find LOTR artwork on many sites, including the Theban website. The Theban website was also forced to remove their Smallville and Harry Potter slash art but not their Master and Commander stuff, hmmm.... Funny thing though, if you scroll all the way to the bottom of their home page, you can still get the Aragorn/Boromir makeout banner. Just a little nudge in the ribs? hehe
_________________
"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can not confirm their validity." Abraham Lincoln |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
LuthienTinuviel
Joined: 29 Dec 2003
Posts: 354
Location: Dancing in the clouds.
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I can give you my limited legal knowhow;
Don't make a dime out of it, don't offend the originator of whatever fantasy world, and credit the old genius (in this case Tolkien) so that you won't give lawyers anything to bite a chunk of your behinds off.
That'd about it.
_________________
}}}}}Life's a journey you unfold with each step.{{{{{ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
| LuthienTinuviel wrote: | I can give you my limited legal knowhow;
Don't make a dime out of it, don't offend the originator of whatever fantasy world, and credit the old genius (in this case Tolkien) so that you won't give lawyers anything to bite a chunk of your behinds off.
That'd about it. |
Sounds pretty basic, but the UK laywers do sue everyone who has remotely ties to names of Tolkien's world..
Let me see if I can dig up the Planet Tolkien case again...
Addleshaw Goddard Threaten Planet-Tolkien.com!
Estate sues man over rendering of Tolkien classic
There is much more..
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SpaceWeavil
Joined: 27 May 2004
Posts: 23
Location: Looking at shiny things
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Rhapsody wrote: | | LuthienTinuviel wrote: | I can give you my limited legal knowhow;
Don't make a dime out of it, don't offend the originator of whatever fantasy world, and credit the old genius (in this case Tolkien) so that you won't give lawyers anything to bite a chunk of your behinds off.
That'd about it. |
Sounds pretty basic, but the UK laywers do sue everyone who has remotely ties to names of Tolkien's world..
Let me see if I can dig up the Planet Tolkien case again...
Addleshaw Goddard Threaten Planet-Tolkien.com!
Estate sues man over rendering of Tolkien classic
There is much more.. |
Thing with the Perry case (the first link you gave) is that it he was intending to make a profit out of the book, rather than just putting it online. he intended to publish a 'diary' of Tolkien's world with comment and criticism on the story / characters. (That one was also a US case, rather than a UK one, just to be pedantic). The defence to something like this in the UK is called 'fair dealing', in that you are allowed small amounts of copyright infringement for certain purposes, such as comment and criticism (so that you could quote a small section of a book in, say, a newspaper article about it), but to write an entire book about Lord of the Rings might be a little harder to prove fair dealing, had the fellow decided to take it to court (which he didn't).
The other problem is that I believe the Tolkien estate and the Saul-Jaentz company have registered many of the names etc as trademarks (usually names and titles alone would not be subject to copyright in the UK, as the infringor must copy a substantial part of the material - Ravenscroft v Herbert.)
With the first issue mentioned in the Tolkien is definitely copyright infringement, offering published works for download online is illegal. Full stop, unless the author's been dead awhile and they're outside copyright, like something like Shakespeare. I've seen several websites taken down for doing just that, and I don't think 'offering as an online resource' would get you out of any trouble. It is most definitely a no no to copy and upload an entire work for free download.
On the names of the domains, that I think is down to the trademark issue again, just from the fact that a. the name 'shire' is far too small and in too much common use to be considered an infringement of copyright, and b. they mentioned 'passing off', which is an attempt to promote one product using the good reputation of another or an attempt to deceive consumers into buying / taking one product, thinking it is another.
I think they were also trying to say that the website, by calling itself 'Tolkien.com' was attempting to dupe consumers into thinking that the website was affiliated or authorised by the Tolkien Estate / various companies involved with the film that I can't be arsed to list. That's the 'bad faith' bit the laywer is apparently going on about.
The case they mentioned, BT & Others v One in a Million, actually exists and makes quite interesting reading (I'll send a copy to anyone interested). Basically it involved a company using a domain name similar to a registered trade mark used by a company, and that company sought (and was granted) an injunction to prevent the internet company using this trade mark to make future profits or detract from the registered company's profits in the future. In that case though it was the company registering the domain names that was sued, as they were selling off these names, similar to existing trademarks, for the purposes of fraudulently obtaining revenue from customers who subsequently went to the websites.
However, it does state that in s.10(3) of the Trademarks Act 1994, which concerns using a trademark once it is registered, can still amount to passing off and therefore be subject to injunction even if it isn't used fraudulently.
Anyway, sorry about that. 2nd Year Undergraduate at Law here, and copyrighting / trademark infringement is kind of my thing.
What I was just trying to show, Rhaps, is that it is basically correct what's been said. If there's money at stake, the Estate is more likely to take action. This doesn't mean that there *is* money changing hands or that the site in question is a profit-making one. But if they perceive that they could lose revenue from a site's existence, or that the site could make money by whatever it's doing, that is when they'll come down on said site.
Personally I don't think we've a lot to worry about on the fan fiction side of things. I know JK Rowling had a problem with it at one point but I believe that involved the content of the fan fiction (it was very adult and she believed it was inappropriate for a children's book, and on a site that children might find thinking it was Harry Potter stuff and therefore ok).
Sorry to go on. If anyone wants to read that case, PM me and I'll haul it off the database. Which is also technically copyright infringement...
_________________
Pervy Nazgul Fancier and owner of Fluffy the Fell Beast |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
It's ok Space, but the manner how Taz was approached (I talked to him personally) is very fishy. Also he told me that the same lawyers bullied a teen around for closing her site. I know that piece of info is out there, but I can't find it currently.
The Estate will try wherever they can and I know that the Planet Tolkien case is not settled yet. I am contributing to the site every month or so, just so that they can keep that family friendly site running, but from both sites... they do not want to make profit because oodles of money go into server maintenance,site maintenance, domain registration and so on. I am owning a couple of sites myself so I know how much that actually costs.
Basically, with Fan Fiction, it is all about fair use. And to be bloody honest, I am too tired to look that up right now, but it can be applied to writing Fan fiction as long as you use disclaimers and such.
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SpaceWeavil
Joined: 27 May 2004
Posts: 23
Location: Looking at shiny things
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Rhapsody wrote: | It's ok Space, but the manner how Taz was approached (I talked to him personally) is very fishy. Also he told me that the same lawyers bullied a teen around for closing her site. I know that piece of info is out there, but I can't find it currently.
The Estate will try wherever they can and I know that the Planet Tolkien case is not settled yet. I am contributing to the site every month or so, just so that they can keep that family friendly site running, but from both sites... they do not want to make profit because oodles of money go into server maintenance,site maintenance, domain registration and so on. I am owning a couple of sites myself so I know how much that actually costs.
Basically, with Fan Fiction, it is all about fair use. And to be bloody honest, I am too tired to look that up right now, but it can be applied to writing Fan fiction as long as you use disclaimers and such. |
Actually Rhaps I spoke a little about fair use / fair dealing above. It's a very complex concept that I have seen mentioned in regards fan fiction but to be honest, the articles I saw didn't really understand it properly. It's not really the issue at stake with fan fiction, for a number of reasons. Fair use / fair dealing involves things like newspapers, news services, literary criticisms, etc and again involves the 'substantive amount' rule where there must be a large amount of the original material copied to infringe copyright.
With Tolkien it is very different to other fandoms though because the names and places are registered trademarks. That means that the substantive use rule goes out the window. Just using the name could be an infringement of the trademark (it's not the same as copyright). So it's something to be aware of when reading articles written about fan fiction. The same applies to Dr Who, for instance, where the BBC has registered certain terms like 'TARDIS' as a trademark.
In all these instances though, copyright or trademark infringement, the bottom line is that there has to be some detriment caused to the holder of the trademark / copyright or there must be reasonable grounds to expect that some detriment will be caused by the infringor's actions. This can be financial detriment, for instance if we were selling the stories on this site and thus depriving the Tolkien estate of the revenue it could draw from producing stories of its own and selling them, or it can also be detriment to the good will and reputation of the source material / author. (see my post above about JK Rowling).
_________________
Pervy Nazgul Fancier and owner of Fluffy the Fell Beast |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
| SpaceWeavil wrote: | | Rhapsody wrote: | It's ok Space, but the manner how Taz was approached (I talked to him personally) is very fishy. Also he told me that the same lawyers bullied a teen around for closing her site. I know that piece of info is out there, but I can't find it currently.
The Estate will try wherever they can and I know that the Planet Tolkien case is not settled yet. I am contributing to the site every month or so, just so that they can keep that family friendly site running, but from both sites... they do not want to make profit because oodles of money go into server maintenance,site maintenance, domain registration and so on. I am owning a couple of sites myself so I know how much that actually costs.
Basically, with Fan Fiction, it is all about fair use. And to be bloody honest, I am too tired to look that up right now, but it can be applied to writing Fan fiction as long as you use disclaimers and such. |
Actually Rhaps I spoke a little about fair use / fair dealing above. It's a very complex concept that I have seen mentioned in regards fan fiction but to be honest, the articles I saw didn't really understand it properly. It's not really the issue at stake with fan fiction, for a number of reasons. Fair use / fair dealing involves things like newspapers, news services, literary criticisms, etc and again involves the 'substantive amount' rule where there must be a large amount of the original material copied to infringe copyright. |
Hate to tell you this, but it does matter a big deal. When making a reader or writing an scientific article, you have to report how much you are using from other material in your own work. The same goes for more creative works... like fan fiction.
It also depends on whether you are making it for a profit or non-profit company.
Before you think: huh. This was a big part of one of my previous job where I worked for a scientific business where we, by copyright law, had to calculate exactly the fair use of someone elses work (that means text, images, graphs). We reported it to the institution dealing with this and based on that we had to pay an amount back... for copyright. We had source material used throughout the world.. and different kind of material's that were used (from fiction to non-fiction).
And I graduated on copyright law regarding photographic material.. which is complicated as well.
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
KhazarKhum
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 234
Location: Quartz Hill, CA--USA
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| To make things even more fun, some idiot is trying to patent his story. If he succeeds, it won't be long before the media attempts to patent plots. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Live Journal Feed
