Fan fiction

Fan fiction is a general term used to describe a variety of written works about existing characters from fictional mediums such as movies, video games, books, comic books, among others. It details fictional musings about public characters, persona, and people. It written by fans of these works in order to create their own long-form entry or story based off a work, making it free to produce. These works are read by other fans of the work, cultivating several online communities devoted to its creation. Modern fan fiction was popularized in the 1960s by ‘fanzines’ made by fans of the popular TV series Star Trek. The work is rarely professionally published or monetized and is usually done as a hobby. As fan fiction gains popularity, several services have allowed fans to publish, and even sell their works. Owners of the original works have varying attitudes about this practice, and there are cases in which they have responded with legal action or public disapproval of the content.

History

In the early 1990s, fan fiction was a niche interest. There was no archived place to find fan fiction of all kinds. Instead, fans created their own mechanism of sharing fan fiction stories. Fan fiction was also popular before the internet, fanzines were popular among Star Trek fans where fans published their own stories using Star Trek lingo and characters.. With the rise of the Internet, fanfic became popular with the introduction of Fanfiction.net.

Notable Examples

Fanfiction.net

Fanfiction.net (top left), Kindle Worlds (top middle), and Archive of Our Own (top right) are among the most popular websites for viewing and publishing fan fiction.

Fanfiction.net (or FFN) is the world’s largest source for fan fiction on the web, and accounts for more than 33% of all content about books online. Created by Xing Li in 1998, it has the most extensive collection of fan works, both based on popular and obscure works as of 2010. This includes books, comics, manga, webcomics, television, plays, etc. The site allows users to follow serialized stories, publish their own works, review other's works, and create their own communities and story collections. Notably, Fan Fiction does not let authors publish NC-17 rated content through user-moderation, and enforces restrictions on the types of stories that can be submitted (i.e. songfic, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, self-insertion, and non-fiction are not allowed). Also, certain authors have requested that fan fiction won’t be generated for their works so fan fiction about those works are actively removed from the site.

Archive of Our Own

Archive of Our Own (or AO3) is a project derived from the fan-run and fan-created non-profit organization Organization for Transformative Works. This organization creates projects that encourage defending and promoting a future in which all "fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative, and accepted as legitimate creative activity.' It differs from Fanfiction.net in that it allows any kind of fiction, excluding explicitly illegal content such as child pornography or trade secrets. It doesn't adhere to the legal pressures that other sites have, and advocates for fan fiction to be recognized under 'fair use'. Additionally, they believe that fan fiction in American law doesn't fall under copyright; therefore, fans should be free to create transformative works as they please.

Kindle Worlds

Kindle Worlds is a fan fiction platform created by the company Amazon. It has features which differentiate it from other fan fiction archives:

• There is no legal grey area. All works on the site are derived from licensed media properties, and each media property has explicit rules from its creator that fan fiction writers adhere to when creating fan works.
• Fan fiction authors can make money from what they write. Most fan fiction writers write as a hobby and do not expect any compensation aside from feedback on their writing quality. With Kindle Worlds, the works are published through Amazon Publishing like any other written work and are available for purchase and profit through the Amazon Kindle store.

Legality

Copyright

In the United States, fan fiction is considered a ‘derivative work’, meaning that it is a work based upon one or more creative works. This is the same category of works like translations, musical arrangements, art reproductions, etc. This falls mostly under United States copyright law. Copyright law states that the owners of the original work have ownership and the exclusive right to “prepare derivative works based on a copyrighted work". The author has these exclusive rights and can sue for copyright infringement at any moment they wish. Often authors have issues with the quality of the fan work (or don't want fan work based on their work at all), which may lead them to invoke their rights granted by copyright law.

Fair Use

Fan fiction is not infringing on copyright if it falls under the guise of fair use. Many advocates of fan fiction believe that it should legally fall under this category, while several authors and legal entities contest that view. Certain authors (notably posthumously J.D. Salinger) do not allow fan fiction of their work and will sue for copyright infringement. So, there is negligible risk, though there is not a legal problem as long as there is no monetary gain from their work or if a writer has permission. Though, if a fan work falls under the category of parody, political satire, or criticism and is “transformative” in nature, then a work is more likely to be seen as fair use and will not encounter these problems.

Alternatives

As a way to get around the wishes of authors or to inhabit the grey areas within U.S. law, authors may consider altering their fan works in order to make them deemed as 'legal.'

1. By removing original names or locations from the work, an author may be able to pass off a transformative work as either a derivative or original one.
2. A fan fiction author may consider writing a work as a parody, or as a work that either criticizes or makes fun of the original work, or is political satire. This kind of transformative work is legal as it directly falls under the guise of fair use.
3. Alternatively, a writer could only write fan fiction for public domain works. This could include authors like Jane Austen or William Shakespeare whose works are in the public domain and no one would be able to claim copyright for them.
4. In this same vein, there are authors that encourage fan works based off of their original works. If you write exclusively for these works, then there would be no legal issues.
5. A fan fiction writer could additionally consider getting the author's explicit written permission and conditions for creating fan works.

Fifty Shades of Grey

The 50 Shades of Grey book series was originally a Twilight fan fiction.

The notable novel series Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James was professionally published in 2013. However, the series began as a long-form fan fiction based off of the immensely popular novel and movie series Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. In 2009, it started off as a public work written on Fanfiction.net. By changing the names of the characters in the book, E.L. James was able to publish it as her own copyrighted work, and facilitate the creation of a movie adaptation.

One Direction

One of the more popular fanfictions is a fanfiction about the popular British boyband One Direction. This fanfiction started with fans becoming obsessed with the possible romantic relationship between band members Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson. The relationship created through fanfiction about "Larry Stylinson" became so intense that both Styles and Tomlinson have stated that it has negatively affected their real life relationship because they have to actively convince fans they are not in a relationship..

One popular fanfiction titled After, has become so popular that it is being adapted to a major motion picture. Paramount Pictures obtained the screen rights for the movie after After became popular on Wattpad. After is about a BDSM relationship between a fan and band member Harry Styles. The story has received 1 billion online reads and was published by Simon & Schuster. .

Controversy

Censorship

Due to the state of U.S. law, certain fan fiction sites and writers have taken measures to protect themselves from possible suits from authors under the enforcement of copyright law. Certain types of fan fiction have been banned from these sites in fear of both legal and personal retribution. This can be viewed as a form on censorship, especially under the perspective of fair use.

"Real-person fiction"

Real-person fiction is fan fiction that isn't necessarily based of a published work, but rather a celebrity, or internet personality. This genre of fan fiction has ethical issues regarding consent and the ownership of your public identity. Many view real-person fiction as a violation of both personal consent and privacy. Though, since the stories are entirely made up and fans don't personally know these public figures, it can be hard to label these works as an invasion of privacy. Additionally, the ethics around consent are hard to pinpoint because a celebrity's persona is rarely copyrighted and the real-person fiction is rarely formally published or taken seriously .

However, other perspectives of this genre view film and literature about public figures to also fit the description of real person fiction; this would include contemporary works such as the film The Social Network as it is a fictional portrayal of a public figure.

Sexually Explicit Works

Sexually explicit fan works are extremely common on fan fiction sites, and include detailed sexual encounters between characters. Often these stories explore dubious sexual situations, taboo or queer (called 'slash' or 'femslash') sexual expression. Much of the trouble with this genre of fan fiction is the discontent many authors express with their characters being put in these situations, especially if it was never intended. It may trigger authors to sue for copyright as well as for laws regarding obscenity in relation to their works. For example, the Harry Potter series is one of the most popular books on Fanfiction.net, but the characters are under the age of 18 for the majority of the series. On the other hand, writers often age-up characters before putting them in these situations, but many still still express discontent with the practice. These kind of works are generally sexually-positive and provide safe outlets for young fans to explore their own sexuality and attraction. This is especially relevant for members of the LGBTQ+ community, since these types of relationships are rarely represented within the realm of the original works..

Plagiarism

Fan fiction is a genre that is extremely prone to plagiarism and is one of the hardest cases of it to confront. Plagiarism implies that "a duplicate work was created, thus creating a violation of copyright law"; the problem therein lies in that the fan fiction author doesn't hold the copyright for their work because that work is technically a violation of copyright law itself. Only the copyright owner has rights under the law to enforce punishment of plagiarism. Therefore, a fan fiction author has no claim or recourse to stop a plagiarizer. Furthermore, it is possible for a plagiarizer to avoid detection by posting on a fanfiction site that doesn't allow its works to appear in search engine results.

"Slash" genre

A genre of fan fiction known as "slash" involves romantic and sexual pairings of two same-sex characters, most commonly two male characters. Slash fanfiction permeates all fandoms of fiction especially in popular ones like Harry Potter, Star Trek, and Supernatural. Most commonly the writers and consumers of slash fanfiction are heterosexual females, and this raises concerns for many people who identify as not-heterosexual about the intentions of slash fans. Some consider their fascination to be an example of "the female gaze," a counterpart to the concept of "the male gaze" where men view women as sexual objects. Heterosexual writers of slash fan fiction can be interpreted as using characters in same-sex relationships to fulfill their own fantasies of what those relationships are like. This can be exclusionary to the perspectives of writers who are actually gay. Still, others think of the slash genre as a whole to be radical and affirming, a step in the right direction to greater acceptance of the LGBT community in popular culture. The idea is if these examples of relationships aren't upheld in the media because of homophobia, at least fan fiction writers can fill in the gaps with their creative works and provide diversity and inclusion for fans.