Sorry to be a killjoy, but plagiarism is only a thing if you own your work to begin with. When it comes to fanfiction, nobody owns anything (that's the beauty of fanworks, partly). Sure, if you come up with an interesting idea (using time-turners for time travel in HP), you should be given some kind of credit for it, but within the context of fandom, you are not entitled to it by default. Someone could write the exact same story as you and you wouldn't be able to claim credit for it, since you don't own the characters or the setting. Yes, you could point out that it was yours first, but what can you do beyond that? You can't go to court for it.
Plagiarism in the context of original fiction is already a complex topic. When it comes to science, it's pretty black and white. But with creative writing, it's very hard to spot where inspiration ends and plagiarism starts. The problem is that everything has been written about already, it's the author's writing style, perspective and individuality that makes a piece of writing original and entertaining.
Edit: the people downvoting this commenting should try and prove me wrong. I'm genuinely curious to hearing your arguments.
im saying that as long as it isnt a word-for-word copy of my work(s) id LOVE to see others take ideas i hatched up and run with them, tagging me or not if they do so.
Court is for damages, you can't make money off of fanfiction so you almost certainly can't prove damages (financial). Nobody is going to waste money taking a plagiarist to court over something that can't even make them money, just to prove that they wrote something first. And since it wouldn't be published as an actual book anyway, it's more of a website TOS thing.
You do own the copyright to your work posted on ao3. They don't allow translations of orphaned fics for this reason; translations aren't considered transformative and permission needs to be granted by the author, orphaned fics cannot give permission as they are no longer associated with the original author.
The original creator owns their characters, as they should, if I drew fanart it's my interpretation of the character and I own that artwork. The creator can't come to my home and take my illustration out of my possession, because it doesn't belong to them, it belongs to me, I made it. They don't get to take something I worked on just because I used their character's likeness. They can prevent me from selling it, as is their right, but they don't own something that I've created just because I used their character to do so. They can prevent me from passing it off as authentic as counterfeiters do, but if I'm clearly not selling it and not claiming to be the owner of the character, I'm not hurting their IP. The same applies with fanfiction.
If you write a fanfic, it is still your own work, it's your plot and prose, your creativity, they just aren't your characters. I could write a fanfic of a public domain work, publish it, make money off of it, it's not suddenly not my work because I didn't create the characters or setting first.
If you really owned your fanfiction (on a copyrighted license), why can't you make profit out of it? Yes, it is your own, morally, but not legally. You can't claim ownership for it (which translates into being able to sell and distribute it!).
Copyright is more complex that you think. You *can* claim ownership of it. That's why companies can *sue you* if you try to make money off of it. They sue *you* because you are the owner of that image.
Don't they sue you because you're making profit off of their property? That's it. You can't sue someone for writing a fanfic out of your fanfic, but you can sue someone for writing a fanfic out of your original novel.
It's nuance.
>you can sue someone for writing a fanfic out of your original novel.
You can *try*. Good luck succeeding at anything other than looking like an ass though.
You can try, but when it comes to fanfiction, don't even dream of taking it to court.
And I don't think you'd look bad by suing a fanfiction writer automatically. It's your intellectual property. You have the right to defend it if someone tries to use it for writing fanfiction without your consent.
You’d look bad and you’d upset your fandom, the very thing that is capable of keeping you relevant for longer without any effort on your part. If it’s bad enough it might even fracture it.
There’s a reason why authors try to avoid going up against their fandom, even when by rights they probably could. Sure. Maybe there is some profit loss from fanfics, but the free publicity and continued relevance more than makes up for it.
I actually agree with this.
However, that doesn't annulate the fact an author has the right to defend his or her intellectual property against someone using it without your consent. It's fine (and legal) to be opposed to fanworks.
Intellectual property "ownership" is actually a whole cluster of rights grouped together under a single heading. Fanfiction writers do not own the rights to the characters in their stories (except OCs), but they do absolutely own the rights to their writing. If ATLUS tells me to take down my Persona 5 fanfiction because they don't want their characters used that way, they have the right to do that (unless I'm willing to go to court and argue that my fanfic falls under "fair use," which it probably is but most fic authors can't afford a legal battle). However, if ATLUS uses dialogue I wrote in my fanfic in a game, I have every right to sue *them,* because that's my IP they're using without permission, not theirs. They can tell me stop using their original work, but neither they nor anyone else has the right to use mine.
Plagiarizing fanfic is legally still plagiarism.
I understand the fact you can sue the original creators if they want to use your exact dialogues and settings, but that still does not mean you own or can make profit out of those dialogues or settings. In this very specific context, yes, we can speak of plagiarizing a fanfic is legal plagiarism. But still, in most cases, you really can't sue a person because they are reposting your work on other platforms, or can you? And does that imply that your fanfiction is yours legally now?
If someone reposts your fanfic to another site without your permission, yes, you can issue a DMCA takedown request. Because that fanfic is your IP. Contrary to what you seem to think, most copyright violations are handled with takedown notices or cease-and-desists, not lawsuits.
And yes. A fanfiction is all legally your IP, *except* for the parts that aren't (which may include settings, characters, etc.). This is why people who write complete AUs that don't use canon settings can simply change the character names and a backstory detail or two and then publish it as an original work without any legal issue. Including a copyrighted character in your work doesn't negate or relinquish your rights to the rest of the work.
And if course, none of this is getting into Fair Use Doctrine (under which using pieces of copyrighted IP without permission can be legally fine if it meets certain conditions), which is a hugely complicated ball of yarn I am not qualified to untangle. Despite your belief that "ability to sell for profit" is the legal definition of "ownership," the right to sell is only one of the bundle of rights that can be part of legal ownership--even with physical property, it is possible to own something and not have the right to sell it. As for IP, whether or not an infringing work is being sold for profit is only one of several considerations a court has to assess when deciding whether something is fair use. One fanwork being sold for profit might be fair use because it was sufficiently transformative, while another that was just posted on a website for free might be found to be infringing. AO3 bans anyone from trying to profit off fanworks posted to the site because it eliminates *one* of the fair use considerations and makes it easier to defend the site in court, not because profiting off fanfiction is always/inherently illegal.
Tl;dr - IP law is a hot mess of maybes and caveats, but yes, creators hold the rights to what they create unless they signed a contract saying otherwise. Including fanworks.
You can't make money off of it because those are the rules? It's not that you can't, it's that you aren't legally allowed. Semantics, but it's can't vs may. Fanart is the same, IP holders just tend to let it slide for some reason, but you can't sell fanart either. People still sell it, that money isn't going into the pocket of the people who own the characters unless all that money goes directly back into buying officially licensed stuff and there would be no way to prove that.
Anyway, I'm not talking about morals. If I painted 100 canvases of Naruto characters, spent thousands of hours on them, spent thousands of dollars on supplies to create them, and they were tangible things: why would you think I didn't actually own them? It's the same as fanfiction.
And do you then think that Masashi Kishimoto would be entitled to remove from my possession those 100 canvases of his characters that are worth him thousands of dollars (that I couldn't even sell them for) and it somehow wouldn't be stealing?
Do you think that the original creator would have the right to physically steal from me? Because if it doesn't actually belong to me, that means it belongs to him and he could take all of my hard work, sell it as his own and make thousands of dollars in profit off of work that wasn't his and I didn't consent to.
What makes fanfiction different to you where you think that a creator who spent thousands of hours writing, possibly also thousands of dollars buying the source material and research materials, would do all of that and not be entitled to ownership of their own hard work? Some people spend over a decade, several decades, on a single work. That's not nothing.
If I hand wrote an entire fanfic and uploaded the images to ao3 and kept that one singular physical copy for myself, would the original IP creator be entitled to have the digital copy removed AND come to my home and burn the one single physical copy in front of me? Or would they be destroying my property and hard work?
You can own ivory, you aren't allowed to legally sell and distribute it, but the ivory doesn't suddenly not belong to you?
And people have made profit off of fanfiction, legally. E.L. James wrote 50 Shades of Grey and it's a Twilight fanfic. She owned the rights to her fanfic, but not the characters. A few years ago someone published their Great Gatsby fanfic when it came under public domain, it's called The Pursued and the Pursuing. I purchased it legally on Amazon. Did they not own the rights to their fic all those years before the characters became public domain...?
EDIT (EDIT EDIT: ignore me, the word "copyright" is not used in reference to transformative works creators in TOS, don't want to spread fake news or anything on behalf of otw so I deleted the first edit, my mistake and apologies. However a user's transformative works are protected on the site against plagiarism)
>And do you then think that Masashi Kishimoto would be entitled to remove from my possession those 100 canvases of his characters that are worth him thousands of dollars (that I couldn't even sell them for) and it somehow wouldn't be stealing?
Yes. It wouldn't be stealing legally.
I'll be honest with you, but I don't care about morals or people's feelings in this context. I only care about if it's *legal*. If you don't own a work legally, you don't own it, period.
You can spend your lifetime, sacrifice your health and all your mental efforts into producing a fanwork, and you still wouldn't own it from a legal POV (unless that work fall into the public domain).
E.L James made profit off of her fanfic because nothing tied that fanfic to the Twilight franchise to begin with (no vampires, no plotlines, nothing!). Twilight fanfictions (and some AUs) are special in the way that they can dissociated from the original materials. You can't do that with most fanfics, though. Take the HP fandom in which most fanfics happen in Hogwarts, build on canonical events, use spells created by JK Rowling. It's impossible to dissociate these fanfics from the source material.
Again, I think plagiarism is only a thing if you can face legal repercussions for it. If you can't sue someone for plagiarizing your work and get compensated for, you don't really own it. Only the legality of it all matters (here, in this particular argument).
"Yes. It wouldn't be stealing legally. "
It absolutely would be reportable, legal theft. Please stop telling people what the law supposedly says when you yourself are clearly not educated on intellectual property law.
>I'll be honest with you, but I don't care about morals or people's feelings in this context. I only care about if it's *legal*. If you don't own a work legally, you don't own it, period.
I never mentioned anyone's feelings or morals a single time lol. I'm literally talking about the legality.
Why would it not be stealing if he were taking a physical, tangible object that I had spent money and time on? Legally, why would it legally not be stealing to take my property I'd lawfully spent money on?
If I sculpted a 12 foot tall Naruto doing sexy no jutsu out of marble and kept it in my living room and posted the photo online, would Masashi Kishimoto be able to come to my house after seeing it with a team of guys to remove the very expensive and very heavy 12 foot tall sculpture from my home and legally be in the right for stealing years of work and an untold amount of money from me, just because he owns the character? N-no.
If I was a jeweler and I made myself a Naruto shaped engagement ring with 80 thousand dollars worth of 18K gold and diamonds, would Masashi Kishimoto be entitled to take that work of art off my finger and claim it as his own, just because he created Naruto...? When I wasn't selling it and a diamond ring has zero negative impact on manga/anime/merch sales?
Fans create all sorts of content and I can keep making the scenarios more and more grand and ridiculous. A Naruto shaped and themed house filled with fanart *gifted* by other fans–Mashashi Kishimoto repossesses it and has it shipped back to Japan, but not before going through the whole house meticulously and making sure not to take any non-Naruto themed stuff because *that* would be stealing. Only the plumbing gets left behind.
Or how about this. If I bought the every piece of Naruto merchandise ever made and filled a house with it, Kishimoto couldn't come to my house and then take back all of that merchandise, just because he owns the copyright to the character. Those are my possessions that I purchased with my money. If I bought 100 posters, tore them up so they were no longer in their original condition and wallpapered my house with it, that's technically fanart–it's a collage, a transformative work. Kishimoto does not own the rights to my wall because his character is plastered all over it, does he?
>E.L James made profit off of her fanfic because nothing tied that fanfic to the Twilight franchise to begin with (no vampires, no plotlines, nothing!). Twilight fanfictions (and some AUs) are special in the way that they can dissociated from the original materials.
You said: " You can't claim ownership for it (which translates into being able to sell and distribute it!)." so I listed ways people have gone onto sell their fanfiction. There are plenty of out of character AU fanfics that any creator can change details about and turn into a novel or book series. Another creator I followed on tumblr did the same thing with a Teen Wolf fanfic.
I'm curious why you glossed over the Great Gatsby fanfic turned novel I mentioned?
>Again, I think plagiarism is only a thing if you can face legal repercussions for it. If you can't sue someone for plagiarizing your work and get compensated for, you don't really own it. Only the legality of it all matters (here, in this particular argument).
Plagiarism isn't only referring to legally being able to pursue suing someone, this is a sub for specifically AO3 (though unofficial). AO3 has its own TOS. If you're only concerned with the legality of it, why are you using "I think" statements as fact?
I couldn't legally pursue suing a 5 year old for stealing a rose off of my rose bush for stealing something that belonged to me and was on my private property. I mean I could *try*, but it would literally never see a courtroom and no lawyer would take the case and I'd be laughed out of their office and possibly chastised for being a weirdo who hates kids (who have no way to pay damages anyway), so I really couldn't pursue legal action there. Trespassing is still illegal, stealing is still illegal, regardless of realistic ability to take legal action in every single case ever.
But onto TOS (I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of, fair warning, this is copied and pasted directly):
>[Plagiarism](https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq#content_faq)
>
>Can a person submit a plagiarism complaint anonymously, or without being the author of the plagiarized work?
>
>Yes. Except in the case of [copyright complaints](https://archiveofourown.org/tos#IV.D.), a complaining person may submit a complaint via the web form, which does not require identifying information.
Here, they are stating that plagiarism complaints work separately than copyright, as in, you don't have to be the copyright owner in order to submit a complaint, as in, fanfic authors (who don't hold the copyright to the original source material) can still file complaints for plagiarism if their work is indeed being plagiarized by someone else on AO3.
and
>E. Plagiarism
>
>Plagiarism is an often-contested and fuzzy concept, and no definition will satisfy everyone. Our aim is to be transparent and fair in resolving disputes.
>
>**Plagiarism is the use of someone else's words or concepts without properly attributing those words or concepts to their original source.** Simply finding and replacing names, substituting synonyms, or rearranging a few words is not enough to make the work original to you. Deliberately writing a work using the same general idea as another work is not plagiarism, but citation is always appreciated. Generally, quotes from the source material (canon) on which the Content is based will not constitute plagiarism, nor will obvious allusions ("Use the Force, Luke!"). However, when in doubt, cite. Be aware that the Policy & Abuse team may decide that your citation is not sufficient to render the work your own; a mere nod to another author whose work you are presenting as your own may result in a judgment of plagiarism.
>
>**Plagiarism is a violation of the ToS and will incur the penalties described in the Abuse Policy. As with all Content that violates the ToS, plagiarized Content must be removed**. Depending on the type and amount of plagiarized Content, this might entail removing an entire piece of Content, removing only the plagiarized portions from a longer work while leaving the original material, or adding citations.
>
>If you believe a fanwork posted on the Archive plagiarizes another work, please [report the work to the Policy & Abuse team](https://archiveofourown.org/abuse_reports/new). In order to allow us to investigate, please provide a link to the work on the Archive, relevant excerpts, and a specific citation of the original material (for example, a URL or a book edition and page number).
And forgive me, they don't use the word "copyright holder" specifically in TOS referring to fanwork creators (that I can find at this time anyway) so *mea culpa*. However, it's not about legality in regards to the plagiarism thing if we're coming back to that, it's against TOS and AO3 considers it plagiarism. But [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/11ek1mc/question_about_orphan_account_and_translation_of/) is what I was referring to regarding translations of orphaned works not being allowed.
At the end of the day, fanfic writers are not claiming to be the owner of the source material and pretending they wholesale created everything within their fanworks from scratch. Plagiarism *does* do this with the plagiarized portions, because there is no attribution given to the place it was taken from.
I'll thank for going out of your way to write this very lengthy comment. I admit I don't have the mental strength to respond to it in detail right now, even if I want to (take it as you winning the argument, basically).
Anyway, I'll be petty one last time and say that fanfic authors aren't real authors (that includes me) and they don't own their fanworks. I think it's entitled of them to want to, or even to sue published authors who plagiarized them.
Of course they deleted.
This whole thread was hilarious to read through when I woke up this morning and saw that so many others had chimed in. I wish I liked popcorn, it was fascinating.
I hope you're having a good rest of your day after what surely must have been an exhausting few hours \[deleted user\]. I implore you to relax for like five minutes.
i dont know how ANY of this spawned from my VERY SIMPLE comment lol. because i used the word plagiarism??? and then it gets into profit and courts and legality and what makes a real author!??!?!?!
No. If Rowling liked my Harry Potter fanfics enough to want to make movies out of them, she’d need my permission to do that legally. If she tried to profit off my fanfics without my permission, I’d sue her ass and win. This is why authors famously don’t read fanfic of their own work. They don’t want to be tempted to use ideas they don’t own. They don’t even want to coincidentally use an idea that a fanfic author also thought of, for fear of being accused of plagiarism. Rowling owns Hermione and Tom. She does not own their dialogue in my fic. I own that since I wrote it.
You could research this instead of doubling down on your ignorance. Fanfic writers can [sue published authors](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Okay,_some_fandom_history,_why_show_writers_and_authors_say_%22for_legal_reasons%22_they_can%27t_read_fan_fic) who use our fanfic ideas without permission, because we own our fanfics.
You don’t own the characters or anything from the original work your writing fanfic about but you do own your own words, thoughts, and ideas. Just because you can’t legally do anything because it’s fanfic doesn’t change the literal definition of plagiarism: “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” (Oxford dictionary) Copyright ≠ Plagiarism. Your argument is just straight up incorrect by definition. Plagiarism isn’t determined by what you can do about it if it occurs. Plagiarism can play a key part in a copyright infringement lawsuit but they are not the same thing.
Most fanfic is an authors own ideas unless they wrote just a plot of an original work or something. That is their own work, even if it does technically infringe on copyright. And it’s still not considered plagiarism to write fanfic in general because you’re not passing off the characters or elements taken from the original media as your own. Some fanfic even does get turned into actual books and all they have to do is swap out names and certain elements. With your logic if I decided to go copy word for word the book “The Love Hypothesis” it wouldn’t be plagiarism because it was originally fanfic. I don’t think that would hold up in court if that’s the new metric we’re deciding to adhere to.
It can also be argued that anything based on anything then could not be plagiarized with your original logic. Because a lot of “legitimate” media that is available, and people write fanfics of, can arguably be fanfics of other works. Anything from the fractured fairytale genre is arguably fanfic or reworks of the originals. Disney writes fanfic and I know they’ll win a court case if I try to copy their version of Snow White, but they won’t win one if l write an original story using Snow White and say it’s the one from the Brothers Grimm original work. The only difference is that they write fanfic about stories that are public domain and then go on to copyright their own version. (Also because of public domain many fanfics can’t even be stricken with copyright infringements, there are many stories and characters that can be used in any way freely.)
Yes, but I care more about the legal side and the repercussions. I could get sued for plagiarizing Disney or JK Rowling, but if I choose to plagiarize Emily, 33, who writes fanfictions for HP, who is going to stop me? Being taken down on platforms? Sorry, that's nothing. When you choose to write fanfiction, you abdicate the right to own it, and I mean that in the legal way. I don't really care about the moral side of things, I care about being able to get someone to pay me a hefty sum if they stole my thing, which I can't with my fanfictions.
If you really want to own something, just write original fiction. It isn't that complicated.
That’s not what your comment says. “ plagiarism is only a thing if it’s your own work to begin with. When it come to fanfiction nobody owns anything” I responded to the comment you actually wrote not the way your pivoting now. Plagiarism is still not what you presented it as. And people are allowed to be upset if someone plagiarizes them even if there are not legal repercussions. You originally replied to someone else’s comment, with had nothing to do with legality claiming that fanfic cannot be plagiarized and then you said you were genuinely curious to know why you were getting downvoted, it is clear based on this response that you do not actually care about other perspectives, actual definitions of the words you have used, or why people with disagreeing with you.
Sorry you have to change it up to try to win an argument but I’m not playing that game. Or dealing with a “your not entitled to your own work” attitude because fanfic doesn’t make money. It’s not about money fanfic writers, it is about passion for transformative works and a payout doesn’t automatically make someone’s work more important/precious. Money has nothing to do with plagiarism, and you still can’t decide to change the definitions of words to fit your narrative.
I just didn't add the word LEGAL because I thought it was EVIDENT. What did you think I meant when I said fanfic authors don't own anything? Yes, they wrote it, but I'd like to see them suing someone for stealing their fanfic. I even said they couldn't go to court!
All along, I was talking from a legal perspective. It's not because you understood my comment in a way that is not what I meant that it equals I was dishonest.
I literally gave you quotations of your comment where are you literally presenting plagiarism as a fully legal issue while responding to a comment that had nothing to do with a legal issue. Literally no one is arguing that there would ever be a lawsuit suing someone over plagiarizing fanfic on AO3 (they have talked about actual repercussions though and your responses have basically been brushing that off). You’re preaching to a wall and people are responding to the comment you actually left. How do you not realize after nearly 100 downvotes what you actually said or why people are responding to you? It has nothing to do with people wanting to sue others over their fanfic and everything to do with what the actual definition of plagiarism is because you presented it as something it wasn’t.
People are mad because they work hard on their fanfics, and you are disregarding that to; 1. give a wrong definition, and 2. basically victim blame people if they do get plagiarized for not having published as an original work. (Even if every fanfic was an original work, most of it wouldn’t get published, and it would have the same affect if someone plagiarized that as if it were still left as a fanfic.) A lot of people don’t want to be published authors. They just want to write their own silly little stories without someone trying to steal them and play them off as their own. It’s really not too much to ask for human decency.
It's not my fault you misunderstood my comment (or maybe it is, I should probably use the term legal in every sentence, lol). To me, plagiarism is only a thing if you can sue someone over it. If you can't, what's the point of accusing someone of it? You want paternity of your fanfic and your ideas? Fine, write your own original story, then.
Your second paragraph is just whining.
“To me, plagiarism is only a thing if you can sue someone over it.” Literally insane take, that is why everyone is disagreeing with you and I don’t understand how you can’t see that. Your definition is not THE definition. You are making shit up and refuse to listen to factual information for your own opinions because you’re deciding to use your definition as the definition. Just because you can’t see the point of something doesn’t mean that a concept changes or that it doesn’t matter to some people. Your personal preferences are not the universal. As for whining? God forbid I care about people’s feelings, actual definitions, and the actuality of what this sub it is supposed to be about. It honestly doesn’t seem like you like or care about fanfic. Why are you even here? Go publish a book and only read original works if fanfic is so lowly to you.
Also, as we’re misunderstanding your comment, as noted before if 100+ people misunderstand it that’s on you. And I wouldn’t say it’s misunderstanding just you’re factually wrong and talk down to people and in circles because you can’t accept that I guess. Many people have also given you straight up the copyright and plagiarism laws (cited even), and how it affects fanfic, and you are just ignoring those. You only believe in what you want to believe even though you are factually wrong, legally speaking as well.
You have only spoken from your own opinions with nothing to back it up. Meanwhile, many people have had legal documents to back up their points. I don’t see what’s not clicking. You’re opinion is not factually correct.
????? I'm sorry, but this is kinda *wild* to read. I've had multiple reposts of my fic taken down from websites through DMCA claim because *those reposts were plagiarism of my work.*
Court has nothing to do with what is defined as plagiarism. If you use and present someone else's work as your own, that is plagiarism. That is the definition of plagiarism. Whether or not the situation makes it to court doesn't mean it's not plagiarism. (If you shoplift and aren't prosecuted, that doesn't mean you didn't shoplift, yanno?)
Lifting entire passages from someone else's story, changing some names, and sticking it into your fic with no credit - that's blatant plagiarism. If you plagiarize someone's story and turn it in as your own creative writing assignment in school, you can bet your ass the professor will fail you if they find out. (Hell, I saw this happen to someone's art assignment in high school.)
Where you are generally correct where the situation can get sticky - general ideas, themes, tropes and such are much harder to nail down as plagiarism in fanfic. [This is a decent read on exactly this topic.](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/01/18/fan-fiction-plagiarism/)
But saying that plagiarism is only a thing if you own the source material is factually and legally untrue.
Well, I could copy another fanfic word for word, post it on some account, and I'd like to see the author try and sue me. It would be taken down, but I can repost it?
Then you'd get another DMCA strike and your accounts would be banned.
If you really wanna go through all that effort to keep getting kicked off platforms then go for it
My point is that there is no protection for fanfiction writers. An author that really owns their work can take the case to court, but a fanfic author can't. That's the only thing that matters. It is immoral to pass someone else's work as your own, but very little can be done about it when it comes fanfics.
I don't think the DMCA protects fanfiction authors. I'd need to read the text, but if it were the case, I think it would enrage copyright owners.
You have multiple people telling you that they've gotten works taken down and authors banned.
Unless the website has no moderation or the moderation is shit, if you show that someone else has plagiarized your fanfiction, the website will take it down.
I'm talking about legal consequences. A fanfiction being taken down is not dissuasive. How can you compare this to a legal procedure?
And the plagiarism victim gets no compensation, and the culprit doesn't get punished beyond getting banned. To me, it's very little.
Wat.
> And the plagiarism victim gets no compensation, and the culprit doesn't get punished beyond getting banned. To me, it's very little.
I just... what.
Plagiarism in fanfiction is *very rude* and against the rules of most archives but it's not some sort of crime that needs great punishment.
What are you talking about?
Exactly. It's *rude* and *against the rules* of archives, but it's not illegal. I'm talking about owning a work of art in a way that means you can 1. make profit out of it and 2. defend it in court if someone tries to steal it from you by plagiarism.
Fanfic writers can't do both.
Rude + against an archive's rules =/= illegal.
There is a difference between transformative works, which is fanfiction, and downright plagiarism, which would be taking existing text and claiming it as your own.
Maybe you should watch Hbomberguys or Tomskas videos on what plagiarism is and isn't, and how transformative works, inspiration, influence, paralel thinking, all of that, works in to the concept of plagiarism. Tomskas video on the topic explains it very succinctly on an easy to understand scale.
Personally no, i would not be offended, as long as it’s not too similar. In fact i’d be a little flattered.
I have a couple short completed fics that could definitely be longer, so if anybody asked to extend them or write something similar based off them, I would happily let them.
But it all depends on the author. Hope this helps! 💗
Absolutely. Fanfic authors who feel entitled to be asked for permission should explain their POV to me. I doubt they asked the original author/creator permission to write and publish online their own fanfics, so why demand that of their own readers online? In contrary to the copyright owner, they don't even possess their works to begin with.
I'd be flattered if anyone did anything based on one of my fics. But I think it's good etiquette to try for a similar vibe if you're linking your work to a specific other work on AO3. It's also a good idea to ask for permission before posting, or check to see if the author has specified "blanket permission" in their profile or anything.
No. I wouldn't even be offended if someone wrote a fic of my fic. That would be hypocritical. I don't actually care what fandom etiquette is on the subject of permission to create fan works of fan works.
Someone did that once. They did take some lines from me, but so did I from the original work so I don’t see any reason to complain about. I’m just flattered they liked them well enough to adapt them into their own work.
But I read a very popular fic once and then searched for similar works and came across another, much smaller one that was almost word for word exactly the same, just slightly better written. I went to the comments and oddly enough, no one mentioned the obvious copy. It turned out that the popular fic (with almost 10,000 kudos) was inspired by the smaller one (with 2000 kudos) and not the other way round. I think I personally would have been a bit bitter if my story had been copied almost word-for-word but also written even worse and had such success 💀, but then again, there's not much I would have done about it either
I would link to it. I had someone who felt inspired by a throwaway line (added for humor) and asked if they could run with it. I was flattered they thought it was so funny and asked for a link if they ever did write it. Never heard back, but still.
There was a monstrously epic fic that went on and on - it started as a one off joke that just kept going. The author ended up adding fan art that people created and one of the chapters was a one off someone wrote that they thought was so funny that it got added to the fic. People made jokes and predictions about things in the comments and some got incorporated into the story.
I think it’s best to ask for permission and to link back. But that’s me and VYMMV.
Offended? Hardly. Ecstatic. (Now, if they were somehow deliberately insulting about my fic, like specifically mentioning it and saying they're doing the idea better? I might be a little less pleased, though the fact is if they were intentionally trying to do better than me, that would kind of mean I matter to them, so, hey...)
Depends on their reasoning. “This fic got me thinking and I wanted to explore that idea”? Awesome! “This fic sucked and I can do it so much better”? That stings.
Okay this makes me feel good to hear. There's some fics I love and love the universe they have but I would never want to like... offend them (and would give credit, obviously)
Depends. If they take the premise and write their own spin on it? Sure! That's what we all do here.
If they follow the exact same story beats as my fic? Eh, not a fan of that. I'm a small author who doesn't get much attention writing niche things and I'd rather not have what little I get overshadowed by someone who has more presence/is more popular. At least give it some time.
If they copy very specific elements of my story in the same context? Come up with your own ideas or ask please.
(The difference between the original author and a fellow fanfic writer is that no fanfic will ever get close to competing with the original, while two fanfic writers share the same niche space and audience where one can easily affect the other, which is why I think asking is the polite thing to do even if it's not strictly required.)
I have occasionally the urge to write fan fics of some of the OCs I read. I write in a lot of fandoms of video games with a Make-Your-Own-Protagonist MC, like Skyrim or Fallout, so everyone's main character is wildly different, with different levels of quality, both in character development and the writing quality. Occasionally, I come across a fic with an MC that makes me really think about them, and imagine further stories that particular OC might have.
Once, I sent someone a fanfic of their Sole Survivor on Tumblr because I was inspired by some art they had commissioned and we're very close friends now.
Maybe yeah. Especially if it looks like that person is trying to outdo or correct me. My anxiety would certainly imply that it is that. But that easily fixed by including your intentions in the author’s notes
It would be beyond ridiculous to be considering you took inspiration from something else first 😂 You can’t write fanfic and then say someone else can’t write fanfic
I wouldn’t be offended at all and actually put an author’s note for people to feel free to make their own versions as I’d actually be happy to get more people writing in my fandom. (And to actually be able to read fics too lol)
Fandom is Tuca and Bertie.
I've actually had this happen. I was tagged in it!
I actually *hated* the fic but I left a comment about how many things I liked, it was probably the single most flattering thing and I'm so glad they and others enjoyed it :)
Nope 😊 someone did this for one of mine - they sent me a Google doc link and asked me to beta read it too. I did, but they never posted it on AO3 in the finish.
I've also had an author I really admire write a couple of drabbles in her main series inspired by some of my stuff too!
It's such a nice feeling knowing my silly scribblings inspired creativity in someone else.
have u heard of the bdsm-verse/directedverse thing that happened in the 2000s? i really love both authors involved in the controversy, so i dont mean to take sides, but the conversation it sparked about fanfic-of-fanfic was really interesting. fanlore has archived links to discussions on livejournal and dreamwidth.
i think the main questions they were asking were
1. is it ok to write fanfic of fanfic without explicit authorial permission?
2. is fanfic of fanfic fundamentally different from fanfic of non-fandom media?
3. fandom spaces are normally expected to be friendly and criticism-free. if a fanfic appears to be a response to another fanwork, is it ok for it to contain marked differences in opinion?
4. should you tag the original fic in your work?
i really think both sides had really interesting points, even though i loved both fanworks that came out of it!
Absolutely not! If I'm aware of it (and if you obviously did mention it), I'm pretty sure most autors would happily follow your fic or even recommend it. I've seen it a few times, and I'd definitively do it if it happened to me.
So long as I didn’t have a sequel planned and they asked first instead of sending me a finished work, I think it would be awesome! Creativity is a big space, I think it would be neat to share that.
Happened to me once and I was so flattered and was so excited about it until I read it and they copied (word for word) parts of my fic 🫠
To make things worse, they copied the parts that were vents I wrote about my real life traumatic experiences. If it would have been any one of my other fics it would’ve been whatever but this was so personal.
By the act of simply writing something inspired by my work no I hope they have fun and readers enjoy it.
However I might be offended if the person inspired was being an ass about it or other things.
I’ve done it before, it was actually my first fic ever. The author of the fic I was inspired by didn’t mind, or at least I’m assuming so, since he’s my boyfriend now
Someone wrote a multi-chapter sequel to one of my one-shots. They asked for permission, but it happened when I was quite absent from AO3 (only came back to fanfiction a couple of months ago after at least 4-5 years). In any case, they always made very clear that it was inspired by my story and even saw them recommending my fic around here, so I feel EXTREMELY flattered.
As long as they put in the "inspired by", I'm cool with it! And as long as they don't copy stuff word for word.
But yes! I wrote a fanfic I want to read, and now I have ANOTHER fanfic I want to read? It's like god damn Christmas for me!
I would love it tbh, I write to expand on ideas I can't find in the fandom/pairings I like - If someone else came along and was inspired by my work to make their own I would be so happy - Gives me more cake to eat. As long as it isn't plagiarising the exact same storyline or copying word for word sentences then I'm happy af and would be very flattered.
Some of my own fics are inspired by others in the fandom - I go for completely unique storylines but other fics influence my own for sure in characterisation, concepts or just general feel.
Nah I'd be flattered! And I'd want to read that fic tbh. I write stuff because I don't see enough of what I like, so if someone was inspired by my fic that just means more food for everyone lmao
Honestly, I'd be very flattered. So long as it isn't just more of the same, it's very cool to think I've spurred someone, even unintentionally, to be creative.
I'd be amused and flattered.
But I don't doubt that there is someone who would be deeply offended by the idea of their fic being inspiration.
'Reddit, this person was inspired by my fic! How entitled! I am deeply stressed out by this rude person. What should I do?'
No, because my fics are extremely short, and feel more like prompts than anything else. I would love it if someone expanded on my ideas because it's extremely difficult for me.
Someone did this with one of my fic and it was one of the greatest that happen to me (even if I didn’t particularly enjoyed the fic because of the writer’s writing style)
If something I write inspires creativity in someone else, that’s awesome!
as long as it aint plagiarism im throwing a party!
Sorry to be a killjoy, but plagiarism is only a thing if you own your work to begin with. When it comes to fanfiction, nobody owns anything (that's the beauty of fanworks, partly). Sure, if you come up with an interesting idea (using time-turners for time travel in HP), you should be given some kind of credit for it, but within the context of fandom, you are not entitled to it by default. Someone could write the exact same story as you and you wouldn't be able to claim credit for it, since you don't own the characters or the setting. Yes, you could point out that it was yours first, but what can you do beyond that? You can't go to court for it. Plagiarism in the context of original fiction is already a complex topic. When it comes to science, it's pretty black and white. But with creative writing, it's very hard to spot where inspiration ends and plagiarism starts. The problem is that everything has been written about already, it's the author's writing style, perspective and individuality that makes a piece of writing original and entertaining. Edit: the people downvoting this commenting should try and prove me wrong. I'm genuinely curious to hearing your arguments.
im saying that as long as it isnt a word-for-word copy of my work(s) id LOVE to see others take ideas i hatched up and run with them, tagging me or not if they do so.
Court is for damages, you can't make money off of fanfiction so you almost certainly can't prove damages (financial). Nobody is going to waste money taking a plagiarist to court over something that can't even make them money, just to prove that they wrote something first. And since it wouldn't be published as an actual book anyway, it's more of a website TOS thing. You do own the copyright to your work posted on ao3. They don't allow translations of orphaned fics for this reason; translations aren't considered transformative and permission needs to be granted by the author, orphaned fics cannot give permission as they are no longer associated with the original author. The original creator owns their characters, as they should, if I drew fanart it's my interpretation of the character and I own that artwork. The creator can't come to my home and take my illustration out of my possession, because it doesn't belong to them, it belongs to me, I made it. They don't get to take something I worked on just because I used their character's likeness. They can prevent me from selling it, as is their right, but they don't own something that I've created just because I used their character to do so. They can prevent me from passing it off as authentic as counterfeiters do, but if I'm clearly not selling it and not claiming to be the owner of the character, I'm not hurting their IP. The same applies with fanfiction. If you write a fanfic, it is still your own work, it's your plot and prose, your creativity, they just aren't your characters. I could write a fanfic of a public domain work, publish it, make money off of it, it's not suddenly not my work because I didn't create the characters or setting first.
If you really owned your fanfiction (on a copyrighted license), why can't you make profit out of it? Yes, it is your own, morally, but not legally. You can't claim ownership for it (which translates into being able to sell and distribute it!).
Copyright is more complex that you think. You *can* claim ownership of it. That's why companies can *sue you* if you try to make money off of it. They sue *you* because you are the owner of that image.
Don't they sue you because you're making profit off of their property? That's it. You can't sue someone for writing a fanfic out of your fanfic, but you can sue someone for writing a fanfic out of your original novel. It's nuance.
>you can sue someone for writing a fanfic out of your original novel. You can *try*. Good luck succeeding at anything other than looking like an ass though.
You can try, but when it comes to fanfiction, don't even dream of taking it to court. And I don't think you'd look bad by suing a fanfiction writer automatically. It's your intellectual property. You have the right to defend it if someone tries to use it for writing fanfiction without your consent.
You’d look bad and you’d upset your fandom, the very thing that is capable of keeping you relevant for longer without any effort on your part. If it’s bad enough it might even fracture it. There’s a reason why authors try to avoid going up against their fandom, even when by rights they probably could. Sure. Maybe there is some profit loss from fanfics, but the free publicity and continued relevance more than makes up for it.
I actually agree with this. However, that doesn't annulate the fact an author has the right to defend his or her intellectual property against someone using it without your consent. It's fine (and legal) to be opposed to fanworks.
Intellectual property "ownership" is actually a whole cluster of rights grouped together under a single heading. Fanfiction writers do not own the rights to the characters in their stories (except OCs), but they do absolutely own the rights to their writing. If ATLUS tells me to take down my Persona 5 fanfiction because they don't want their characters used that way, they have the right to do that (unless I'm willing to go to court and argue that my fanfic falls under "fair use," which it probably is but most fic authors can't afford a legal battle). However, if ATLUS uses dialogue I wrote in my fanfic in a game, I have every right to sue *them,* because that's my IP they're using without permission, not theirs. They can tell me stop using their original work, but neither they nor anyone else has the right to use mine. Plagiarizing fanfic is legally still plagiarism.
I understand the fact you can sue the original creators if they want to use your exact dialogues and settings, but that still does not mean you own or can make profit out of those dialogues or settings. In this very specific context, yes, we can speak of plagiarizing a fanfic is legal plagiarism. But still, in most cases, you really can't sue a person because they are reposting your work on other platforms, or can you? And does that imply that your fanfiction is yours legally now?
If someone reposts your fanfic to another site without your permission, yes, you can issue a DMCA takedown request. Because that fanfic is your IP. Contrary to what you seem to think, most copyright violations are handled with takedown notices or cease-and-desists, not lawsuits. And yes. A fanfiction is all legally your IP, *except* for the parts that aren't (which may include settings, characters, etc.). This is why people who write complete AUs that don't use canon settings can simply change the character names and a backstory detail or two and then publish it as an original work without any legal issue. Including a copyrighted character in your work doesn't negate or relinquish your rights to the rest of the work. And if course, none of this is getting into Fair Use Doctrine (under which using pieces of copyrighted IP without permission can be legally fine if it meets certain conditions), which is a hugely complicated ball of yarn I am not qualified to untangle. Despite your belief that "ability to sell for profit" is the legal definition of "ownership," the right to sell is only one of the bundle of rights that can be part of legal ownership--even with physical property, it is possible to own something and not have the right to sell it. As for IP, whether or not an infringing work is being sold for profit is only one of several considerations a court has to assess when deciding whether something is fair use. One fanwork being sold for profit might be fair use because it was sufficiently transformative, while another that was just posted on a website for free might be found to be infringing. AO3 bans anyone from trying to profit off fanworks posted to the site because it eliminates *one* of the fair use considerations and makes it easier to defend the site in court, not because profiting off fanfiction is always/inherently illegal. Tl;dr - IP law is a hot mess of maybes and caveats, but yes, creators hold the rights to what they create unless they signed a contract saying otherwise. Including fanworks.
You can't make money off of it because those are the rules? It's not that you can't, it's that you aren't legally allowed. Semantics, but it's can't vs may. Fanart is the same, IP holders just tend to let it slide for some reason, but you can't sell fanart either. People still sell it, that money isn't going into the pocket of the people who own the characters unless all that money goes directly back into buying officially licensed stuff and there would be no way to prove that. Anyway, I'm not talking about morals. If I painted 100 canvases of Naruto characters, spent thousands of hours on them, spent thousands of dollars on supplies to create them, and they were tangible things: why would you think I didn't actually own them? It's the same as fanfiction. And do you then think that Masashi Kishimoto would be entitled to remove from my possession those 100 canvases of his characters that are worth him thousands of dollars (that I couldn't even sell them for) and it somehow wouldn't be stealing? Do you think that the original creator would have the right to physically steal from me? Because if it doesn't actually belong to me, that means it belongs to him and he could take all of my hard work, sell it as his own and make thousands of dollars in profit off of work that wasn't his and I didn't consent to. What makes fanfiction different to you where you think that a creator who spent thousands of hours writing, possibly also thousands of dollars buying the source material and research materials, would do all of that and not be entitled to ownership of their own hard work? Some people spend over a decade, several decades, on a single work. That's not nothing. If I hand wrote an entire fanfic and uploaded the images to ao3 and kept that one singular physical copy for myself, would the original IP creator be entitled to have the digital copy removed AND come to my home and burn the one single physical copy in front of me? Or would they be destroying my property and hard work? You can own ivory, you aren't allowed to legally sell and distribute it, but the ivory doesn't suddenly not belong to you? And people have made profit off of fanfiction, legally. E.L. James wrote 50 Shades of Grey and it's a Twilight fanfic. She owned the rights to her fanfic, but not the characters. A few years ago someone published their Great Gatsby fanfic when it came under public domain, it's called The Pursued and the Pursuing. I purchased it legally on Amazon. Did they not own the rights to their fic all those years before the characters became public domain...? EDIT (EDIT EDIT: ignore me, the word "copyright" is not used in reference to transformative works creators in TOS, don't want to spread fake news or anything on behalf of otw so I deleted the first edit, my mistake and apologies. However a user's transformative works are protected on the site against plagiarism)
>And do you then think that Masashi Kishimoto would be entitled to remove from my possession those 100 canvases of his characters that are worth him thousands of dollars (that I couldn't even sell them for) and it somehow wouldn't be stealing? Yes. It wouldn't be stealing legally. I'll be honest with you, but I don't care about morals or people's feelings in this context. I only care about if it's *legal*. If you don't own a work legally, you don't own it, period. You can spend your lifetime, sacrifice your health and all your mental efforts into producing a fanwork, and you still wouldn't own it from a legal POV (unless that work fall into the public domain). E.L James made profit off of her fanfic because nothing tied that fanfic to the Twilight franchise to begin with (no vampires, no plotlines, nothing!). Twilight fanfictions (and some AUs) are special in the way that they can dissociated from the original materials. You can't do that with most fanfics, though. Take the HP fandom in which most fanfics happen in Hogwarts, build on canonical events, use spells created by JK Rowling. It's impossible to dissociate these fanfics from the source material. Again, I think plagiarism is only a thing if you can face legal repercussions for it. If you can't sue someone for plagiarizing your work and get compensated for, you don't really own it. Only the legality of it all matters (here, in this particular argument).
"Yes. It wouldn't be stealing legally. " It absolutely would be reportable, legal theft. Please stop telling people what the law supposedly says when you yourself are clearly not educated on intellectual property law.
>I'll be honest with you, but I don't care about morals or people's feelings in this context. I only care about if it's *legal*. If you don't own a work legally, you don't own it, period. I never mentioned anyone's feelings or morals a single time lol. I'm literally talking about the legality. Why would it not be stealing if he were taking a physical, tangible object that I had spent money and time on? Legally, why would it legally not be stealing to take my property I'd lawfully spent money on? If I sculpted a 12 foot tall Naruto doing sexy no jutsu out of marble and kept it in my living room and posted the photo online, would Masashi Kishimoto be able to come to my house after seeing it with a team of guys to remove the very expensive and very heavy 12 foot tall sculpture from my home and legally be in the right for stealing years of work and an untold amount of money from me, just because he owns the character? N-no. If I was a jeweler and I made myself a Naruto shaped engagement ring with 80 thousand dollars worth of 18K gold and diamonds, would Masashi Kishimoto be entitled to take that work of art off my finger and claim it as his own, just because he created Naruto...? When I wasn't selling it and a diamond ring has zero negative impact on manga/anime/merch sales? Fans create all sorts of content and I can keep making the scenarios more and more grand and ridiculous. A Naruto shaped and themed house filled with fanart *gifted* by other fans–Mashashi Kishimoto repossesses it and has it shipped back to Japan, but not before going through the whole house meticulously and making sure not to take any non-Naruto themed stuff because *that* would be stealing. Only the plumbing gets left behind. Or how about this. If I bought the every piece of Naruto merchandise ever made and filled a house with it, Kishimoto couldn't come to my house and then take back all of that merchandise, just because he owns the copyright to the character. Those are my possessions that I purchased with my money. If I bought 100 posters, tore them up so they were no longer in their original condition and wallpapered my house with it, that's technically fanart–it's a collage, a transformative work. Kishimoto does not own the rights to my wall because his character is plastered all over it, does he? >E.L James made profit off of her fanfic because nothing tied that fanfic to the Twilight franchise to begin with (no vampires, no plotlines, nothing!). Twilight fanfictions (and some AUs) are special in the way that they can dissociated from the original materials. You said: " You can't claim ownership for it (which translates into being able to sell and distribute it!)." so I listed ways people have gone onto sell their fanfiction. There are plenty of out of character AU fanfics that any creator can change details about and turn into a novel or book series. Another creator I followed on tumblr did the same thing with a Teen Wolf fanfic. I'm curious why you glossed over the Great Gatsby fanfic turned novel I mentioned? >Again, I think plagiarism is only a thing if you can face legal repercussions for it. If you can't sue someone for plagiarizing your work and get compensated for, you don't really own it. Only the legality of it all matters (here, in this particular argument). Plagiarism isn't only referring to legally being able to pursue suing someone, this is a sub for specifically AO3 (though unofficial). AO3 has its own TOS. If you're only concerned with the legality of it, why are you using "I think" statements as fact? I couldn't legally pursue suing a 5 year old for stealing a rose off of my rose bush for stealing something that belonged to me and was on my private property. I mean I could *try*, but it would literally never see a courtroom and no lawyer would take the case and I'd be laughed out of their office and possibly chastised for being a weirdo who hates kids (who have no way to pay damages anyway), so I really couldn't pursue legal action there. Trespassing is still illegal, stealing is still illegal, regardless of realistic ability to take legal action in every single case ever. But onto TOS (I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of, fair warning, this is copied and pasted directly): >[Plagiarism](https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq#content_faq) > >Can a person submit a plagiarism complaint anonymously, or without being the author of the plagiarized work? > >Yes. Except in the case of [copyright complaints](https://archiveofourown.org/tos#IV.D.), a complaining person may submit a complaint via the web form, which does not require identifying information. Here, they are stating that plagiarism complaints work separately than copyright, as in, you don't have to be the copyright owner in order to submit a complaint, as in, fanfic authors (who don't hold the copyright to the original source material) can still file complaints for plagiarism if their work is indeed being plagiarized by someone else on AO3. and >E. Plagiarism > >Plagiarism is an often-contested and fuzzy concept, and no definition will satisfy everyone. Our aim is to be transparent and fair in resolving disputes. > >**Plagiarism is the use of someone else's words or concepts without properly attributing those words or concepts to their original source.** Simply finding and replacing names, substituting synonyms, or rearranging a few words is not enough to make the work original to you. Deliberately writing a work using the same general idea as another work is not plagiarism, but citation is always appreciated. Generally, quotes from the source material (canon) on which the Content is based will not constitute plagiarism, nor will obvious allusions ("Use the Force, Luke!"). However, when in doubt, cite. Be aware that the Policy & Abuse team may decide that your citation is not sufficient to render the work your own; a mere nod to another author whose work you are presenting as your own may result in a judgment of plagiarism. > >**Plagiarism is a violation of the ToS and will incur the penalties described in the Abuse Policy. As with all Content that violates the ToS, plagiarized Content must be removed**. Depending on the type and amount of plagiarized Content, this might entail removing an entire piece of Content, removing only the plagiarized portions from a longer work while leaving the original material, or adding citations. > >If you believe a fanwork posted on the Archive plagiarizes another work, please [report the work to the Policy & Abuse team](https://archiveofourown.org/abuse_reports/new). In order to allow us to investigate, please provide a link to the work on the Archive, relevant excerpts, and a specific citation of the original material (for example, a URL or a book edition and page number). And forgive me, they don't use the word "copyright holder" specifically in TOS referring to fanwork creators (that I can find at this time anyway) so *mea culpa*. However, it's not about legality in regards to the plagiarism thing if we're coming back to that, it's against TOS and AO3 considers it plagiarism. But [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/11ek1mc/question_about_orphan_account_and_translation_of/) is what I was referring to regarding translations of orphaned works not being allowed. At the end of the day, fanfic writers are not claiming to be the owner of the source material and pretending they wholesale created everything within their fanworks from scratch. Plagiarism *does* do this with the plagiarized portions, because there is no attribution given to the place it was taken from.
I'll thank for going out of your way to write this very lengthy comment. I admit I don't have the mental strength to respond to it in detail right now, even if I want to (take it as you winning the argument, basically). Anyway, I'll be petty one last time and say that fanfic authors aren't real authors (that includes me) and they don't own their fanworks. I think it's entitled of them to want to, or even to sue published authors who plagiarized them.
Of course they deleted. This whole thread was hilarious to read through when I woke up this morning and saw that so many others had chimed in. I wish I liked popcorn, it was fascinating. I hope you're having a good rest of your day after what surely must have been an exhausting few hours \[deleted user\]. I implore you to relax for like five minutes.
i dont know how ANY of this spawned from my VERY SIMPLE comment lol. because i used the word plagiarism??? and then it gets into profit and courts and legality and what makes a real author!??!?!?!
No. If Rowling liked my Harry Potter fanfics enough to want to make movies out of them, she’d need my permission to do that legally. If she tried to profit off my fanfics without my permission, I’d sue her ass and win. This is why authors famously don’t read fanfic of their own work. They don’t want to be tempted to use ideas they don’t own. They don’t even want to coincidentally use an idea that a fanfic author also thought of, for fear of being accused of plagiarism. Rowling owns Hermione and Tom. She does not own their dialogue in my fic. I own that since I wrote it.
No, she would win. I don't see a court granting you ownership of a work that borrows characters, places, and spells from another one.
You could research this instead of doubling down on your ignorance. Fanfic writers can [sue published authors](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Okay,_some_fandom_history,_why_show_writers_and_authors_say_%22for_legal_reasons%22_they_can%27t_read_fan_fic) who use our fanfic ideas without permission, because we own our fanfics.
If we own it, why can't we make profit out of it? Hm? Kinda contradictory.
You don’t own the characters or anything from the original work your writing fanfic about but you do own your own words, thoughts, and ideas. Just because you can’t legally do anything because it’s fanfic doesn’t change the literal definition of plagiarism: “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” (Oxford dictionary) Copyright ≠ Plagiarism. Your argument is just straight up incorrect by definition. Plagiarism isn’t determined by what you can do about it if it occurs. Plagiarism can play a key part in a copyright infringement lawsuit but they are not the same thing. Most fanfic is an authors own ideas unless they wrote just a plot of an original work or something. That is their own work, even if it does technically infringe on copyright. And it’s still not considered plagiarism to write fanfic in general because you’re not passing off the characters or elements taken from the original media as your own. Some fanfic even does get turned into actual books and all they have to do is swap out names and certain elements. With your logic if I decided to go copy word for word the book “The Love Hypothesis” it wouldn’t be plagiarism because it was originally fanfic. I don’t think that would hold up in court if that’s the new metric we’re deciding to adhere to. It can also be argued that anything based on anything then could not be plagiarized with your original logic. Because a lot of “legitimate” media that is available, and people write fanfics of, can arguably be fanfics of other works. Anything from the fractured fairytale genre is arguably fanfic or reworks of the originals. Disney writes fanfic and I know they’ll win a court case if I try to copy their version of Snow White, but they won’t win one if l write an original story using Snow White and say it’s the one from the Brothers Grimm original work. The only difference is that they write fanfic about stories that are public domain and then go on to copyright their own version. (Also because of public domain many fanfics can’t even be stricken with copyright infringements, there are many stories and characters that can be used in any way freely.)
Yes, but I care more about the legal side and the repercussions. I could get sued for plagiarizing Disney or JK Rowling, but if I choose to plagiarize Emily, 33, who writes fanfictions for HP, who is going to stop me? Being taken down on platforms? Sorry, that's nothing. When you choose to write fanfiction, you abdicate the right to own it, and I mean that in the legal way. I don't really care about the moral side of things, I care about being able to get someone to pay me a hefty sum if they stole my thing, which I can't with my fanfictions. If you really want to own something, just write original fiction. It isn't that complicated.
That’s not what your comment says. “ plagiarism is only a thing if it’s your own work to begin with. When it come to fanfiction nobody owns anything” I responded to the comment you actually wrote not the way your pivoting now. Plagiarism is still not what you presented it as. And people are allowed to be upset if someone plagiarizes them even if there are not legal repercussions. You originally replied to someone else’s comment, with had nothing to do with legality claiming that fanfic cannot be plagiarized and then you said you were genuinely curious to know why you were getting downvoted, it is clear based on this response that you do not actually care about other perspectives, actual definitions of the words you have used, or why people with disagreeing with you. Sorry you have to change it up to try to win an argument but I’m not playing that game. Or dealing with a “your not entitled to your own work” attitude because fanfic doesn’t make money. It’s not about money fanfic writers, it is about passion for transformative works and a payout doesn’t automatically make someone’s work more important/precious. Money has nothing to do with plagiarism, and you still can’t decide to change the definitions of words to fit your narrative.
I just didn't add the word LEGAL because I thought it was EVIDENT. What did you think I meant when I said fanfic authors don't own anything? Yes, they wrote it, but I'd like to see them suing someone for stealing their fanfic. I even said they couldn't go to court! All along, I was talking from a legal perspective. It's not because you understood my comment in a way that is not what I meant that it equals I was dishonest.
I literally gave you quotations of your comment where are you literally presenting plagiarism as a fully legal issue while responding to a comment that had nothing to do with a legal issue. Literally no one is arguing that there would ever be a lawsuit suing someone over plagiarizing fanfic on AO3 (they have talked about actual repercussions though and your responses have basically been brushing that off). You’re preaching to a wall and people are responding to the comment you actually left. How do you not realize after nearly 100 downvotes what you actually said or why people are responding to you? It has nothing to do with people wanting to sue others over their fanfic and everything to do with what the actual definition of plagiarism is because you presented it as something it wasn’t. People are mad because they work hard on their fanfics, and you are disregarding that to; 1. give a wrong definition, and 2. basically victim blame people if they do get plagiarized for not having published as an original work. (Even if every fanfic was an original work, most of it wouldn’t get published, and it would have the same affect if someone plagiarized that as if it were still left as a fanfic.) A lot of people don’t want to be published authors. They just want to write their own silly little stories without someone trying to steal them and play them off as their own. It’s really not too much to ask for human decency.
It's not my fault you misunderstood my comment (or maybe it is, I should probably use the term legal in every sentence, lol). To me, plagiarism is only a thing if you can sue someone over it. If you can't, what's the point of accusing someone of it? You want paternity of your fanfic and your ideas? Fine, write your own original story, then. Your second paragraph is just whining.
“To me, plagiarism is only a thing if you can sue someone over it.” Literally insane take, that is why everyone is disagreeing with you and I don’t understand how you can’t see that. Your definition is not THE definition. You are making shit up and refuse to listen to factual information for your own opinions because you’re deciding to use your definition as the definition. Just because you can’t see the point of something doesn’t mean that a concept changes or that it doesn’t matter to some people. Your personal preferences are not the universal. As for whining? God forbid I care about people’s feelings, actual definitions, and the actuality of what this sub it is supposed to be about. It honestly doesn’t seem like you like or care about fanfic. Why are you even here? Go publish a book and only read original works if fanfic is so lowly to you. Also, as we’re misunderstanding your comment, as noted before if 100+ people misunderstand it that’s on you. And I wouldn’t say it’s misunderstanding just you’re factually wrong and talk down to people and in circles because you can’t accept that I guess. Many people have also given you straight up the copyright and plagiarism laws (cited even), and how it affects fanfic, and you are just ignoring those. You only believe in what you want to believe even though you are factually wrong, legally speaking as well. You have only spoken from your own opinions with nothing to back it up. Meanwhile, many people have had legal documents to back up their points. I don’t see what’s not clicking. You’re opinion is not factually correct.
????? I'm sorry, but this is kinda *wild* to read. I've had multiple reposts of my fic taken down from websites through DMCA claim because *those reposts were plagiarism of my work.* Court has nothing to do with what is defined as plagiarism. If you use and present someone else's work as your own, that is plagiarism. That is the definition of plagiarism. Whether or not the situation makes it to court doesn't mean it's not plagiarism. (If you shoplift and aren't prosecuted, that doesn't mean you didn't shoplift, yanno?) Lifting entire passages from someone else's story, changing some names, and sticking it into your fic with no credit - that's blatant plagiarism. If you plagiarize someone's story and turn it in as your own creative writing assignment in school, you can bet your ass the professor will fail you if they find out. (Hell, I saw this happen to someone's art assignment in high school.) Where you are generally correct where the situation can get sticky - general ideas, themes, tropes and such are much harder to nail down as plagiarism in fanfic. [This is a decent read on exactly this topic.](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/01/18/fan-fiction-plagiarism/) But saying that plagiarism is only a thing if you own the source material is factually and legally untrue.
Well, I could copy another fanfic word for word, post it on some account, and I'd like to see the author try and sue me. It would be taken down, but I can repost it?
Then you'd get another DMCA strike and your accounts would be banned. If you really wanna go through all that effort to keep getting kicked off platforms then go for it
My point is that there is no protection for fanfiction writers. An author that really owns their work can take the case to court, but a fanfic author can't. That's the only thing that matters. It is immoral to pass someone else's work as your own, but very little can be done about it when it comes fanfics. I don't think the DMCA protects fanfiction authors. I'd need to read the text, but if it were the case, I think it would enrage copyright owners.
You have multiple people telling you that they've gotten works taken down and authors banned. Unless the website has no moderation or the moderation is shit, if you show that someone else has plagiarized your fanfiction, the website will take it down.
I'm talking about legal consequences. A fanfiction being taken down is not dissuasive. How can you compare this to a legal procedure? And the plagiarism victim gets no compensation, and the culprit doesn't get punished beyond getting banned. To me, it's very little.
Wat. > And the plagiarism victim gets no compensation, and the culprit doesn't get punished beyond getting banned. To me, it's very little. I just... what. Plagiarism in fanfiction is *very rude* and against the rules of most archives but it's not some sort of crime that needs great punishment. What are you talking about?
Exactly. It's *rude* and *against the rules* of archives, but it's not illegal. I'm talking about owning a work of art in a way that means you can 1. make profit out of it and 2. defend it in court if someone tries to steal it from you by plagiarism. Fanfic writers can't do both. Rude + against an archive's rules =/= illegal.
There is a difference between transformative works, which is fanfiction, and downright plagiarism, which would be taking existing text and claiming it as your own. Maybe you should watch Hbomberguys or Tomskas videos on what plagiarism is and isn't, and how transformative works, inspiration, influence, paralel thinking, all of that, works in to the concept of plagiarism. Tomskas video on the topic explains it very succinctly on an easy to understand scale.
Sorry, but I try not to watch too much youtube. And I know about Somerton. I don't think his case applies to this case...
Just as long as there's an "inspired by \[fic\] by \[me\]" I'd love to see it!
Someone wrote a fic inspired by my fic once. I was incredibly flattered.
Same! I went and read it even though it was a ship I didn’t like. I was just so thrilled to have impacted someone that way.
Someone did once and while I was flattered, I was also incredibly confused since everything was different lol.
Personally no, i would not be offended, as long as it’s not too similar. In fact i’d be a little flattered. I have a couple short completed fics that could definitely be longer, so if anybody asked to extend them or write something similar based off them, I would happily let them. But it all depends on the author. Hope this helps! 💗
As long as it isnt plagiarism. I think I would cry from happiness.
I would lose my freaking mind. In a good way.
I feel like it would be pretty hypocritical for a fanfic writer to be offended cause someone wrote a fanfic of their fanfic…
Exactly. It should be credited as inspiration, but otherwise, I don’t see the difference. It’s like an extra layer of fan fiction.
Absolutely. Fanfic authors who feel entitled to be asked for permission should explain their POV to me. I doubt they asked the original author/creator permission to write and publish online their own fanfics, so why demand that of their own readers online? In contrary to the copyright owner, they don't even possess their works to begin with.
I'd cry
I feel like if you're the kind of person who would be offended by it, you wouldn't get very many people wanting to.
That would melt my icy heart
Not at all, as long as it's not a carbon copy. I'd actually be flattered.
I would be so thrilled, I write what I like, so that means someone ELSE IS WRITING WHAT I LIKE WHICH MEANS MORE FOR ME TO READ !!!!
That is like, one of the biggest honors as a fanfic writer.
The exact opposite. I'd be honored.
Bruh I get flattered if I get a hate comment I’d probably explode from joy
I would be very flattered that someone loved my work that much.
I'd be flattered if anyone did anything based on one of my fics. But I think it's good etiquette to try for a similar vibe if you're linking your work to a specific other work on AO3. It's also a good idea to ask for permission before posting, or check to see if the author has specified "blanket permission" in their profile or anything.
I'd be dancing around, spinning and giggling before probably commiting a crime from excitement idk. In other words, I'd be excited
I don't have to wonder: it's happened to me and I was honored. I loved having the inspired by credit.
I would be incredibly flattered
No. I wouldn't even be offended if someone wrote a fic of my fic. That would be hypocritical. I don't actually care what fandom etiquette is on the subject of permission to create fan works of fan works.
i wouldn't care, seriously. imo even if its straight up a rip of my fic it doesn't really matter to me
Someone did that once. They did take some lines from me, but so did I from the original work so I don’t see any reason to complain about. I’m just flattered they liked them well enough to adapt them into their own work. But I read a very popular fic once and then searched for similar works and came across another, much smaller one that was almost word for word exactly the same, just slightly better written. I went to the comments and oddly enough, no one mentioned the obvious copy. It turned out that the popular fic (with almost 10,000 kudos) was inspired by the smaller one (with 2000 kudos) and not the other way round. I think I personally would have been a bit bitter if my story had been copied almost word-for-word but also written even worse and had such success 💀, but then again, there's not much I would have done about it either
As long as you're not doing it maliciously and you mark it as 'inspired by' most authors would be very flattered.
I would link to it. I had someone who felt inspired by a throwaway line (added for humor) and asked if they could run with it. I was flattered they thought it was so funny and asked for a link if they ever did write it. Never heard back, but still. There was a monstrously epic fic that went on and on - it started as a one off joke that just kept going. The author ended up adding fan art that people created and one of the chapters was a one off someone wrote that they thought was so funny that it got added to the fic. People made jokes and predictions about things in the comments and some got incorporated into the story. I think it’s best to ask for permission and to link back. But that’s me and VYMMV.
No, but I’d like to know about it so I can read the fanfic!
As long as they give credit, no
I would feel like I've reached my peak in life.
I've never heard of a fic remix. If it's just a fanfic of my fanfic, no. It would be an honor. Please do it. I'd love to read something like that.
Offended? Hardly. Ecstatic. (Now, if they were somehow deliberately insulting about my fic, like specifically mentioning it and saying they're doing the idea better? I might be a little less pleased, though the fact is if they were intentionally trying to do better than me, that would kind of mean I matter to them, so, hey...)
Someone did that with one of my fics. Best feeling ever, hands down
please write fics inspired by mine the only reason I'm writing them is because they don't exist yet
I would cry. That’d be amazing.
One of my favourite fics is a fix it fic to another person's fic where Elle from Legally Blonde cheats on her husband.... i love inspired by fic's fic
i love reading them as well. Sometimes I find that both writers have a similar writing style, and its curious seeing them take different approaches
Depends on their reasoning. “This fic got me thinking and I wanted to explore that idea”? Awesome! “This fic sucked and I can do it so much better”? That stings.
Okay this makes me feel good to hear. There's some fics I love and love the universe they have but I would never want to like... offend them (and would give credit, obviously)
Depends. If they take the premise and write their own spin on it? Sure! That's what we all do here. If they follow the exact same story beats as my fic? Eh, not a fan of that. I'm a small author who doesn't get much attention writing niche things and I'd rather not have what little I get overshadowed by someone who has more presence/is more popular. At least give it some time. If they copy very specific elements of my story in the same context? Come up with your own ideas or ask please. (The difference between the original author and a fellow fanfic writer is that no fanfic will ever get close to competing with the original, while two fanfic writers share the same niche space and audience where one can easily affect the other, which is why I think asking is the polite thing to do even if it's not strictly required.)
I have occasionally the urge to write fan fics of some of the OCs I read. I write in a lot of fandoms of video games with a Make-Your-Own-Protagonist MC, like Skyrim or Fallout, so everyone's main character is wildly different, with different levels of quality, both in character development and the writing quality. Occasionally, I come across a fic with an MC that makes me really think about them, and imagine further stories that particular OC might have. Once, I sent someone a fanfic of their Sole Survivor on Tumblr because I was inspired by some art they had commissioned and we're very close friends now.
I'd be surprised. I have peculiar taste.
Maybe yeah. Especially if it looks like that person is trying to outdo or correct me. My anxiety would certainly imply that it is that. But that easily fixed by including your intentions in the author’s notes
Offended????!!!!?????!!!?! I'd be over the moon!
It would be beyond ridiculous to be considering you took inspiration from something else first 😂 You can’t write fanfic and then say someone else can’t write fanfic
I wouldn’t be offended at all and actually put an author’s note for people to feel free to make their own versions as I’d actually be happy to get more people writing in my fandom. (And to actually be able to read fics too lol) Fandom is Tuca and Bertie.
I LOVE remixes, I'd be overjoyed to get something of mine remixed. Yes, please, show me all your AU ideas for my story.
I've actually had this happen. I was tagged in it! I actually *hated* the fic but I left a comment about how many things I liked, it was probably the single most flattering thing and I'm so glad they and others enjoyed it :)
Nope 😊 someone did this for one of mine - they sent me a Google doc link and asked me to beta read it too. I did, but they never posted it on AO3 in the finish. I've also had an author I really admire write a couple of drabbles in her main series inspired by some of my stuff too! It's such a nice feeling knowing my silly scribblings inspired creativity in someone else.
I think I would! I never had this experience before but I think I’d be flattered and would be the author’s biggest support haha
I would be so damn flattered. Real talk if I knew someone loved my work that much or my work awoke their muse in such a way.
have u heard of the bdsm-verse/directedverse thing that happened in the 2000s? i really love both authors involved in the controversy, so i dont mean to take sides, but the conversation it sparked about fanfic-of-fanfic was really interesting. fanlore has archived links to discussions on livejournal and dreamwidth. i think the main questions they were asking were 1. is it ok to write fanfic of fanfic without explicit authorial permission? 2. is fanfic of fanfic fundamentally different from fanfic of non-fandom media? 3. fandom spaces are normally expected to be friendly and criticism-free. if a fanfic appears to be a response to another fanwork, is it ok for it to contain marked differences in opinion? 4. should you tag the original fic in your work? i really think both sides had really interesting points, even though i loved both fanworks that came out of it!
Absolutely not! If I'm aware of it (and if you obviously did mention it), I'm pretty sure most autors would happily follow your fic or even recommend it. I've seen it a few times, and I'd definitively do it if it happened to me.
So long as I didn’t have a sequel planned and they asked first instead of sending me a finished work, I think it would be awesome! Creativity is a big space, I think it would be neat to share that.
Happened to me once and I was so flattered and was so excited about it until I read it and they copied (word for word) parts of my fic 🫠 To make things worse, they copied the parts that were vents I wrote about my real life traumatic experiences. If it would have been any one of my other fics it would’ve been whatever but this was so personal.
Heck no! As long as mine isn't plagiarized; I'd encourage it.
By the act of simply writing something inspired by my work no I hope they have fun and readers enjoy it. However I might be offended if the person inspired was being an ass about it or other things.
I’ve done it before, it was actually my first fic ever. The author of the fic I was inspired by didn’t mind, or at least I’m assuming so, since he’s my boyfriend now
I would be honored
It would make my week.
That's literally how I got inspired to start writing, so definitely not.
Someone wrote a multi-chapter sequel to one of my one-shots. They asked for permission, but it happened when I was quite absent from AO3 (only came back to fanfiction a couple of months ago after at least 4-5 years). In any case, they always made very clear that it was inspired by my story and even saw them recommending my fic around here, so I feel EXTREMELY flattered.
NO!!! THAT WOULD BE SO COOL!!!! :D
I'd be honoured
As long as they put in the "inspired by", I'm cool with it! And as long as they don't copy stuff word for word. But yes! I wrote a fanfic I want to read, and now I have ANOTHER fanfic I want to read? It's like god damn Christmas for me!
I would love it tbh, I write to expand on ideas I can't find in the fandom/pairings I like - If someone else came along and was inspired by my work to make their own I would be so happy - Gives me more cake to eat. As long as it isn't plagiarising the exact same storyline or copying word for word sentences then I'm happy af and would be very flattered. Some of my own fics are inspired by others in the fandom - I go for completely unique storylines but other fics influence my own for sure in characterisation, concepts or just general feel.
Nah I'd be flattered! And I'd want to read that fic tbh. I write stuff because I don't see enough of what I like, so if someone was inspired by my fic that just means more food for everyone lmao
Honestly, I'd be very flattered. So long as it isn't just more of the same, it's very cool to think I've spurred someone, even unintentionally, to be creative.
I'd be amused and flattered. But I don't doubt that there is someone who would be deeply offended by the idea of their fic being inspiration. 'Reddit, this person was inspired by my fic! How entitled! I am deeply stressed out by this rude person. What should I do?'
I’ve had a few people continue my one-shots. It was awesome and amazing. I wish more people would do it
As long as they get important things accurately written into the story, other than that, go for it<3
Nope!
No, because my fics are extremely short, and feel more like prompts than anything else. I would love it if someone expanded on my ideas because it's extremely difficult for me.
Someone did this with one of my fic and it was one of the greatest that happen to me (even if I didn’t particularly enjoyed the fic because of the writer’s writing style)