The other great thing about Kalamazoo is the dealers' room. It's just exactly like the dealers' room at every other con you've ever been too--only it's ALL worth blowing your paycheck on. Wax reproductions of seals, t-shirts featuring Mary the Egyptian, Pope Joan, and the Amazons (illustrations from the Heidelberg Chronicles), and books. OMG the books. The WMU medieval grad students always make terrific con shirts, too, with period illustrations and amusing captions.
I've been thinking about going for years, but never quite made it. For that, it just became justified. Now to fit it into my cost/time schedule in the next couple years.
life-plus-(x)years...
how would that work in the case of something like "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, which wasn't discovered or published until after his death?
does it immediately fall into public domain? or after only 5 years?
because of that & the reasons mentioned below, count me in on the side of 42 (or something like it) years fixed term.
Most of this has already been posted, but to recap:
Copyright exists at the creation of the work.
Copyright currently exists (in works with one author) for the life of the author plus 70 years.
Only after that, unless the rights have been explicitly released, does the work fall into the public domain.
in my experiencs as a former prolific fanfic writer and zine publisher, is that 99.99% of author, publisher, or actor objection to fanfic devolves down to "ewww, you made my 'creations' gay! people might think i'm gay."
when fans of the original work decry fanfic, it almost always boils down to "ewww, you made my favorite characters gay! now i can never enjoy that show/book/movie again! i'll always be 'tainted' by imagining them doing icky sexual things together."
homophobia is most of the root of the 'asthetic' objection to fanfic.
And in my experiences as a reader of fanfic, and a consultant to a number of people that write fanfic, and a number of people that help police aspects of fanfic, the root of most the aesthetic objection to fanfic is that 90% of all fanfic is poor writing.
It has nothing to do with the sex, other than the sex is bad to read...because the writing is bad.
Can you provide anything to assist in proving your point, because everything I've seen tends more towards people not liking the writing more than any homophobia. (Additionally, not all fanfic is sexual or even homosexual...in fact, arguably most fanfic is not.)
My dear hostess, whom I hope is feeling much better today,
What's to live down? My Middle English there is a mess.
The fact that while intoxicated you can slip into Middle English and type it is rather astonishing.
I am most impressed at your...skill.
Giacomo:
Its life + 70 for the term of copyright for a work created by an individual author.
17 U.S.C. Sec. 302:
(a) In General. — Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author's death.
The statutes can be found at:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/
Alex Cohen wrote, I believe related to BSD and Greg's commentary:
Let's say I have a trademark on a line of children's novels. Call it "Perry Hotter." A guy named Greg starts posting stories on his website labeled "Perry Hotter Fan Fiction" that contain explicit descriptions of minors having gay sex.
I'd be pretty comfortable taking that dilution argument to a jury.
I am not 100% sure it would even get to a jury on dilution. Dilution requires commercial use of the allegedly diluting mark, and unlike normal trademark infringement, the courts seem to be more strict on making sure the allegedly diluting mark actually is used in commerce, i.e. selling some good or service.
Further, it requires the allegedly infringed upon mark to be famous. I'm not willing to stipulate that "Perry Hotter" is famous, although I don't know that you can question "Harry Potter"'s fame, at least with regards this topic.
Yes, dilution is a term of art in the trademark arena, but most of the legal concerns of fanfic are within the copyright arena, and the two do not necessarily interjoin.
AliceB writes:
Patrick, I posted before seeing your post. As an example of "dilution" I'd use Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series. She authorized the publication of short stories by others. As a die-hard Darkover fan, I purchased them. They were, in my opinion, not as good as the original, and usually repetitive of her tropes. The series lost some luster because of it. The additional volumes that have been published after her death have also diluted the story by adding to her world without her specific style and storytelling talent.
A different Patrick responds:
While I don't necessarily disagree with this, your argument seems to me to have little to do with fanfic generally, and more to do with quality of writing. Some fanfic is horrible, some is absolutely sublime. (A friend wrote unauthorized fanfic based on an anime series. The anime series treatment of the characters was mediocre at best, but my friend's treatment was excellent and fun to read. To compare, I found the authorized prequels of the Amber series published after Mr. Zelanzy's death to be terrible.)
See, I don't dislike fanfic, per se. It can, like a lot of things, be both good and bad. But I still think it should be the creator's choice about whether it should be published--and as I have said before, the nature of distribution these days is such that putting in on the web can be the equivalent of a publication (in fact may get more readers in some cases).
It seems that you are trying to join this argument to the dilution one. However, they seem to be two different things. Even with an author's permission, the fanfic created could be bad and make the series lose "some luster because of it."
Happy birthday!
I hope you continue to have fun.
Ok, why doesn't the DC copyright page list "Super Hero" as one of its protected terms?
They do.
"Except as noted, all books, titles, characters, character names, slogans, logos, and related indicia are trademarks of and copyright DC Comics and/or WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics."
Since the trademark is owned by DC, it won't be on the exceptions list.
Greg London: I've not seen V as a movie yet, but I felt a lot off kilter for a day or so after reading the graphic novel. I attributed it to letting my brain process it all.
I need to see this movie...soon.
I wonder how many good songs are ignored because people cannot stand the singer.
For example, "oops, I did it again" is a reasonably good song, when not done by Britney Spears. Richard Thompson did a cover of it for his "One Thousand Years of Popular Music" CD which was excellent.
I had forgotten the ritual of washing out communion vessels so that nothing gets added to the sewer system.
About a dozen years ago I converted out of Catholicism (into Episcopalianism, which I have described as Catholic light), but I still remembered the mass we used.
Eucharistic Prayer II of the English translation of the Roman Missal. And I got this from: http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/EP.htm
Before he was given up to death, a death he freely accepted, Jesus took bread, and gave you thanks. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and said:
Take this, all of you, and eat it:
This is my body which will be given up for you.
I didn't see anything in there about his body being broken.
I. Corinthians 11:23-26, in translation from the NET Bible, which is a surprisingly good translation, (http://www.bible.org/netbible/) says:
11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, 11:24 and after he had given thanks he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 11:25 In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of me." 11:26 For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
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| 2006 | 13 |
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