Makers of Fifty Shades Porn Parody Countersue Universal, Claim the Book is Public Domain Because Fanfiction

That’s not how public domain works at all. Fanfic writers technically have copyright on what they wrote, though not on the characters or concepts that originated with the canon work. It fall under “derivative work”, though fanfic is in sort of the legal shadows now. I hate to think of the not-for-profit sharing and distribution of fanfic ever having to be argued about in court, because I think it should be entirely legal as it is, but media companies are ravenous about their copyrights these days.

If any work using previously created characters is fanfiction, then all of Disney’s fairy tales are in the public domain too, right?

It was Twilight fan fiction, but was rewritten. It’s not being marketed as a Twilight fan fiction parody. Also, whenever I hear Masters of the Universe I am only mentally picture He-Man and He-Man related products. I’m surprised that Mattel isn’t getting royalties whenever that name is dropped. Is it wrong that I also think of Evil-Lyn wearing skin-tight latex with He-Man bound with a ball gag regarding this topic?

89% is not an oddly specific number at all. It’s a very accurate number, specifically the percentage TurnItIn gave on text from the fanfic versus text from the “book”.

99% of fanfic is written explicitly attempting to dodge the original creators’ copyrights and promising that the borrowed characters within will not be used to make a profit; 50 Shades of Twilight violates that, and EJ James — who has harassed users for parodying her work in fanfic with the claims that they are violating HER rights as a “creator” — should be held accountable for violating that informal contract.

But James’s use isn’t not-for-profit sharing. It is very for-profit. Whatever happens to her need not affect other fanfic authors.

No, I get that, I’m just saying it is VERY VERY BAD for fanfiction as a whole if someone tries to enter a “fanfiction is public domain” argument into court. It’s not likely to hold any water in court, but I don’t want to see media companies getting their hackles raised at fanfic writers because of some perceived “threat” to the exploitability of the material they hold the rights to.

Yeah, it very much seems liek their argument is “She posted it in the internet, thus Public Domain” which… is so grossly inaccurate it makes me wonder where they got their lawyers.

I don’t get the problem, though–I thought parody was considered fair use, and therefore legal?

I’m kind of amazed that this lawsuit didn’t get laughed out of court on it’s face. The fact that it was published online for free doesn’t place it in the public domain. That’s the sort of bogus reasoning that people use when they steal (and “modify”) folks’ work from DeviantArt and sell it as their own.

And imagine the potential unintended consequences if this countersuit DID prevail. FanFic.net will suddenly be turned into a fucking goldmine of free IP for companies to snatch up and exploit with nary a penny to be given to the original authors.

A porn parody of a porn parody of some really bad porn. What an interesting world we live in.

I really love the idea of Universal having to reply to Smash’s (terrible, poorly reasoned) brief with affidavits, depositions, motions, etc., that state affirmatively that posting fanfic to the internet does not place said work in the public domain. You know how fans have been worry for years if not decades about the cost of having to litigate those arguments in court?
Well, as of now, it’s pretty likely that a massive entertainment multinational is going to have to spend the time and money to make that argument; they’ll be successful on that specific argument because I’ve never seen any indication that E.L. James (under whatever pseud) affirmatively placed her work in the public domain, and unless the FFN ToU has changed since I read it last (admittedly a few years back), posting to FFN does not put one’s fanfic into the public domain. Nor, fwiw, does putting a disclaimer of infringement on one’s uploaded stories.

It’s questionable whether it’s a parody. Porn isn’t inherently parody, and where the underlying (pun!) source is erotica, some of the holdings from, say, the Pretty Woman/2 Live Crew case may not apply.

It’s porn all the way down.

Maybe someone can explain this to me, since I don’t really plan on reading either the books or the fanfic they started as, but how on earth did the whole thing go from Twilight to Fifty Shades? The story of Fifty Shades, as I understand it, seems to have absolutely nothing in common with anything Twilightish. I mean, did the author just take her Twilight sex scenes and rewrite them into a completely different story, or what?

I haven’t read Fifty Shades, but as I understand it the fanfic it was originally written as was an Alternate Universe story, wherein instead of being a sparkly controlling vampire, Edward was a (non-sparkly, I guess, but superhot?) controlling rich dude. I got the impression that basically the whole Edward/Bella romance plotline was the same, only with less vampire babies and more badly-written sex.

You may ask why something with no sparkly vampires is considered Twilight fanfiction, but this is a pretty common thing in the fanfiction world — there’s a story I’ve seen recently written about a buddy cop show set in an alternate universe where they all live in Ancient Greece, for example, and there are loads of retellings of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice but with Harry Potter characters.

There are even professional examples of this! Sherlock Holmes has TWO police procedural modern-day adaptations on TV: “Sherlock” and “Elementary.” Then there’s “House,” (Sherlock Holmes If They Were All Doctors), “A Study in Emerald” (Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes), and “The Great Mouse Detective” (Sherlock Holmes If They Were All Talking Disney Mice). Even though the entire setting has changed, they are still more or less meant to be the same characters.

Oh yes, the AUs . . . . I *HATE* AUs . . . with a passion. Well, full Alternate Universe stories anyway, the ones I call canon AUs aren’t as bad. They are the stories where the characters stay who they are from whatever original series, but with an added twist. The full AUs though where they are the same in name and face only . . . yeah, I like my characters for who they are, taking that away destroys the character to me.

…uh. That’s nice? I like some of them.

No, it wasn’t rewritten. Dear Author did an analysis using the software TurnItIn, which identifies plagiarism. The result was an 89% match. She didn’t even bother to fix typos and grammatical errors. All she did was find+replace on the names. Link to the analysis: http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/master-of-the-universe-versus-fifty-shades-by-e-l-james-comparison/

I’m very curious to see how this turns out, the whole fanfic/copyright issue is fascinating.

Most porn parodies are adding hard-core sex to otherwise non-sexually explicit shows/movies/comics. In the case of 50 Shades, it’s more of a case that they’re just filming the book.

Easier to make a parody defense of Spongebob Squarenuts than to claim “It’s parody because we took out all the talky-bits.”

Haha wait is that a thing?

“A Study in Emerald” (Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes)

Dude… that sounds fantastic.

Basil of Baker Street isn’t AU, though, he lives in Holmes’ building and emulates him out of admiration.

Two crappy movies fighting over the rights to a crappy fanfic of a crappy book. Having no dog in this fight, I’m finding the clusterfuck pretty hilarious.

Ah, thank you. So you’re saying that even though the filmmakers claim it’s a parody, it really isn’t because of the subject matter?

I get it now. Thank you. :)

I hear you, but will humbly add that even total AUs (like, the two main characters own a coffee shop or fight demons or fight crime in Hawaii instead of in outer space) can be great stories as long as the characters remain the same despite the different setting. I’ve read fantastic AUs where despite how the characters were written different beings doing very different things than in the original TV show, they were very obviously themselves (as in, still the characters the viewers know and love). When a writer has managed that, AUs can be great.

That said, I much prefer canon-based AUs myself. :)

SpongeKnob SquareNuts? Oh yes, it’s a thing: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/193431/first-look-spongeknob-squarenuts-a-xxx-parody-sfw/

I read the books, both Twilight and Fifty Shades and didn’t see any comparison between the two other than the fact that Anastasia and Bella were both thinking they were clumsy. Never really understood the comparison but I also wasn’t part of the fanfiction fandom, so maybe I missed it there?

At least we don’t have to wait for the casting hahahah

Rule 34!

:(

I understand that stand point and have a friend who wishes I give non-canon AUs another chance, but it’s hard. A long time ago, I had a coworker who’s “specialty” was non-canon AUs, like she wrote two to three a week. And she wasn’t the strongest writer either. Once she found out I knew the characters she wrote about, I was her new best friend/beta/reviewer. *sighs* Like working as a manager for Burger King killed my interest of eating at that restaurant, over exposure has killed any interest in trying AUs again.

LOL (not at you, but that miserable scenario you ended up in). I can definitely understand how overexposure to something awful would sour you on that aspect of fanfic forever. But I nonetheless urge you to check out archiveofourown.com. Whatever fandom that was, I guarantee there will be hundreds if not thousands of fic to read, including complete AUs that are well done.

That is the third time this week I have heard mention of that site, it must be fate. I’ll give it a shot. Thanks!

It is your destiny!