What does all this mean?

In this blog, I attempted to provide an introduction and a brief history of the phenomenon of fan fiction, explore the associated copyright implications, identify arguments in favor of fan fiction, and point out a few notable legal cases involving fan fiction.

Fan fiction, also known as Fanfic or FF is the act of taking characters and/or settings from published books, movies, and TV and creating new works. Fan fiction is largely centered around communal fan practices that celebrate and rework stories to be shared and enjoyed amongst fans. Although fan fiction was originally disseminated in zines and other homegrown paper technologies, it is now mainly published on the internet and accounts for its growing popularity and wider distribution circles. Fan fiction is this interesting space that gives the everyday reader a space to explore, celebrate, play with, appropriate, negotiate, and provide social commentary through the use of published texts. An offshoot of fan fiction not discussed in this presentation is slash fiction, a genre that focuses on the queering of characters that were constructed as heterosexual in the original texts.
Fanfic’s most recent history stems from the science fiction community in the 1960s; however, the act of taking stories and making them one’s own has a much longer history in oral traditions, specifically folktales (Jenkins). In oral traditions, the storyteller is rewarded for adding his/her own embellishments to a story, but this is not necessarily the case with fan fiction. Currently, fan fiction is considered by many, especially authors and publishers, as a derivative work. Derivative works are clearly the right of the original author as set out in (US Copyright Law, Sections 103 and 106). So why are there so many fanfic authors writing and publishing on the internet? Why aren’t these authors being prosecuted for copyright infringement?

As Litman and others have pointed out, fanfic is good for an author/publisher’s bottom line. This genre of writing tends to create and/or sustain interest in the original author’s work, thereby securing continued profits (Litman 179, Young 15). Litman suggests that the reason many fanfic authors continue to find a venue for their work without prosecution is through the concept of “implied license” (Litman 178). Because of the positive effects on the market, fanfic writers are being granted an implied license to use the original work. Still, there are writers who prohibit use of their work in fan fiction and believe fanfic is nothing more than intellectual laziness (Young 14).

In defense of fan fiction, academics have proffered several interesting defenses for the right of fan fiction writers to use copyrighted works without threat of legal action; each moving beyond a grant of rights that originates with the original author/publisher. Some of these arguments include: fair use, critical commentary, reading as creative act (Jenkins, Litman 177). It is these mappings that Jenkins and Litman offer that I find so provocative and interesting, but I wonder how much of this is actually going on in reality and not just in the minds of academics.
My research has shown me that given the current dissemination strategies of fan fiction, the sheer number of fanfic writers, and the fact that many original authors/publishers are profiting from its creation, fanfic will continue to flourish with limited legal consequences. However, if its popularity continues to rise and if more fanfic authors end up profiting themselves from their writing, through publishing contracts of their own, then I can easily see the revocation of implied license. Because even though the theoretical approaches to fan fiction are alluring, I find Litman’s explanation of implied license to be the most logical rationale for the lack of legal reproach for fanfic writers and the sites that host these stories. Stemming from this line of thought, I was left with three remaining questions:

• Is fanfic becoming more or less of a contested space in the latter half of the decade?

• Are certain fanfic writers given more license and are less likely to be censured? If so, who and why?

• What are the future directions of fanfic?

Works Referenced

Jenkins, Henry. “Fan Fiction as Critical Commentary.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins,” http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/09/fan_fiction_as_critical_commen.html (2006).

Litman, Jessica. “Creative Reading.” Law and Contemporary Problems 70, no. 175 (2007): 175-183.

Young, Cathy. "The Fan Fiction Phenomena." Reason 38, no. 9(2007): 14-15.


More resources forthcoming….