Where waves crash above or the French cousin's revenge
As this section of the fetish forum is the more visited one, I've found it fitting to write my sort of op-ed here. There haven't been many issues so divisive where I can sympathize with the ones supporting or opposing it. During today's proceedings in the European Parliament, MEPs voted on passing Articles 11 and 13 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, so as early as January new laws may come to enforce it in all member states.
Long story short, in certain aspects European laws work like American ones, some are just local, municipal or a state law, but others are federal and do not lose jurisdiction beyond borders (to compare the Buy USA Act compels state-run embassies to only buy American products even if they're the farthest from America). This particular directive drew criticism for proposed overreach, like using an algorithm to suppress memes or that web hosts would be required to check the content being not stolen property from someone else.
In other words, Rivals_Rapture's latest rewrite, if it truly had come from a French writer not just in name only, would require written permission from the original author. XP, Steven, I'm neither a lawyer nor an expert on EU relations. What I've read the directive (unlike the other on my privacy rights in effect since late May) does not obligate a site like yours because content posted here is not for-profit, but it doesn't hurt looking into it. If I hear anything new I let you know.
For the record, I did not oppose this because sites like Google benefit from the status quo. As a content creator myself I actually should be joyed over such a development. There are good reasons why I opposed it. (Before I continue, it just came to me that Ragnar0k is in a more interesting situation than me). For one, the supposed YouTube Content ID system fell quickly into misuse, banning a guy's video who played his own music for free, because a douche copyrighted it, or the other countless cases where claimants need no proof. Two, some content creators may change a username, some use multiple ones. It doesn't take a genuis to realize how proving ownership in such a case is difficult. Three, George R.R. Martin's dream might come true and fanfiction will be partially dead (he will be able to easily demand takedowns of works derived from his work).
Re: Where waves crash above or the French cousin's revenge
So, I am NOT a copyright attorney in the EU or elsewhere, so this is just my own non-expert take on the matter (though calling it a "take" might be a bit of an overstatement).
If you read my story, it feels like My French Cousin. It tastes like it. It smells like it. But if you were to read that story and then mine, you would find that very little of what I wrote is directly taken from that story. I went through and tore out so much of the original, and then even the parts I kept, I rewrote almost entirely. The girls names were changed. How they met is wildly different. Their two groups of friends were entirely removed.
I say all that not to take from FightWriter the credit for inspiring me and the story. Not to say that his piece wasn't incredibly sexy and that I strove to keep the same vibe his story had. But instead to say, I think a direct examination of the two pieces would lead to a conclusion that my work is not sufficiently derivitive of his to be considered anything violative of copyright law in any country or grouping of them.
As to the larger issue, would I hate it if fan fiction was banned? Yes. I don't do a lot of it, but I had planned on doing some comic book stories in the future, and so I hope, personally, such does not occur.
But even if the letter of the law makes fan fictions something that is legally impermissible, everytime you, as a copyright holder, send a copyright notice, it costs you money. If a copyright holder went around bombarding every website on which stories with their characters appeared, they would be burning through money fairly quickly. Would Marvel/Disney do it? Yes, they would. George R. R. Martin? Maybe not.
Re: Where waves crash above or the French cousin's revenge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rivals_Rapture
So, I am NOT a copyright attorney in the EU or elsewhere, so this is just my own non-expert take on the matter (though calling it a "take" might be a bit of an overstatement).
If you read my story, it feels like My French Cousin. It tastes like it. It smells like it. But if you were to read that story and then mine, you would find that very little of what I wrote is directly taken from that story. I went through and tore out so much of the original, and then even the parts I kept, I rewrote almost entirely. The girls names were changed. How they met is wildly different. Their two groups of friends were entirely removed.
I say all that not to take from FightWriter the credit for inspiring me and the story. Not to say that his piece wasn't incredibly sexy and that I strove to keep the same vibe his story had. But instead to say, I think a direct examination of the two pieces would lead to a conclusion that my work is not sufficiently derivitive of his to be considered anything violative of copyright law in any country or grouping of them.
As to the larger issue, would I hate it if fan fiction was banned? Yes. I don't do a lot of it, but I had planned on doing some comic book stories in the future, and so I hope, personally, such does not occur.
But even if the letter of the law makes fan fictions something that is legally impermissible, everytime you, as a copyright holder, send a copyright notice, it costs you money. If a copyright holder went around bombarding every website on which stories with their characters appeared, they would be burning through money fairly quickly. Would Marvel/Disney do it? Yes, they would. George R. R. Martin? Maybe not.
I've specifically singled out Martin as he went on record that he hates fanfiction and until now lacked a legal basis to do so. Even now it's only supposed to involve web hosts where copyrighted material is posted for financial gain. My fears come from the simple fact that when the more universal GPRD rules were introduced, certain non-European websites have immediately shut down access in lieu of choosing to disclose how much information they share with third parties.
Also, the new directive is a bit different, for-profit web hosts will be required to prescreen potential plagiarism before uploading succeeds. The goal is to protect first work creators, but in the current political climate, I fear it will be used, or it could be used to target any work some don't like, a partial phenomenon we've already seen on YouTube. Personally I'm a bit lucky that Patreon (which is one such host in question) allows content to be posted publicly or patron-only, so that work will not be claimed by anybody else. I'll be looking into how I can acquire a Creative Commons license so that unalterable stories can be shared freely.
