I decided to focus my final
project on the ideas and issues raised when we spent time studying fan fiction,
Mary Sues, and how they fit in with copyright law. Fan fiction was very
important to me in junior high. I never thought I could write creatively, and I
never thought I would like writing creatively. The group of friends I hung out
with wrote fan fiction, and introduced me to it, so I started to write it for a
while as well. I eventually got bored with it, and moved on to writing my own
stories, but it was still like a gateway to writing for me. Due to this, I have
always found the struggle of fan fiction and copy write law interesting, as
that was always a big debate, and one that I had followed when I was actively
writing it.
I decided for my project to
create an informative website. This website is aimed toward several different
types of people. The first type would be anyone who did not know what fan
fiction was, and was curious about learning some of its basic aspects. The next
type of person might be a fan fiction author that is brand new, and wanted to
learn some information about the subject. The other type of person might be
someone who already writes fan fiction, but would be interested to learn
exactly how copyright plays into fan fiction.
In this website, I included a
variety of different types of information. I start with a brief history of fan
fiction in its modern incarnation. It started with Star Trek in the modern
days, although when I was researching, I found that fan fiction is actually
much older, and has been around as long as stories have themselves. Then I move
to how fan fiction and copyright law interact with each other. I gave
viewpoints of authors and the two sides of why they might support, or not
support fan fiction, and some examples of authors for each side. I also discuss the concept of the culture that
has been created around fan fiction, and Mary Sues. I give examples of Mary Sues,
and varying degrees of them. The last part of the website is links to popular fan
fiction websites, and a works cited page for where I obtained the images on the
website, and my information.
I created the website on
Wix.com. I did not use one of their preset templates; I just chose to build it
off of blank pages. This way I could customize it and make it the way that I
wanted to. I decided that I wanted it to look like someone’s notebook, and
notes on the subject. In order to achieve this, I took a picture of a blank
page in my own notebook, and used that as the background. I chose a font for the
text that looked like basic, or note taking handwriting. For the images, I made
them looked like pieces of film. Then I added images that looked like tape, to
indicate that they were added into the notebook, like adding pieces to a scrapbook.
I mainly based my ideas, and
retrieved my information from the article we read entitled “Everyone’s a
superhero: A cultural theory of Mary Sue fan fiction, and its fair use” written
by, Anupam Chander, and Madhavi Sunder. I found it interesting to read the
ideas on the evolution of the Mary Sue, and how it has spread and changing
through time. In article, it is brought up that “In the past, Mary Sue authors
might have stashed what they penned in a drawer, distributed Xeroxed copies,
or, at most, published their work in an underground magazine. The World Wide
Web offers writers a relatively inexpensive and simple mass distribution
vehicle. Posting a story to a fan fiction website is literally free, at least
for those with access to the Internet.” ( Chander 600 ). In today’s world, for those that have
access to computers and the Internet, it is so easy to obtain fan fiction and
post it. This has turned it much more mainstreamed than it ever has before.
Of course, this means that
there are more issues with it brought to the attentions of society. Especially
in recent years it has drastically changed. For instance, as I discuss a bit on
my website, there is a move by digital publishing corporations to turn a profit
with fan fiction. The forerunner of this is Amazon, and the applications they
have set up for the Kindle. A new platform called Kindle Worlds has been
created. This platform allows for fan fiction writers to actually sell their
stories. ( ). The way this works is that the fan fiction author gets a
percentage of the profits from their story. Amazon also gets a percentage. The
original author of the text, Production Company of the movie, or developer of
the game, etc. would also get royalties. In the future, if this concept catches
on, there will no doubt be even bigger debates on the concept of fan fiction
and copyright. Copyright exists to protect the financial interests of the
original creator. In the past fan fiction has been accepted because it makes no
money. If all of the sudden fan fiction is making money for the fan fiction
author, this dramatically changes the game, forever.
Fan fiction has always been
debated though in terms of copyright law. In their essay, Chander and Sunder explain
that “Mary Sues that challenge the orthodox representations in the original
work should constitute fair use under U.S. copyright law” ( Chander 601). There have been in the past debates as to how
fan fiction is legal, or if it is even legal at all. Many of the debates
surround whether it can be considered a part of the fair use laws. There are questions about whether people
should write their own stories or continue to write stories based off of others
ideas. All in all, fan fiction is a topic that will only become more interesting
as technology and digital reading technology evolves, and even original works
become completely digital.
Works Cited
"Kindle Worlds." Kindle
Worlds. Amazon, n.d. Web. 4 May 2014.
<https://kindleworlds.amazon.com/>.
Chander, Anupam and Sunder, Madhavi,
Everyone's a Superhero: A Cultural Theory of 'Mary Sue' Fan Fiction as Fair
Use. California Law Review, Vol. 95, p. 597, 2007; UC Davis Legal Studies Research
Paper No. 110. SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=984919
Final Project Website :
