I'm not particularly anti-fanfic (I've written a couple in my life and read quite a few), but I have some problems with the analogy. Mostly because I don't own my daughter and she has free will. If she wants to date someone I don't like, there's a limit to what I can do to stop her, (in this day and age and in this culture), and I have to deal with the reality that she wants to be with this person.
My (theoretical) fictional characters do not, in any objective way "want" to be written into fanfics, they don't come to me in the night and say "I've found someone on Fanfiction.net who I want to spend the rest of my life with. Goodbye Daddy!"
Now, I don't have any meaningful control over what happens to the characters in people's minds. If I write a story starring Schmoopy the Wonder Puppy, and someone daydreams about Schmoopy, some lube, and a selection of toys from Blowfish, well, what can I do.
But if someone were to come up to me and tell me that, I'd probably find it a little weird and obnoxious. As weird and obnoxious as someone coming up to me and saying "You know what, schmoopy should do this and this in your next schmoopy book. And if you don't agree with me, or refuse to do that, well I'll go off and write my own Schmoopy stories, because I have as much intellectual right to control Schmoopy as you do."
I can't agree with that. I may have no legal way to stop it. And in fact, I may have no heavy practical objection to knowing it's happening, out there, somewhere on the internets *vague handwave*. But I don't want to be told that my opinion of Schmoopy's behavior or life doesn't have any status over that of anyone who happens to have read a Schmoopy story, and I don't want people feeling that position is ethically correct even if I never see what they write.
It's like music downloading. Lots of people do it. I do it. And I can give lots of good reasons why I do it. But when I'm asked directly, I still admit "Yes, I'm stealing this music." The good reasons may justify it to my satisfaction or those of my peers, but they don't make it not theft, and I won't claim they do.
If someone spreads some writing around saying "Len hates gay people.", I'm going to be hella pissed, because I don't. But if someone writes a fic where Schmoopy cleans up San Francisco and restores it to godliness... I'm still going to be hella pissed. Schmoopy would never do that. Schmoopy was concieved in my heart to stand for various ideals, and having someone take Schmoopy and have him do things I'd never have him do feels as much of a libel to me as "Len hates gay people."
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My (theoretical) fictional characters do not, in any objective way "want" to be written into fanfics, they don't come to me in the night and say "I've found someone on Fanfiction.net who I want to spend the rest of my life with. Goodbye Daddy!"
Now, I don't have any meaningful control over what happens to the characters in people's minds. If I write a story starring Schmoopy the Wonder Puppy, and someone daydreams about Schmoopy, some lube, and a selection of toys from Blowfish, well, what can I do.
But if someone were to come up to me and tell me that, I'd probably find it a little weird and obnoxious. As weird and obnoxious as someone coming up to me and saying "You know what, schmoopy should do this and this in your next schmoopy book. And if you don't agree with me, or refuse to do that, well I'll go off and write my own Schmoopy stories, because I have as much intellectual right to control Schmoopy as you do."
I can't agree with that. I may have no legal way to stop it. And in fact, I may have no heavy practical objection to knowing it's happening, out there, somewhere on the internets *vague handwave*. But I don't want to be told that my opinion of Schmoopy's behavior or life doesn't have any status over that of anyone who happens to have read a Schmoopy story, and I don't want people feeling that position is ethically correct even if I never see what they write.
It's like music downloading. Lots of people do it. I do it. And I can give lots of good reasons why I do it. But when I'm asked directly, I still admit "Yes, I'm stealing this music." The good reasons may justify it to my satisfaction or those of my peers, but they don't make it not theft, and I won't claim they do.
If someone spreads some writing around saying "Len hates gay people.", I'm going to be hella pissed, because I don't. But if someone writes a fic where Schmoopy cleans up San Francisco and restores it to godliness... I'm still going to be hella pissed. Schmoopy would never do that. Schmoopy was concieved in my heart to stand for various ideals, and having someone take Schmoopy and have him do things I'd never have him do feels as much of a libel to me as "Len hates gay people."