"What it comes down to is that the right to tell stories - about *whatever* you want to tell stories about - is a basic, vital human right. Any infringement of what I can tell stories about destroys that whole concept, because now I need to be constantly stopping myself from saying what I want to say. Because the stories I read are just as much a part of my life experience as the people I see on the bus - why the heck can I write about one but not the other?"
I don't think you should tell stories about the people you see on the bus without their permission, no. Unless you're simply using those experiences as a template or fuel for your own original stories. The stories I've read inform the stories I write, certainly, going back to the earliest stories of humanity. But I can't ask the creator of Beowulf or Gilgamesh for their permission. But I can ask Whedon, or at least acknowledge that my Firefly fanfic is intellectually parasitic. Which is not the same thing as saying that parasites have no right to live, or that the harm they do is so great that it overrides all other concerns. Inspiration is awesome. But many fanfic writers want to have it both ways. They want to tap into a richness of authenticity and spirit of community that springs from an original work and the reaction to that work, then turn around and say that original work has no intrinsic intellectual value and is just osmotic universal mind fodder to be used in whole or in part or not. Our fannish worlds and the qualities that define them are incredibly important, the stuff huge passions and loyalties and even mighty flamewars, they have this incredible weight of reality for fans and fandoms, right up to the moment the suggestion is made that the act of creating these worlds and defining these qualities, all this reality can be assigned a source, an owner, a moral value. At that point it's just all in the athropological ether. Well, if that's true, then how about going ahead and making some "Youthful Wizards at Boarding Schools" communities and websites, and just revel, in a globally and historically inclusive way on all the salient underlying themes and archetypes. Write stories riffing on all that generally Because as everyone sensible acknowledges, none of that part of it is original and no one can own those.
The cultural foundation argument eventually becomes pointless, it's like saying you have the fundamental right to sit in my chair because the chair came from wood, wood came from trees, trees grew from sunlight, and no one can own sunlight.
no subject
"What it comes down to is that the right to tell stories - about *whatever* you want to tell stories about - is a basic, vital human right. Any infringement of what I can tell stories about destroys that whole concept, because now I need to be constantly stopping myself from saying what I want to say. Because the stories I read are just as much a part of my life experience as the people I see on the bus - why the heck can I write about one but not the other?"
I don't think you should tell stories about the people you see on the bus without their permission, no. Unless you're simply using those experiences as a template or fuel for your own original stories. The stories I've read inform the stories I write, certainly, going back to the earliest stories of humanity. But I can't ask the creator of Beowulf or Gilgamesh for their permission. But I can ask Whedon, or at least acknowledge that my Firefly fanfic is intellectually parasitic. Which is not the same thing as saying that parasites have no right to live, or that the harm they do is so great that it overrides all other concerns. Inspiration is awesome. But many fanfic writers want to have it both ways. They want to tap into a richness of authenticity and spirit of community that springs from an original work and the reaction to that work, then turn around and say that original work has no intrinsic intellectual value and is just osmotic universal mind fodder to be used in whole or in part or not. Our fannish worlds and the qualities that define them are incredibly important, the stuff huge passions and loyalties and even mighty flamewars, they have this incredible weight of reality for fans and fandoms, right up to the moment the suggestion is made that the act of creating these worlds and defining these qualities, all this reality can be assigned a source, an owner, a moral value. At that point it's just all in the athropological ether. Well, if that's true, then how about going ahead and making some "Youthful Wizards at Boarding Schools" communities and websites, and just revel, in a globally and historically inclusive way on all the salient underlying themes and archetypes. Write stories riffing on all that generally Because as everyone sensible acknowledges, none of that part of it is original and no one can own those.
The cultural foundation argument eventually becomes pointless, it's like saying you have the fundamental right to sit in my chair because the chair came from wood, wood came from trees, trees grew from sunlight, and no one can own sunlight.