[FFML] Continue dead or abandon fics by other authors.

[Larry F]

On 8/12/2015 4:52 AM, Maciej Żenczykowski wrote:
>>> Time and time again, I have been thinking if another author could continue
>>> dead fics with the permission of the original author.
>> Of course.  Getting that permission may be difficult, but once obtained,
>> the only party whose consent matters has given it.
> Ok, I'll bite.
>
> Why do you think you need the permission of the original fanfiction author?
>
> People write fanfiction all the time without asking for permission
> from the original author(s) of fiction/manga/anime.
>
>

Because there's a big difference in writing an original story based on 
ideas, settings, situations and characters created by another, and 
taking over and reprinting a story written by another person without 
permission, which is defined as plagiarism.

Fan fiction depends on a gray area of copyright law to exist, and the 
latter action crosses the line into outright theft of intellectual 
property. Even though the original and true copyright holder for the 
work a fan fiction story is based on probably won't care, the fan 
fiction community *does*, and will give the plagiarizer a great deal of 
grief for having done so. We are a self-policing community.

The rule of thumb regarding acceptability is that you can write an 
original story based on a published or broadcast original work, and you 
can borrow a plot device from another fan fiction story. In other words, 
if you read a story in which Naruto gets a technological power-up from 
an alien artifact and like the idea, it's perfectly okay for you to 
write your own story in which that happens. What is unacceptable is 
directly copying entire paragraphs or chapters from the original 
copyrighted work or from another fan fiction story (although the former 
is often done by newbies), or publishing another fan author's work 
without permission. An exception to that is using attributed quotes. For 
example, you can have a chapter heading where you quote a paragraph from 
the original work, and then give the book title, chapter, and author 
credit at the end of it.

That's because even though fan fiction is itself technically theft of 
intellectual property, it's still somewhat protected by copyright law at 
least in theory, since the *story* being told is an original derivative 
work. That's why it's in a gray area of the law; as long as the fan 
author does not try to use the story as for monetary gain, there is 
wiggle room in the "fair use" areas of the law.

All of that comes to a screeching halt if the original copyright owner 
writes a story that is similar to an existing fan fiction work, though. 
His or her rights and ownership of the intellectual property trumps that 
of any fan fiction writer.