The 'shrug' was annoying. I suppose that if they ruled on it in favour of the author that would cause more problems in the published world. Who owns the cliched ideas? Who owns any of the formula plots in any genre? If they start prosecuting fanfic writers for a form of plagiarism where do they call a halt?
Personally I think a standard disclaimer should be good enough. Maybe it needs to say that the fic does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of the original author as well as stating their ownership of the characters and setting. There seemed to be some concern over idiots thinking that the fanfic was approved by the original author and damaging the author's reputation. I couldn't really see the problem myself.
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Date: 2009-01-14 10:45 pm (UTC)Personally I think a standard disclaimer should be good enough. Maybe it needs to say that the fic does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of the original author as well as stating their ownership of the characters and setting. There seemed to be some concern over idiots thinking that the fanfic was approved by the original author and damaging the author's reputation. I couldn't really see the problem myself.