Fanfic - at a price

[ffutures]

Well, I can't believe nobody else has noticed this one...

Someone calling themselves magicalrealistartist on ebay evidently believes in living dangerously. She, or possibly he, is selling several works of Star Trek, Star Wars etc. fanfic by someone called Erin Lale, apparently her real or pen name.

The disclaimer reads "This is fan fiction. I'm not making a profit on this. The price only covers the cost of copying." This for an unbound manuscript costing $15 plus $4 postage. Another one is $20 for 205 pages. I wonder if Lucasfilm or whoever now owns the Trek franchise will be sympathetic if they ever notice.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. I didn't think anybody would ever be stupid enough to do that.

It isn't pedophilia in Potter fic that is going to start the trouble with fanfic, it's people trying to make money out of it.

[mr-wombat.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there someone who did exactly the same thing about two months ago on amazon and did the world's most incoherent interview about how it was purely so her friends and family could get a copy of her works? It was shit by the way, absolute garbage.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's right. I only came across this by accident, I was looking for a copy of a fairly rare fanzine and entered fanfic by mistake.

[davidkevin.livejournal.com]

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't seem different from the fiction fanzines of the '70s and '80s.

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Except for the enormously larger awareness of brand protection by corporations specializing in IP.

[davidkevin.livejournal.com]

Lucasfilm was aware of fanficzines: the unofficial official word from them was that if you actually asked permission they had no choice but to say no in order to be consistent in formally protecting their rights, but if you just went and published they would pretend to not notice.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Unless it was slash - then they came down like a ton of bricks. Also if anyone brought the fanzine to their attention you would get a 'cease and desist' letter.

Some friends of mine actually had to change the title (and one word - 'Jedi' to 'Rebel') on a filk song tape!