One of the things I discussed in the chapter specifically about RPF is the fact RPF has the legal trouble of "libel". Fanfiction that falls under the definition of "derivative work based upon another person's work" has its own legal troubles that the writers have to deal with. Fanfiction has long been noted by people to be in a legal gray area. In my time in the fanfiction community there have been two main point of views about fanfiction when it comes to the issue of "copyright infringement".

The first thing I wish to cover is the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism. Why? There are people out there that believe that all fanfiction is a form of plagiarism. This ends up being problematic for fanfic writers who have been plagiarized because some people turn around and tell these people who have been plagiarized against that they have no room to bring up accusations that they are plagiarizing themselves. This actually isn't true. Copyright infringement means using another writers characters without permission, while plagiarism means claiming the work as your own.

There is another argument I've seen come up in discussions about copyright infringement and plagiarism. It's not something though I can explain easily. I keep trying to say that this argument involves stories that happen to copy liberal chunks from another writers work... or what they write is obviously paraphrased from a story someone else came up with. However... I have problems calling these compilations stories or even calling what they're doing writing. These stories pretty much consist of compilations of other writers work and it's copying, not writing.

Some people may not be able to imagine what kind of stories I am talking about. One example happens to be most Reading the Books works where the person compiling these works copy large chunks to the entire book. They then insert comments in between the lines having the characters make random comments about the book as another character reads the book out loud. I know that some people are likely wondering what the appeal of these stories are as they sound repetitive. They actually are. I personally think the appeal is how easy and fast they are to churn out as well as how fast and easy they are to read.

Another example is where the writer takes the original book and makes minor changes to the original text. For example... the substitute Harry Potter for Harriet Potter and where Harry is referred to he it is changed to she. Other small changes are made, like the color of clothing, eyes and hair, but it is pretty much the same story. This isn't limited to fandoms that the plot can be copied from word for word, but also visual fandoms as well. The descriptions of the actions going on is the writer's own, but they didn't come up with any of it on their own.

Some people don't realize that doing this is considered morally wrong and poor ethics in the writing community. This said they shouldn't all be grouped into one group as if they all think the same. One of the reasons this occurs is because one of the ways young writers learn to write is by mimicking what they know. Taking large chunks of a book and making minor edits can be a good exorcise to prepare said person for writing their own stuff, but it should never be praised as the writer's own writing.

Usually a quick explanation as to why what they're doing is wrong, or that they can do better will set this particular writer straight.

I've also seen people trying to write parody fall into this trap as well. They see these famous works parodying other works, like Family Guy parodying Star Wars and they think they would like to try and do it to. One of the things they miss though is that the work being used to parody the other work must make fun of the work being parodied. It need not be a vindictive humor that pokes fun of the works faults, but instead can be just plain silly. The other issue is that it isn't word for word. Dialog and actions are constantly changed up to make jokes in this particular series. Again... usually a quick explanation as to why what they're doing is wrong will set this particular writer straight.

Then there are the writers who can't tell the difference between quoting the few important parts of the dialog that are relevant to your own story and quoting the entire work. There is a level of ego that goes with this kind of writer that makes them think they will never, ever get caught or in other cases a level of ego that makes these people actually think that the work is their own. Sometimes a person can break through to these people, but other times they can not. These people tend to be repeat offenders and have a hard time learning their lesson.

How easy is it to tell that someone has used word for word plagiarism? Truth be told it isn't always easy to tell unless you are actually familiar with work, but there are times that you do know that what they are doing is plagiarism without knowing the source. One of the key things that gives them away is having samples of their work to compare with. Sometimes there is a drastic difference in the style and tone that is used by the writer. The works that the writer creates themselves is in fact of a lower quality while the stuff they are plagiarizing is of a much higher quality.

The ego issue going on here is jealousy. The reason these people plagiarist is because of self confidence issues. The problem with this is those self confidence issues can become worse once they are caught plagiarizing. One of the ways to solve the problem is to try and bolster their self esteem on the works they do themselves. By this I don't mean simply lavishing praise on the writer for the stuff they wrote themselves because this in itself can cause ego problems. They still need the flaws pointed out in their work, but they also need to be told that someone has faith in them that they can do better.

Another way to tell whether a writer is plagiarizing is to notice that a writer has displaced the characters from a particular series in such a way that makes no sense? What do I mean by displacement? One of the writer's I caught plagiarizing tried plagiarizing a Victorian era novel using Anime characters. This wasn't a case mind you where they used all the characters either, it was a case where they took the two they wanted to pair together and simply replaced the names of the coupled pair in the story and thought they would get away with it. Thus all the other characters retained their names.

There are though writers who are deluded into believing that what they are doing is hard work as well as legit writing when neither case is true. A prime example of this would be xxJLCSAADFRNCxx. I bring this particular case up by name because she caused some major problems in the Harry Potter fandom that included making other writers believe her lies and thus bringing them down with her. Despite being kicked off of the site where she originally started she still tries posting her "works" on other sites as well.

I originally came across xxJLCSADDFRNCxx through a blog I follow where we discuss Mary Sues and I decided to leave a review on one of her stories telling her that taking whole chunks from the books was not cool. I had at the time thought the matter closed because she would be removing the material that infringed on Rowling's copyright. Nothing really stood out about that PM exchange... that or it blended together with an exchange I had with her later on. Then later on I reviewed another one of her pieces... I believe this time it was her RTB... and told her that it could be reported to the admins of that site and she could lose her account.

I insert a bit of a warning here. It doesn't matter what site you go to, don't go posting major excerpts from copyrighted material. This infringes upon the rights of the writer to sell copies of their work by providing a free copy online. So... it really doesn't matter what site you go to. Said site will not allow this practice. This said... quite a few of the people who do this won't listen to this warning as they are like xxJLCSADDFRNCxx in that they believe what they are doing isn't wrong. This particular case though is interesting because this particular person for awhile led people to believe they were "safe" from getting in trouble for what they were doing and that they also weren't wrong in what they were doing.

The second PM exchange was odd. She also had thought the matter was closed, but not for the same reason I thought the matter was closed. She honestly believed that she had gotten the people calling her out before to back down because she was right. In the previous PM exchange or the second one she brought up the fact her teacher had told her there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. I remember pressing whether her teacher had said copying like she did was in fact all right or if they were simply saying fanfiction was all right.

What really stood out though was the fact she thought she had actually gotten permission from Rowling to do what she was doing. I of course had to press on this and found out that she had gone on a particular Harry Potter tour that toured sites that are in the Harry Potter films. Not only was the tour not affiliated with Rowling or her associates the person she had gotten her answer from had in fact been a tour guide. The other odd thing about this conversation I had with her was that she asked me how she could contact Rowling to get a recommendation for collage.

This got her a lecture from me about how she actually didn't have permission from Rowling and that if she actually contacted Rowling or her lawyers she would be told no. I told her not to ask the question about whether she could write fanfiction or not, because that wasn't the question that needed to be answered. The question was whether she could copy whole chunks of Rowling's work verbatim in her fanfics. I told her the answer would be no. I went ahead and reported her works and thought nothing of the situation knowing it took time for admins to get around to reports on the site I used.

This was until a particular rumor started floating around that Rowling had actually given permission to the RTB writers to do what they were doing. The source of the rumor was xxJLCSAADFRNCxx and the story she had told me had changed from getting the affirmative from a tour guide to getting an affirmative from Rowling's publishing company. The RTB writers in the Harry Potter fandom started posting that they had got permission and even pointed out that it was xxJLCSAADFRNCxx who had wrote the letter that they copied to their profile.

The letter did give permission... to write fanfiction so long as no profit was made. What the letters didn't say was whether or not the writers had permission to copy verbatim or near verbatim from the books. This gave the writers the impression that there was nothing wrong or illegal about what they were doing so long as they didn't make money off of it. There is though a major difference between borrowing the characters/setting and actually copying large chunks of another persons work. One is fanfiction, the other is not.

There were people like myself who warned people that the RTB could get their accounts nixed if they kept posting the verbatim or near verbatim works. Because of the rumor xxJLCSAADFRNCxx these "writers" and their "readers" started lambasting the people warning them that they were wrong. Then one of her supporters decided to take this to the site admins blog, complaining pretty much that these people were harassing writers for doing something they were allowed to do. She was brought up with another writer and within a week her account ended up nixed and another sweep of rule breaking works was done on the site.

Some of the writers of the RTB tried fleeing to other sites. Some fled here to Wattpad, only to find that their work disappeared off the site far quicker then it did on the one they had come from. I'm not sure if these writers actually ever understood why they had their "work" deleted. Many were under the assumption that if they credited the original writer that they were also not in the wrong, but that is far from true as well. Truth of the matter is plagiarism doesn't just involve crediting or not crediting the work.

To quote plagiarism dot org... plagiarism includes... "copying words or ideas from someone else without giving crediti" as well as "changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving creditii" AND "copying so many words of ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or notiii". There is an issue of "fair use" as well and how much you use of another persons work as well as what you use can also determine fair use. The size of what you are quoting is also a determination factor as well.

I can't cover this topic without talking about Cassandra Claire despite the fact I would rather not talk about this person as they do have people who still claim what she did wasn't plagiarism in her Draco's Trilogy. The events occurred over ten years ago and every so often you will see the issue pop up around her professional work that she has published under a similar name. One thing I can give her credit for is the fact she apparently learned from her mistakes and plagiarism hasn't occurred in her professional novels.

Plagiarism did occur and it caused her to lose her account over on the site that she used which is also the site I use a lot myself. Despite the side by side comparisons some fans claim that there was no plagiarism going on. Why? Because the writer was properly credited, thus it can't be plagiarism. There is debate as to whether things were actually properly credited. My main point though is it doesn't matter if you credit if you take large chunks from another writers work. Large chunks were taken from Pamela Deans

Why bring this up? There are many, many other issues with the Cassandra Claire case that I don't want to go into. The issue I'm bringing up here is that there are people out there who mistakenly think that to prevent yourself from a plagiarism case you simply have to credit the person when that is far from true. The point of being a writer is to be your own self and to write your own works. There are times when you may need to use the words of another, but they should be used sparingly. In both cases I've mentioned the "plagiarism debacle" won't go away and mars their reputation.

It also can have a negative effect on the rest of the fanfiction community. There are people out there who believe that all fanfiction is plagiarism, which brings me to the other reason I had to bring up Cassandra Claire. She's the source of this rumor albeit she did not intend to be the source of this rumor. Some of her fans attempted to defend her after she was caught plagiarizing and people started becoming confused as to what plagiarism was. Adding to this problem was the fact she had a friend who was a lawyer and supposedly knew what she was talking about when she did not.v

As I've already said... "copyright infringement means using another writers characters without permission, while plagiarism means claiming the work as your own". A few people may remember what I said earlier when I brought up the fact disclaimers don't always work and everyone is sure to remember now. If plagiarism means what I said it does, then shouldn't a disclaimer still work? Nope. Remember how I said amount is important? Even if you give due credit it is still claiming it as your own work if you use too much of the original work or too much of your own work is comprised of another writers.

This said... what exactly is the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism? One is as I said the act of not having permission while the other is an issue of cheating. Yeah... some people may think that using another persons characters and setting is cheating. Sometimes though the ideas stuck in your head can only be used for those sets of characters. There is also a lot of work that still goes into writing a good fanfic as well.

Another thing that people don't realize is that not all fanfiction is guilty of copyright infringement just like they don't realize that not all plagiarism cases are also guilty of copyright infringement. Take for example the works of Shakespeare. No... I'm not talking about the debate that his work is fanfiction or that his work is plagiarism. I'm using his work as an example of a work that is out of copyright. If you want to write Shakespeare fanfiction you can publish it and make money off of it. In the same token if you plagiarize Shakespeare you're not guilty of copyright infringement because his work has fallen out of copyright.

There is another type of fanfiction that isn't guilty of copyright infringement and that is the tie in novel. There was a major uproar over Kindle worlds because it was fanfiction for profit, but what people didn't realize was that these works are actually tie in novels. One of the major differences between regular fanfiction and tie in novels is the fact the writers have permission to write the stuff they do. Another difference is that tie in novels can become canon like in the case of the Star Wars and Star Trek fandoms. Or even Drizzt Do'Urden from D&D.

The reason the vast majority of fanfiction is copyright infringement is because it infringes upon the writers right to create more. Many writers have come to over look fanfiction because it amounts to free advertizing for them and also because the fans don't make any money off the work. There is though the fear that fans will use fanfiction in some way to make money and some have in fact tried to do so... or even done so. Some of these people believe that it is within their rights to do so as well.

One such fan is Lady Sybilla of the Twilight fandom. She honestly believed that she could publish a sequel to the Twilight series and get away with it. I'm not talking about posting it to a site like wattpad or another site that hosts fanfiction for free. I'm talking about going through a professional publisher and making money of the Eventually she ended up releasing it for free to libraries and not being able to make any profit on the One of her claims happens to be this.

"The characters in SM's novels were not copyrighted because she never drew them or hired an artist to draw them. Today she shares her character copyrights with Summit. And, no, Russet Noon does not have direct permission from SM to publish this sequel, which is why the article says that it is a "Tribute" or "Unauthorized" Sequel.viii"

Is what she said actually true? It is true that you can't copyright a character type anymore then you can copyright a basic idea. A character can still be copyrighted if they "...have been developed and constituent original expressionix" according to Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. While it is true that characters with visual representation are more likely to be considered copyrighted this doesn't mean those in books aren't protected.x

The reason for copyright though is to protect the writer's rights to produce something so that they have no form of competition when it comes to the work they put out. There is no point for a writer to make more of a series if something else is competing in the market. This not only includes sequels, but also adaptations and merchandise that goes along with said work. An unauthorized sequel would not fall under fair

Lady Sybilla also said this about what she was doing. "Every universe or, to put it in more commercial terms, franchise, feeds off our fantasies, dreams and hard earned dollars. When we give life to a universe, when we become its fans and financial supporters, we become the human batteries that keep its matrix alive.xii"

This kinds of statements from fans are problematic in the fact there are fans out here who believe this way, that the original creators owe them something. This usually accumulates in the idea that the story should have been written the way they wanted it to be, but in this case it accumulated in the idea that they should be able to earn the money they put into the fandom back. The first problem with statements like this one is the fact it's not just one fan putting their money into the fandom.

The second problem with this statement is the fact this fan would have been gaining back more money then they had ever put into the fandom in the first place. In fact, they would have been taking the money Meyer would have gotten if she had written a sequel. So if you use the logic this person happens to be using, it's not just an issue of them from stealing from Meyer but also gullible fans who would have bought said sequel.

This isn't though the only issue involving fanfiction and copyright infringement. The other issue is the "pull to publish" issue. The way this works is that a writer takes their fanfiction and retools it for original publication. The main argument proponents of "pull to publish" is that the stories are their own. They wrote them, so they can do what ever they want to do with them. Is this in fact true? Truth of the matter is nobody knows for sure because none of the writers of the original work have yet to take someone who "pulled to publish" to court over this matter. I can see it eventually happening though.

The way I've long come to understand it though is that whatever fanfiction you write is in fact owned by the original creator of the series simply because you used their copyrighted characters in order to write said story. One of the arguments against this is that the works being "pulled to published" in fact did not resemble the original characters at all personality wise so there is no connection to the original work what so ever. My first answer to this is that it is no longer fanfiction and is just original fiction disguised as fanfiction. This in itself poses an issue, but more on that in a bit.

If the characters resemble their original selves then the writer who is "pull to publishing" is in effect committing copyright infringement on the original writer. What's really problematic is that the success of Cassandra Claire as well as E.L. James has in fact caused other writers to begin to "pull to publish". Not all writers are able to strip away the origins of what they have written from the works they sell. Many are simply doing word changes and a good portion of what they wrote is the original fanfiction rather then the writer starting from scratch.

This includes CC and E.L. James. Some people may be saying here, but CC's work is nothing like Harry Potter. This would be because the characterizations aren't based off Rowling's versions of the characters but fanon versions. It is still recognized as being a part of the Harry Potter fandom. E.L. James work also still comes across as Bella Swan and Edward if you really dig into things. Some people here may be thinking... well, they didn't get sued so they must be in the right.

Not necessarily. The first question comes up is whether or not the writers or their publishers have taken the chance to look over the works. In the case of CC we have a writer who used fanon versions of the characters and drastically reworked the world into a new world by pretty much taking elements that are recognized as coming from other fandoms. This also said one of the reasons the movies may or may not have been close to the books would because the movie producers decided to strip the movie of anything that might be taken as copyright infringement, like the flying motorcycle.

In E.L James situation it is a little more complicated. On one side it could be argued that E.L. James used character types as Twilight is only comprised as character types within the story. On the other side she used the exact same set of character types Meyer did. Another issue is the fact Meyer choose not to read E.L. James book because BDSM isn't her genre. She also tends to be unaware of the fact it was a "pull to publish" of a Twilight fanfic and is under the impression it was just written by a fan. This means that she would be unaware of actual copyright infringement within the book series. This means if she were to become aware of actual copyright infringement she can still sue.

Is it really possible to tell if the characters are a knock off of another persons characters let alone one character? The answer is yes. The more traits two characters share the more one is able to identify said character or characters as having originated from a particular story. In one particular case involving Bleach fanfiction I came across a story where the writer tried pairing an original character or OC up with Hitsugaya Toshiro. Except said character wasn't an original character to that writer.

As I read the first chapter and read the flashbacks the character had to her past I realized that said character was actually Hojo Satoko from the Higurashi series. It wasn't just that the supposed OC shard the looks and personality of said character, she also had the same tragic past. The real clue was the fact the girl had a catchphrase that was very distinctive to the series which while changed slightly for the fic made it very obvious that the writer was trying to steal another writers character.

There is nothing wrong with borrowing elements from other characters, but you have to make them their own. This is one of the arguments a lot of the "pull to publish" make is that they made the characters their own. Not all writers are doing this though and some if not many of the "pull to publish" works are unable to stand on their own without prior knowledge to the series and thus rely on the writer to sell to a particular fanbase. This type of selling to a fanbase isn't the same as the selling to the fanbase by saying that a story is like another fandom, or will be the next fandom, though some people feel it is the same.

Why would people decide to "pull to publish"?

I read within the last year a story about one writer who decided to "pull and publish" because of the way the economy was going. She and her husband were going through hard times and he had been the main bread winner. She wanted a way to help out so she was going to try the one way she knew how despite the fact she knew it was a gamble. Other writers have really good ideas in their fanfiction and they take and rewrite the stories with their own characters to publish and end up with a very new story. In some cases it's not really "pull to publish" as the writer has left the fanfic up there, the idea being that they started from scratch on the work they put out.

The vast majority do it because they want a way to make money and they don't care about the ethics they have to employ to get the money. There is a new group emerging though that gets preyed on by publishing companies looking to make a quick buck on something they know that will succeed. Let me emphasize the fact some publishing companies do in fact prey on writers who are popular in fandom. This includes writers who write RPF as well. Popularity doesn't equate quality.

The first thing I'm going to say is that RPF that gets "pulled to publish" doesn't have to deal with copyright. Despite the fact the characters are based on real people they are still the writer's own characters. Thus there is less issue taking RPF from popfic to original fiction. The second thing I'm going to say is that I'm not referring to Anna Todd and her RPF series After. That is a case where popularity does equate quality. She's not really "pulled to publish" either as the work is still available here on wattpad.

I'm specifically referring to a case that involves a young writer who at the time was not yet out of high school. A publishing company approached her because she was very popular on another site and offered her a publishing contract which led to the "pull to publish" of her work. Instead of getting someone to edit her work for grammar and syntax issues her work was instead edited so that the work ended up being censored compared to the original work. The big kicker though is this young writer has dreams of being a professional writer and this will actually make it harder for her.

One of the reasons I bring this up is because this guide is aimed towards parents wondering about fanfiction. There are a lot of tricky issues that young writers can fumble over and one of them is the temptation to "pull to publish". Some parents are blind to their own child's ability to write and if a publishing contract comes their child's way they may not think twice about it. Logic says that said publishing company wouldn't put forth a contract if the writing isn't good. They hear that their child's story was popular as well, so they think it must be good writing.

In reality it typically isn't the good quality works that become popular. Anna Todd is actually from my experience is a major exception to the rule. Why go after a popular work that doesn't have good quality though? Simple. The lower quality the work is the more the publisher is able to get away with. For example, as I mentioned the young writers work was censored from the original version. There is no telling what kind of contract that writer and their parents signed either... they very well could have signed away the young writers rights to make a sequel.

That's how serious the situation is. My greatest concern is for young writers but even some adults can be lured into the trap of thinking a publishing company thinks they're good because they're willing to pick up the work for publication. From what I'm seeing though it is a lot of young writers that are being picked up by publishers when it comes to RPF. No... that one girl I mentioned isn't the only one, but she stood out because she did an interview about becoming a published writer.

While they're getting a lot of positive reviews from the fans who know they've published the negative ones end up saying a lot about the books and it isn't good things. Parents... there is a reason why publishing tends to be held off until a writer is an adult. Writer's are still maturing in their writing ability at this period of time. It doesn't matter if the writer is a young writer, since they published professionally they're subject to the criticism that comes with being a published writer.

Getting back to fanfiction though ... works based off copyright and thus possibly subject to lawsuit based on copyright law. I admit here that they may not be subject to lawsuit except for a small few that you really can tell are derivative works off the back. This said... there are repercussions for the fandom despite the fact it may not be subject to copyright law? Why?

Again, there is the act of preying on people when it comes to "pull-to-publish" works. Not all writers start out writing the fanfiction in order to write fanfiction. Some actually do write the fanfiction with the intent to "pull-to-publish" when everything is said and done. Fandoms like Twilight are major targets for a few reason. First and foremost the characters are types and not fleshed out, which also makes it easier not to have a lawsuit filed against them. The fanbase of fandoms like Twilight tend to be gullible.

Before people say here it is rude to call the fans of Twilight gullible let me make it clear that most teens are gullible and it is adults who are using the fact the fandom is filled with teens still learning about writing to their advantage. These adults look down on the young writers so much they don't offer criticism which could help these young writers improve and instead force them to the outside of the writers group because of their age. Which is rather ironic as I've met young writers who are better then some of the adult writers I know.

There is also now this fear many readers voice about fanfiction. Certain readers don't like reading incomplete works anymore because they fear as soon as the work is complete that said work will be "pulled-to-publish". While the "pull-to-publish" is occurring mostly in fandoms like Twilight there are some readers who fear it in all fandoms. There is also another fear... that a writer who supported fanfiction or was neutral on the matter suddenly comes out and says they are no longer fine. This means that fanfiction for this particular fandom would have to go underground.

On top of this lines are beginning to blur as to what fanfiction is. Well, I really don't mean the line is blurred, but in some people's eyes it is. I'm seeing more and more original fiction published as fanfiction because the younger writers see older writers doing it and it has a domino effect. Instead of being able to find stories that are about the canon the readers are finding stories that have nothing to do with the fandom and are like some kind of odd shoot off of said fandom.

In the long run though the matter is complicated. Since I may have a biasi  highly recomend people doing their own researchonth  is matter.

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i Plagiarism dot org "What is Plagiarism?" retrieved 8/17/2014.

ii Plagiarism dot org "What is Plagiarism?" retrieved 8/17/2014.

iii Plagiarism dot org "What is Plagiarism?" retrieved 8/17/2014.

iv white_serpent, journalfen: bad_penny, "The Cassandra Claire Plagirism Debacle, 8/04/2014

v white_serpent, journalfen: bad_penny, "The Cassandra Claire Plagirism Debacle, 8/04/2014

vi Jane Smith, "Train Wreck Now Boarding On Platform Two!", How Publishing Really Works, 9/26/2009

vii "Russet Noon", Fanlore, retrieved 8/21/2014

viii Jane Smith, "Train Wreck Now Boarding On Platform Two!", How Publishing Really Works, 9/26/2009

ix Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, "Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers about Fan Fiction)", Standord center for Internet & Society, retrieved 8/21/2014

x Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, "Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers about Fan Fiction)", Standord center for Internet & Society, retrieved 8/21/2014

xi "Fair Use", U.S. Copyright Office, retrievied 8/21/2014

xii "Russet Noon", Fanlore, retrieved 8/21/2014