Gauging Opinion - Is It Legit...

Off the top of my head I would assume that copywrite law is involved with this. There is a disclaimer attached to the law that any reproductions that you sell for money is a no no.

As for the public domain stuff, that would be another story. They reproduce the Bible and sell it all the time. (Biggest example I could think of.)

I bet the TV stuff is not public domain as the time period for it is still in effect. Fan fiction is in that ball park also. IMHO. Without the 'holders' permission I would say it would be against copywrite.

I guess I am not real sure of what you are asking?

1) If you mean advertising a public-domain collection in a writer's or other industry magazine, go ahead -- I'm sure they'd love to take your advertising money for a product that might well be had for free online.

I can see this in the scholarly fields, if you have a new translation of some medieval poetry, a limited-edition printing from a high-end press, and a niche market that might be interested in it. Just calling yourself 'editor' without some value added won't attract positive attention.

2) I write fanfic, for fun and practice. I wouldn't sell it, because that's ILLEGAL. It's another person's universe, and I shouldn't profit from it.
The only way you're going to make money off fanfic is if you have a name as a writer already, and if it's estate-or-creator-sanctioned fanfic, like J.J. Abrams' reboot of Star Trek or Scalzi's modernization of H. Beam Piper's 'Fuzzy' universe. Try selling it on your own, especially if it's based off TV characters, and you could have lawyers breathing down your neck in no time.

If you are a very good fanfic writer -- and yes, they do exist -- you might get a little spillover interest in your original works.

Neither of these gambits will help you gain widespread interest in your original writing. Only your original writing can do that. Anything else is at best a creative exercise, and at worst a waste of time.

I guess they think they've hit on a clever way to make some easy money, attaching themselves in various ways to big names and trying to cash in on them. My guess is they won't get far. Maybe it's more likely they'll just be ignored than get into any real legal trouble. It sounds like a pretty naive little scheme. But, I guess you never know.

The first you can do, if the work is public domain. The second is illegal- you can't sell fanfiction. (In Japan, I believe you can sell it at a loss of greater than $0.01, but not at a profit.) Leveraging fanfic readers into original fiction readers, however, has been done. You have to deal with figuring out how many are willing to pay for your writing, rather than just reading it for free, as well as those who only want to read about familiar characters, but you can build a fanfic audience pretty quick.

Publishing public domain works is perfectly legit. Someone's got to keep them in print and available. A good publisher will add some value by doing something like commissioning an academic or literary critic to write an introduction.

Selling fanfic, aside from in the form of official tie-in works, which are usually commissioned anyway, is illegal. You can sell books that are essentially fan fiction of public domain works - Sherlock Holmes and Dracula and the like still show up in stories all over the place.

Filigree said:

I write fanfic, for fun and practice. I wouldn't sell it, because that's ILLEGAL. It's another person's universe, and I shouldn't profit from it.
The only way you're going to make money off fanfic is if you have a name as a writer already, and if it's estate-or-creator-sanctioned fanfic, like J.J. Abrams' reboot of Star Trek or Scalzi's modernization of H. Beam Piper's 'Fuzzy' universe. Try selling it on your own, especially if it's based off TV characters, and you could have lawyers breathing down your neck in no time.

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I know an aspiring writer from a comic book website who planned to self-publish and sell to readers a story featuring Freddie Kreuger, Hannibal Lecter, Michael Myers, and many, many other proprietary characters. He said he would run into no legal trouble doing this because the comic would "impart knowledge" by way of the back stories he'd have them recall to and pondered by a psychiatrist. All he would have to do, he said, is a bit of research into psychiatry first and apply what he learned from it to his comic, and he'd be legally scott free to publish and sell his comic because that is "imparting knowledge." This wasn't social satire, mind you. It was simply an poseur-psychiatric look at his favorite proprietary characters and telling of whatever back stories he cobbled together for Freddie and company.

I called my friend, who worked as one of New Line Cinema's top attorneys for years -- and whose wife still does -- and he laughed at the idea, telling me that that writer was fishing for a lawsuit.

Writers jumping on either of these bandwagons in hopes of a fast way to the top are similar to folks who buy perpetual motion kits from ads in the back of magazines. The energy you get back is always less than what you put into the system.

I've seen the phenomena, too, FOTSGreg, and I tend to sigh at it on my better days. When I'm feeling vicious and catty, I look at as the competition slitting its own throat.

FOTSGreg said:

...and what do you think about the following,

1. Publishing public domain fiction (such as a collection of stories by Jules Verne) wrapped up in a nice cover and selling it for money with an "editor's" name on the cover of an ostensibly specfic magazine.

2. Selling fanfic work that uses actual characters from a popular TV series in order to garner interest in your other work or as your own original work.

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1. This is done all the time, often with an editor's introduction, which validates the copyright on the whole work. But the original work is still in the public domain.

2. Do this only if you want to be firebombed by IP lawyers and your bones hung over the entrance to Disneyland.

What's wrong with 1.? The editor is doing the work of selecting the stories, perhaps adding introductions or footnotes or afternotes where necessary, perhaps deciding which version to use (where there are varying ones), copy editing where necessary, etc. I fail to see how there's any potential issue there--what would you have to "avert your eyes" from? Am I missing something?

I don't see anything wrong with 1. Of course, you do have to be careful whence you source the public domain work. A lot of novels and so forth that are in the public domain have had edits done that are probably still copyright to the editor, or the publisher who employed them, for example when choosing between variant texts, or attempting to correct corrupt text.

The only potential problem (beyond the editor actively deceiving purchasers) I can see is people feeling that no editing has actually been done by the purported editor, and perhaps feeling less kindly inclined towards them in the future. There are ways to add value to public domain works, eg by adding original notes, a glossary, and so on.

I have seen versions of Dickens' work given away with the Sony ereader and tbh they are awful. Some of the text doesn't scale, and at one point in Barnaby Rudge the text was interrupted by a dateline. So a more carefully edited version might have value.

However, I'm not sure that establishing themselves as an *editor* will do someone much good in their career as a *writer*.

2 is most definitely not legit. I remember encountering someone online who repeatedly boasted how their fanfic novels had helped them acquire a reader base for their original works. (I don't think they actually charged for the fanfic; I think it was on a display site). I thought this a pretty tacky approach tbh, but, if they were to be believed, it worked for them. Whether they had acquired fans who were willing to pay for their work is unknowable.

Neither seems very respectable to me. Whether they're legally legitimate depends on factors which are probably beyond my comprehension at this point, but I know that neither sounds respectable.

(If the editor in option 1 is doing actual work in editing and compiling an anthology, then yes, that's totally legit.)

In order to stop this turning into another thread where everyone pips in with "DO NOT SELL FANFIC", I want to point out that there is a massive market out there for the public domain characters - indeed, people have been writing fanfic for as long as there have been writings available. The majority of Greek epics can be considered fanfic, and the Anno Dracula, Wold Newton and League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen series can be seen as fanfic. As long as all of the properties are in the public domain (go look at how many books with Dracula are out there - all of them are fanfics), and spend a little time looking at why the same characters keep on being used.

I have paid a considerable amount of money buying the various Wold Newton books over the years, so it feels okay to me to use PD characters. One of the most interesting fanfics is from Stephen King, where Sherlock Holmes turns up (and any Sherlock Holmes story not by Conan Doyle is automatically a fanfic)...

It doesn't matter what MY opinion of copyright law is. It remains law.

As for putting out a version of work in the public domain: You'd have to add considerable value to it, via original commentary or other useful material, for me to buy it.

CACTUSWENDY said:

As for the public domain stuff, that would be another story. They reproduce the Bible and sell it all the time. (Biggest example I could think of.)

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Actually, translations of the Bible are copyrighted. KJV is the most common version used for quotes and suchforth because it's public domain. Companies that put out Bible study guides and devotionals will usually use the version for which they hold the copyright. if they don't own a copyright they will fall back on KJV or procure licensing.

Buffysquirrel said:

2 is most definitely not legit. I remember encountering someone online who repeatedly boasted how their fanfic novels had helped them acquire a reader base for their original works. (I don't think they actually charged for the fanfic; I think it was on a display site). I thought this a pretty tacky approach tbh, but, if they were to be believed, it worked for them. Whether they had acquired fans who were willing to pay for their work is unknowable.

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I know in one case of a former fanfic writer doing this, the fans seem to be divided on their feelings regarding her using her fan base to launch into novel writing career.

But there's no denying that her original works do appear to be selling and her fans easily made the jump from her fanfic with her.

FOTSGreg said:

Selling fanfic work that uses actual characters from a popular TV series in order to garner interest in your other work or as your own original work.

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The way this is phrased bothers me.

Some writers started out as fanfiction writers, never sold their fanfics, and yet have launched successful careers writing original stuff. Usually a large percentage of their fans make the leap with them and continue to support their original novels.

Doing one does not automatically assume one is doing the other.

It just reads like that the author had to sell fanfic in order to gather the necessary fanbase to start a novel writing career.

I say this because in all the instances of where I read someone was trying to sell fanfiction based on currently in copyright active status, they have been dogpiled by the fandoms at large and pressured to take it down/stop. So I'm not aware of anyone who was 'successful' in selling fanfiction to gather interest for their original stuff.

Writing it, yes. Selling it, no.

CACTUSWENDY said:

As for the public domain stuff, that would be another story. They reproduce the Bible and sell it all the time. (Biggest example I could think of.)

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The Bible is not, in general, public domain. The Queen and the Stationer's Office own the copyright on the King James 1611 edition; others, like the New English and RSV are also under copyright with various publishers.

The bible is a translation; they are all different.

bearilou said:

I say this because in all the instances of where I read someone was trying to sell fanfiction based on currently in copyright active status, they have been dogpiled by the fandoms at large and pressured to take it down/stop. So I'm not aware of anyone who was 'successful' in selling fanfiction to gather interest for their original stuff.

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There's no faster way to lose a fanfic audience than to try and profit from the original author's work. Fanfic readers are (generally) an extremely loyal bunch.

Medievalist said:

The Bible is not, in general, public domain. The Queen and the Stationer's Office own the copyright on the King James 1611 edition;

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This is one of those 'betcha didn't know' things.

Does this mean the Queen has special copyright privileges that last longer than Berne Convention limits? Curious minds want to know.

dangerousbill said:

This is one of those 'betcha didn't know' things.

Does this mean the Queen has special copyright privileges that last longer than Berne Convention limits? Curious minds want to know.

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There's the actual 1611 version, which is public domain with certain gotchas (a new edition based on the 1611 edition is not public domain) but it has to do with the idea that the Crown is rather like a corporation. That said, having contacted HRH's Stationer's Office Registry for permissions to use the later revised KJV for scholarly purposes, they didn't charge UCLA a dime, just asked for a statement of rights.

Phaeal said:

As for putting out a version of work in the public domain: You'd have to add considerable value to it, via original commentary or other useful material, for me to buy it.

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Exactly. And I'd expect the editor to have special expertise.

bearilou said:

But there's no denying that her original works do appear to be selling and her fans easily made the jump from her fanfic with her.

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I know such a person, too. (Not me.) She is doing very well as a romance-suspense writer after an apprenticeship doing Phantom of the Opera fanfic. Much of her fanfic audience followed in spite of the change of subject.

Public domain is one thing, but when books like "Married to the MIB" where the MMC is "a Man in Black, a special agent dedicated to protecting Earth from temporal and extraterrestrial threats" is being sold on Amazon ... you really gotta wonder if fanfic is becomeing defacto legal to sell.