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What's that cliché? I think it's Chinese? "May you live in interesting times?" Reading posts about ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scans_daily's deletion as well as the many Racefail '09 posts made me think this is true. We're living in interesting times as we get this internet thing worked out, and interesting times are wearying!
Regarding the S_D deletion, I was reading the post in Peter David's (PAD) blog. For those who don't know, PAD is a comics writer who has been linked to the deletion of S_D, though it's unclear exactly what role he played for sure, if any. S_D was deleted because it was posting scans from comic books to the extent that it was copyright infringement. There has been much fighting in many places, including on PAD's blog. (Personally, I was less struck by his S_D post than I was by the post before that, which he describes as the thread that got him called a racist because he started a conversation on racism and that’s why wecan't have nice things can't talk about racism. to me it reads like a statement about racism (that some people disagreed with) illustrated by a list of black people behaving badly, and a call for other white people to offer their own similar anecdotes. Since his readers feel people are not misrepresenting him, here's the actual post so it can speak for itself if you care to read it.
To go back to the S_D post--which I realize sounds a bit trivial next to, you know, racism!--I've been reading a lot of exchanges recently between readers and authors. As the name on your favorite book an author might seem awe-inspiring, but listening to him/her say stupid or offensive stuff on his/her blog can make you think oh, but s/he's also just an idiot you no longer care to read.
But the other side of it was what struck me more reading the thread on PAD’s blog. The copyright violations on S_D were refreshingly straightforward: people were posting the actual pages of comics, so what was being posted was the creator's work itself. It didn't get into so much of the grey areas that you get with fanfic or fanvids. However, in some of the anti-S_D comments some of that same contempt crept in that you hear in anti_fanfic and fanvid discussions. At least once both those things were referenced with people saying "If you think S_D was okay you're probably one of those people who thinks fanfic isn't stealing as long as you slap a "these characters aren't mine" label on it!" and "fanvids aren't art, they're just pathetic stealing from real artists."
In conversations about fanfic on the notorious Lee Goldberg's blog people tend to start out talking about how fanfic writers aren't "real writers" and are pathetic because they write about other peoples' characters and worlds instead of creating their own. People then invariably point out that Lee Goldeberg *writes media tie-ins*, a job which entails writing original stories about other peoples' worlds and characters. To which he responds that he's got the permission of the copyright holder. You see what they do there? In the end the only real difference is that permission from the copyright holder--who often isn't even the creator—and the paycheck, yet they would really rather be creating the only real "art" as well.
The internet squashes fans and artists together so that suddenly all this stuff they’ve been doing all along (talking like idiots; writing fanfic) is seen by the other. Some artists are fine with fans writing fic, some aren't. Some fans happily enjoy it while some…are infuriated by it. Sometimes it sounds like those fans feel others are getting above themselves by trying to create, and threatening the natural order of things where the artist gives us a product and we passively appreciate it in the way the artist tells us to appreciate it. Like it's not only presumptuous, it's embarrassing. Maybe a little queer if you can't whip out a paycheck to show you're making money off it.
It's like they think fans don't know their proper role, or don't understand the clear divide between writer and audience, because we act like it isn't there, like the writer and the fan can both be storytellers, even if one might be a better one or tell a more popular story. (And one might have created more original stuff.) Sometimes it seems like that's why people defend copyright so vigorously; because it's the closest thing to a law about these roles they can imagine. "You're taking money out of the pocket of the guy who created this stuff!" even when the artists have a work-made-for-hire contract and don't own anything. Or if the creator has been dead for years and the copyright is now held by relatives who didn't have any more to do with creating the thing than the average fan does.
I read once that what you do on IRL is what you do on the internet: people who keep journals journal, gardeners talk about gardening, gamers play games. Writers publish. So when they see somebody has posted a fanfic, they see a person having published a story. Fans talk. They go over to someone's house, hang out and talk about the canon you love. When they post a story, it's more like telling it, imo, passing it around for discussion and appreciation. Some writers look at the internet as a virtual publishing house or bookshop. They don’t realize fans think they’re in their virtual basement. And that's why fans aren't going to back down. You get to tell us what not to do in your publishing house; but you don't get to tell us what we talk about or how we talk in our basement. You are not on a stage while we are in the audience, we're all constantly shifting depending who's talking.
scans_daily's deletion as well as the many Racefail '09 posts made me think this is true. We're living in interesting times as we get this internet thing worked out, and interesting times are wearying!Regarding the S_D deletion, I was reading the post in Peter David's (PAD) blog. For those who don't know, PAD is a comics writer who has been linked to the deletion of S_D, though it's unclear exactly what role he played for sure, if any. S_D was deleted because it was posting scans from comic books to the extent that it was copyright infringement. There has been much fighting in many places, including on PAD's blog. (Personally, I was less struck by his S_D post than I was by the post before that, which he describes as the thread that got him called a racist because he started a conversation on racism and that’s why we
To go back to the S_D post--which I realize sounds a bit trivial next to, you know, racism!--I've been reading a lot of exchanges recently between readers and authors. As the name on your favorite book an author might seem awe-inspiring, but listening to him/her say stupid or offensive stuff on his/her blog can make you think oh, but s/he's also just an idiot you no longer care to read.
But the other side of it was what struck me more reading the thread on PAD’s blog. The copyright violations on S_D were refreshingly straightforward: people were posting the actual pages of comics, so what was being posted was the creator's work itself. It didn't get into so much of the grey areas that you get with fanfic or fanvids. However, in some of the anti-S_D comments some of that same contempt crept in that you hear in anti_fanfic and fanvid discussions. At least once both those things were referenced with people saying "If you think S_D was okay you're probably one of those people who thinks fanfic isn't stealing as long as you slap a "these characters aren't mine" label on it!" and "fanvids aren't art, they're just pathetic stealing from real artists."
In conversations about fanfic on the notorious Lee Goldberg's blog people tend to start out talking about how fanfic writers aren't "real writers" and are pathetic because they write about other peoples' characters and worlds instead of creating their own. People then invariably point out that Lee Goldeberg *writes media tie-ins*, a job which entails writing original stories about other peoples' worlds and characters. To which he responds that he's got the permission of the copyright holder. You see what they do there? In the end the only real difference is that permission from the copyright holder--who often isn't even the creator—and the paycheck, yet they would really rather be creating the only real "art" as well.
The internet squashes fans and artists together so that suddenly all this stuff they’ve been doing all along (talking like idiots; writing fanfic) is seen by the other. Some artists are fine with fans writing fic, some aren't. Some fans happily enjoy it while some…are infuriated by it. Sometimes it sounds like those fans feel others are getting above themselves by trying to create, and threatening the natural order of things where the artist gives us a product and we passively appreciate it in the way the artist tells us to appreciate it. Like it's not only presumptuous, it's embarrassing. Maybe a little queer if you can't whip out a paycheck to show you're making money off it.
It's like they think fans don't know their proper role, or don't understand the clear divide between writer and audience, because we act like it isn't there, like the writer and the fan can both be storytellers, even if one might be a better one or tell a more popular story. (And one might have created more original stuff.) Sometimes it seems like that's why people defend copyright so vigorously; because it's the closest thing to a law about these roles they can imagine. "You're taking money out of the pocket of the guy who created this stuff!" even when the artists have a work-made-for-hire contract and don't own anything. Or if the creator has been dead for years and the copyright is now held by relatives who didn't have any more to do with creating the thing than the average fan does.
I read once that what you do on IRL is what you do on the internet: people who keep journals journal, gardeners talk about gardening, gamers play games. Writers publish. So when they see somebody has posted a fanfic, they see a person having published a story. Fans talk. They go over to someone's house, hang out and talk about the canon you love. When they post a story, it's more like telling it, imo, passing it around for discussion and appreciation. Some writers look at the internet as a virtual publishing house or bookshop. They don’t realize fans think they’re in their virtual basement. And that's why fans aren't going to back down. You get to tell us what not to do in your publishing house; but you don't get to tell us what we talk about or how we talk in our basement. You are not on a stage while we are in the audience, we're all constantly shifting depending who's talking.
