I’ve heard second-hand that the late science fiction and fantasy author Marian Zimmer Bradley once lost the rights to part of her Darkover world to a fan author. Said fan apparently sued her over the similarity between a story written by the fan and one written by MZB. Does anyone know the full details of this? Thanks!
– Bob
Bob, I can’t say I’ve heard of this, and I would have thought I would have (being an aspiring SF author myself). I wouldn’t be surprised if a fan might have tried to sue over this, but I would be extremely surprised if he won.
Basically, any fan fiction is by definition a derivative work and is allowed to exist only at the pleasure of the original author–the copyright on it, effectively, never belonged to the fan, and always to MZB. Fanfic is one of those interesting areas that has no “rights” per se; Paramount/Viacom could easily shut down all the Star Trek fanfic if they wanted to, but they know it’s good for them. However, they still retain all the rights to the characters and so forth.
LL
Lazarus, I know about this second hand because it is the justifcation Mercedes Lackey uses for her stringent fan fiction policy. After hearing fragmentary descriptions of it for several years, though, I thought I’d try to track down the entire story.
FWIW, a cursory search of The Rumor Mill turns up nothing on the subject. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and if Mercedes Lackey uses it as justification, then that certainly lends credence. More I can’t say, though, but I look forward to hearing if anyone else knows. I may also crosspost this over to the RM.
LL
Hmm. Further comments on your reply; sorry about my other, curt response.
That’s not exactly correct. US Copyright law does not make exemptions for fan fiction – once you write it, you have copyright, period. This is why fanfiction is potentially damaging to “live” franchies like Lackey’s and, apparently, MZB’s Darkover – if the fan author can demonstrate that the pro author had the opportunity to see the fan work prior to producing a similar work of their own, the fan can sue over the “plagiarism”. This is, by the reports I have seen, what happened to MZB. And the result can be that the original author can lose the rights to create stories in a whole area that might have otherwise been open to them.
No argument there. A couple of franchises have tried that in recent years, but most realized they were alienating the fan base which filled their pockets and stopped quickly enough. Doesn’t mean they won’t try a different tack – the recent establishment of an official “Star Trek” website by Paramount to provide a “home” for fans and fan authors included (buried in its terms of service) the automatic transfer of copyright to Paramount for any fanfiction posted on the site…
Hmm. Or am I misremembering, and it was a Star Wars site? Damn, now I can’t be sure.
http://www.freeadvice.com/gov_material/copyright-office-derivative-works-circular-14.htm
Just a quick Altavista search turned this up. Fanfic is copyrightable–but only the author has the ability to authorize the creation and subsequent copyright of the fanfic. Or at least, that’s how I interpret this document.
It’s a fine line, certainly, and it’s hard to say. That a fan would sue an author over plagiarism implies that the fan’s a bit overzealous 
LL
I’ve heard of something similar, but more believable, in my mind. As with BobSchroeck, I’ve only heard of this second-hand, from Joseph Michael Stracynski, the creator of Babylon 5. In the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5, he said the reason he disapproved of Babylon 5 fan-fiction was because of an incident that happened to MZB.
She had been working on a new novel for about a year or two, when the publisher looked at her drafts, and noted that the storyline was similar to a fanfic set in her universe. For fear of a lawsuit from the fan, or accusations of plagiarism, the publisher canned the novel. Over a year of work, gone.
To me, this makes more sense, that the other author didn’t actually sue MZB, but that the fear of a lawsuit in this day and age, or even merely the cost of defending against a lawsuit was enough for the publisher to reject the novel.
I do believe that Star Wars authors are strictly forbidden from reading fan fiction, due to the fact that if a story turns out similar, they can be sued.
One of the things that I enjoy reading is some Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction. (It’s probably detrimental to my writing career, but it passes the time.) An email list I am on related to this recently had a discussion regarding the legality of fanfiction. It’s on very sketchy legal ground inasmuch as it is inheriently a copywrite violation.
I’ve yet to see a fanfiction story that doesn’t have some variation of this at the top:
Title: Goat-felchers ate my baby
Author: That girl (bob@bob.com)
Plot summary: Squicking can be fun in a safe sex environment.
Disclaimer: The SDMB universe and all of its characters are owned by the Chicago Reader, Lucifer Heart and Soul, and my Aunt Trudy. No copywrite infringement is intended.
Fan sites, as it were, are quite vehement in their disclaimers. I think that the original work is copywrited, but a court would be hard pressed to say that an original author is ripping off someone who is using their characters. Also, an individual fan up against a publishing house and/or a tv company?
I have also heard that series writers stay away from fanfic- not just to avoid accidental plagerism, but also because of a dislike of the medium.
That, and the fact that the average fanfic out there merits something between a form-one rejection and ritual burning.
(Disclaimer: Yeah, I wrote my share of fanfic (Star Trek). It started out bad. It got much better. Then I outgrew it and started writing my own stories. Fanfic writers are undeveloped authors who need the practice, but most of the actual fanfic is crap.)
LL