Can you make money off someone else?

[Dante's Stalker]

:O!!!!!!!!!!!!

The question seems a bit out there, but hear me out.
I'll use DMC as an example (so please do not sue me Capcom/NT).
You're a BIG fan of the franchise, and because you can't stand waiting for Capcom to bring out a new story, you write one and ditch it into the DMC section of Fanfiction.net.
You write your little fingers off, until finally, one day far in the future, you finish it. You have a 400,000 word novel on your hands, and you have about 300 people who have favourited/alerted/reviewed it. It's well received in the fandom. You take it to another place, say this here forum, and the response is 'awesome! Moar! Love it!' etc. Again, well received.
You think: hurrah, I'm the mastermind of the DMC realm! But you're broke, and you'd really like some cash so you can buy the next DMC game... short effective solution: take your 'best DMC fanfic EVAR' off the internet, delete any traces of it, change the core details and names of the fanfic, and submit it as an original work to a literary agent and BAM! You're published, you have a cult following, and the rest is history.

What are your thoughts on making money off fanfiction?

I know of two writers who have done that. One of them had a whole Vampire Diaries fanfiction series that was immensely popular in the past. They removed it from the fanfiction site they were on, and reworked a few raw details, and landed themselves a series-book deal. The same with this latest book I've read, The Haunted. The author may deny it all she wants, but the whole book smacked of fanfiction-morphed-original. I know because I'm writing a fanfic that is scarily identical to her book. I don't have an issue with it, mind you, because I'm a major fan of her source of inspiration (TFG) and so I'm automatically a fan of her version of the antagonist-turn-protagonist.

But in all honesty, do you guys think it's fair for someone to practically steal someone else's characters/concept (without breaching any copyright) and make money off it? That's my real question I guess.

Because of course you can make money off someone else. Hell, I'm only trying to get my pro-gamer baby brother over here so I can exploit him by throwing him into international gaming tournaments like WCG and earn a percentage of the money he makes./you didn't hear it from me.

 

[Meg]

UNORIGINAL!

That's all I have to say about people who do that. They are lazy and unoriginal. Except you, DS. I'd read anything you published even if it was a fanfic-turned-original. No joke.

 

[Reanbell]

Haha, so basically a person that writes a fan based fic and changes it is merely editing it to save themselves from copy right. That is not original nor fair. It's very rare and hard for an original fanfiction writer to get any praise other than internet glory and maybe win a fanfic contest at a con. It can be done though, but it's just like any other struggling writer - gotta have your **** together, not just doing a drabble.

OT: Oh crap, am I not allowed to swear on this Forum? My bad. Should I change my sig?XD

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

It'd be easier to just change the names of everything linking it to DMC. No matter how obvious it is, you have a pretty good case should they try to sue you.

First you would need to contact Capcom (obviously). If it's a novel that fanboys and fangirls are not likely to go nuts over... hyped up, run of the mill, however you'd like to put it, Capcom does not want it published. They have creative ownership of the content and therefore get a say in what is officially incorporated into their DMC universe.
The flip side is, say it's something that is "good". It spins the story in a great way they haven't though of and is well-written besides, they would decide to publish said novel themselves. They ultimately get to say yes or no, so they would no doubt make that the condition for allowing you to make money off of it. The novel gets their name on it, their seal approval (meaning it's official cannon), and you (as the author) would receive a percentage of the royalties and possibly even a contract for a sequel.

It's not a happy life for the writer, though. Odds are, if Capcom decides they want to bring back that revenue stream after the books been read by most, you (as the contracted author of DMC novels) would need to write the sequel. There's a very good chance you'd be handed a list of what they want to happen rather than let your prowess as a storyteller roam free. Maybe you didn't even plan on a sequel and left no room in the plot. In either case, eventually you're left with nowhere to go and end up writing anything you can to meet the deadline. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?????????

 

[Angel]

Ok, so am I the only person who saw the thread title and immediately thought, "well sure you can - pimps do it all the time"?

 

[aka958]

Of course people do it all the time. It's not a big deal. You gave a concept of a story, originally based from someone's storyline and cast but with your creativity.
Who cares as long as you get money for it? It's not like you are doing anything illegal. .-.

 

[Vergil'sBitch]

If you look on deviant art, people get made an example of if they copy others work.
Obvious blantant copying is illegal.

I was told by someone that i should make my Nite-Runner stories into a novel and that it'd be okay if I changed the names of the main characters. But i thought that It'd lose all the qualities that makes it DMC.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

^That's how I feel about my fanfics, too. I wrote it FOR the fandom so it will just come off as pretentious if I did chop and change the details and presented it as 'original' work. I do get my inspiration from my fanfics, because all I'm really doing is seeing what qualities of a character are likeable, and whether the idea would work in that specific setting or not, and I take bits and pieces thereof and transfer it to my originals. But it's all my own work.

Plus, no serious writer would want their readers to be thinking about somebody else's work while they're reading your work. It kind of kills it. And it smacks of cheapskate copycat. Who would WANT that? But I guess it depend on whether you write for money or write for the love of writing.

UNORIGINAL!

That's all I have to say about people who do that. They are lazy and unoriginal. Except you, DS. I'd read anything you published even if it was a fanfic-turned-original. No joke.

I <3 you so much for saying that!

 

[aka958]

Kinda unfair of Meg to think like that. Shouldn't she think DS is lazy and unoriginal even though she would read it?

So... if I would make a fanfic and then turn it original and publish it I would be lazy and original.
If DS would do it then it wouldn't?
If Shadow would do it then it would?
If Storm Silves would do it then it would?
If -insert any name here- would do it then it would, with the obvious exception of DS because of what? .-.

Not to be rude but fanfics are not something someone lazy do in the first place. How do I know? Because I'm lazy and I promise you getting to office word and writing just one sentence equals one full day of hard work for me when it comes to writing stuff of my own. <.<

And to be fair not much is original nowadays and the story still had your concept your ideas and your turn of events, nothing stolen there except the possibilities you thought out. The characters and preset settings are all that was there before, or if it is turned original the preset setting is gone and only the personalities of the characters as well as some connections between them remain.
So using only the personalities of the characters in your published story as well as some connections between them instantly makes you unoriginal?
I'm pretty darn that 99% of everything is unoriginal if that were the case. Unintended similarities are everywhere because of the huge amount of everything. -.-

Lazy and unoriginal. Because thinking up a story and everything to preset characters in the first place is lazy. Writing an amount of text fitting for a whole book (a book that can be judged a real book that is, not some 25 pages amount) is lazy too... right? No wait, that doesn't make much sense. <.<

The idea of gaining money from the fanfic you just made is not lazy. I mean, you COULD write a whole new book, but why would you take the long way when you can take the shorter? It's not a sign of being lazy, it's a sign of being smart. People will buy the stuff, blame it on being a rip-off and whines about it. Being lazy enough to not care and buy it still is what makes the author money, knowing it's easy to herd in to the dumb crowd. Of course the dumb crowd will complain about it, but it is their mistake in the first place for buying it, since the author doesn't lie anywhere in the book as it just tells it's own story.

It's like calling every FPS makes since Wolfenstein lazy for stealing the whole concept of making FPS games, or those making license games (games from movies, books, etc), the people who've made games that look like obvious rip-offs from past games. Of course they must be lazy and unoriginal. Unoriginal is like, everything nowadays so who gives a damn? And laziness isn't part of it, they are being slug enough to make a rip-off because the crowd will still buy it and they know they will win on it.

...
I think I've said enough. It's good to put in an "imo" here but after all I've read from the people here on the forums it should be obvious.

 

[V]

Depends.

In the case of "Pride and Prejudice - And Zombies" and other works blatantly derived from someone else's material and published for mass market, if the material has been out there long enough to be termed 'classic', cult-classic or 'public domain', then they're allowed to do it. The reasoning is that if something has become an accepted part of culture or literary or film heritage, such as Alice in Wonderland, then it 'belongs to everyone', not just the author.

• Works that were first published before 1923 are in the public domain.
• Works published on or after January 1, 1978 are protected for 70 years after the author's death.

But. If I wrote something that was so fantastically popular and amazing that it was being ripped off left right and centre and I was a multi-millionare anyway, I wouldn't much care, since an author doesn't get fame and fortune all by themselves, nor earn all that money without their fans and followers giving it to them by buying their books. Give and take, to my mind. You can't write something and then complain when people love it so much they want to write fanfiction of it and dress up as your characters at conventions, or even make money off it through parody. Well... Anne Rice apparently does, but that just makes her seem like an ass. "Lestat is MINE! Mine mine mine!" to the point of trying to prosecute people who write fanfiction for mere fun and nothing else? Yea, whatever, Anne, you bread-basket.

If those people you mention literally ripped off characters' names and events and stuck them in their own book that sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen, to me. If not, and it's just something that strongly resembles another work of fiction... well, J. K. Rowling had a string of people after her at one point over supposed similarities in her books to the books other people had written before hers, including certain creatures and their descriptions, or the idea of a witch-and-wizard school which is by no means an original idea... so even if the names are different, people will challenge you on it. Although I think most of the number of challenges to Rowling were because she had 'made it' as a successful, stinking rich author, and there wasn't a whole lot to lose from trying to sue her. Except that she probably affords better lawyers, lulz.
Remember, there's nothing new under the sun. If there's a convincing similarity in works that corresponds to the same time and interests, then there might be a case against it, but all successful works these days spawn copycats and people wanting to cash in.
How do I feel about it? If it was my work being ripped off but I was set for life, I might not be too bothered. It would bother me if they pulled a Bill Gates on me though, and they ended up with a garden fountain p*ssing champagne, and I was still in this crappy flat.

 

[Meg]

snip

Wow, Aka, did you ever take that the wrong way.

I was simply giving DS a compliment by indirectly saying she's a great writer. Truth be told anyone on these forums could get something published, be it original or fanfic-turned-original, and I'd buy it. Hell I'd pre-order it. I just said "except you DS" because she was the thread starter and the way she worded the OP it sounded like she was indirectly referring to herself as far as getting a fanfic-turned-original published and I didn't want to upset her. Its called being considerate.

And to me its only unoriginal if someone intentionally copies someone else. Simply thinking up an idea for a story/character that you later realize sounds like something else isn't unoriginal. It still came from you and that makes it original.

People who write long thought out fanfictions aren't lazy. Its just when they change the names of the characters and call it there own to get it published do I call them lazy. Writers shouldn't write to get published. They should write because they love writing and whether or not you can make money off of a story shouldn't dictate whether or not you write it, so the people that take someone else's work, change certain details, and call it thier own and make money off of it are, yeah, lazy and unoriginal.

I've written plenty of original stories as well as some fanfics and I can safely say that writing a fanfic is by default easier. You don't have to come up with characters, or themes, and maybe not even settings. That's all been done for you. As someone that's written everyday since she was five I can safely say it is very difficult to come up with your own characters, but very easy to write someone else's.

So yeah, making money off of someone else's ideas is lazy and unoriginal in my opinion (heaven forbid I don't label what I say as an opinion).

Or maybe I just have way to much integrity.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

1. Kinda unfair of Meg to think like that. Shouldn't she think DS is lazy and unoriginal even though she would read it?

So... if I would make a fanfic and then turn it original and publish it I would be lazy and original.
If DS would do it then it wouldn't?
If Shadow would do it then it would?
If Storm Silves would do it then it would?
If -insert any name here- would do it then it would, with the obvious exception of DS because of what? .-.

2.Not to be rude but fanfics are not something someone lazy do in the first place.

3.And to be fair not much is original nowadays and the story still had your concept your ideas and your turn of events, nothing stolen there except the possibilities you thought out.

4.So using only the personalities of the characters in your published story as well as some connections between them instantly makes you unoriginal?

5.The idea of gaining money from the fanfic you just made is not lazy. I mean, you COULD write a whole new book, but why would you take the long way when you can take the shorter? It's not a sign of being lazy, it's a sign of being smart.

6.It's like calling every FPS makes since Wolfenstein lazy for stealing the whole concept of making FPS games, or those making license games (games from movies, books, etc), the people who've made games that look like obvious rip-offs from past games.

7.And laziness isn't part of it, they are being slug enough to make a rip-off because the crowd will still buy it and they know they will win on it.

*feels like I've just been thrown under the bus*
1. Yeah....er... honestly, I also saw Meg's post more as a compliment that my writing doesn't SUCK that bad than a 'You are gawd and so all you do is awesome and acceptable' kind of thing, which is I think what you took it as.

2. Anyway, whoever said fanfictioners are lazy? I think you misunderstood what was said because I don't think anyone here has said that people who write fanfiction are lazy. Given that I've been writing ff's for the past four and a half years, and that I have to work that little bit harder at writing in English, I can also vouch that I sure as hell am not lazy.Not I, or anyone else who has posted in this thread, have insulted people who write fanfiction.

3. I agree with the part about no ideas being original nowadays, because every mainstream story has been done before in some shape or form. The point is that you need to take an unoriginal idea and MAKE it original eg. no copycat smut. The rest of the sentence I don't really catch. You're stealing from yourself, you mean?

4. No, but the issue is that it's not only the personalities or only 'some' connections to the original characters that these authors may use. For example, the only traits that the author of The Haunted changed about her male lead, to make him 'different' from the original character, is the colour of his eyes, and the fact that he's a ghost instead of a shadow man (which kinda is a ghost with magic abilities anyway).

Here, I'll show you what I mean:

Julian (the original character):
Casper (the inspired character):
Has white-blonde hair - J
Has white-blonde hair - C
Lives in shadows - J
Is seen wearing BLACK on first introduction - C
Has neon purple streaks in his hair at one point -J
Has a black streak in his hair -C
Claims the girl he's in love with is like sunlight -J
Claims the girl he's in love with has 'colours' around her -C
Stalks the girl -J
Stalks the girl (in a much less obvious/creepy way) -C
Lives in the Shadow World -J
Declares that he lives in a shadow world -C
Is cruel and dangerous and bad by nature -J
Claims to be a 'bad' person...or ghost, whatever -C
Is awesome when he has his fluff moments -J
Is fluffy like Julian, only all the way through the story -C

Those are only some of the similarities I can remember off-hand. And, of course, the fact that what made Julian's character was his unpredictable and random moodswings. Now, Casper didn't have any unpredictable moodswings, because when his mood changed you could kinda understand and see what triggered it, BUT the female lead claimed that she couldn't keep track of Casper's moodswings. And why? WHY?
Because it's the author's version of Julian. There's nothing original about his character.

5. Gaining profit from it, no, probably not lazy, maybe smart, but it's definitely not the preferred route most writers would go. Authors (like Lexy mentioned, Anne Rice *that selfish friggin paranoid crazy bat*) SPIT on writers who write fanfiction because according to them, fanfiction isn't real writing. To a degree I agree with them, fanfiction is EASY to do because everything is already set up for you. The actual act of writing something original is really, really hard to do because unlike fanfiction, where you're handed already established props to play with, in original writing you have to start from scratch with everything. As it was mentioned before, if you're in the business for the money, then changing a fanfiction to an 'original' piece of work won't fase you. But for the most part, writers are in the business for the love of literacy, royalties are just a bonus upon the advance.

6. The gaming industry is vastly different to that of the literary bizz and (imo) can't be effectively compared to one another, because the two work on different principles.

7. LOL...are you referring to DmC, by any chance? XDDD

@Meg - I would nevar!!!! :O
Okay, okay, I thought about it briefly, but I'd rather stick to working hard for my money (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ZSKE38lTU) and have that rewarding feeling of accomplishment than knowing in the back of my mind that I'm 'stealing' from someone else. Cus, c'mon, I'm more creative than that! ;p

 

[V]

I can't understand authors who don't allow their fans to even write non-profit fanfics. Anne McCaffrey is another one... you can't write a Pern fanfiction and stick it online or it'll be forcibly removed. See, to my mind, authors like her and Rice are only rich and successful because people like their creations. Just like artists who are so far up their own arse they can't see straight, some authors seem to have this view that their creation exists outside of the public imagination and the only right you have to it is to pay them money to read it. You can't actually express yourself about it. And that, to me, negates the whole point of being an artist or a writer... unless you only ever write for yourself, and expect nobody to read what you've written, you need your audience. You need them more than they need you, because usually we express ourselves because we want others to know how we feel and to enjoy experiencing what we've made. You can't do that outside of the human collective imagination except with yourself, in your own head.

If you imagine you're the only human being left on Earth, a lot of the enjoyment of making something artistic is gone if there is nobody to share it with, and nobody to tell you what they think of it. Nobody to compare yourself to, and nobody to compete with. Nobody could steal your idea either, if you are that jealous of it, but I wonder if Anne and Anne would keep writing under such conditions?

But it's often obvious when someone isn't exercising their creativity and is just ripping stuff off for maximum profit and minimum effort, and I don't agree with doing that. Usually it's so obvious these days when you see it, and people will immediately point it out anyway. Context matters though, I think. Like the anime and gaming industry in Japan knows, small-time hand-publishing of limited edition doujinshi and fan works for sale at conventions and gatherings doesn't harm their industry at all, since the profits are miniscule or nonexistent compared to their own, that it's not worth legal pursuit. It's more like free advertising instead. So they let it be. I wouldn't mind anything like that.

And if you take, say, the blatant ripping off that Asylum does of the big blockbuster movies, even going so far as to have confusingly similar titles and DVD covers to the original, you have to accept that imitation and parody is allowed, because we like free speech. The rule should remain that taking an actual piece of work by someone else and sticking your name on it to distribute for sale is illegal, and should be. But anything else... well, if you really are a rubbish writer who rips stuff off, people will find out. And then everyone out there will be your judge, I guess.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

^ Sums up to this:

Should I be liable to a lawsuit if I wanted to start a cover band?
There are some nitwits out there who hear the word 'cover' and immediately think of 'rip-off', but a cover's really about paying tribute to the original and is credited as such. Covers are put on albums and capitalized from all the time (Reel Big Fish anyone?) and I've never heard of a lawsuit over it.

I think the only reason this doesn't quite apply is because any author who would try to censor someone for tweaking and experimenting with their work, as a musician, wouldn't be anyone worth covering in the first place.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

^ Sums up to this:

Should I be liable to a lawsuit if I wanted to start a cover band?
There are some nitwits out there who hear the word 'cover' and immediately think of 'rip-off', but a cover's really about paying tribute to the original and is credited as such. Covers are put on albums and capitalized from all the time (Reel Big Fish anyone?) and I've never heard of a lawsuit over it.

I think the only reason this doesn't quite apply is because any author who would try to censor someone for tweaking and experimenting with their work, as a musician, wouldn't be anyone worth covering in the first place.

Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t90dFkM9acg
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHtwZ07N1ic&ob=av2e

Just thought I'd add that incase anyone doesn't know what a 'cover' is. /total lie, I just love Daughtry and LP's versions more than the originals

 

[Autumn]

I kinda want to read The Haunted now. I’ll just imagine it as one of those fan fics where Julian and Jenny are living one of their past lives so it will fill the Julianless void I’ve had for the last 10+ years. I guess L J Smith said there’s a sequel coming out but I’m really dreading it. I mean, look what happened to The Vampire Diaries T_T

Totally not answering you questions…

I guess turning a fan fic into something of your own and selling it is fine but you would have to do a lot more than changing names/places etc. If you say the story is inspired by a certain fandom its fine but it’s hard to tell the difference between that and blatant rip off sometimes.