Houston, We Have A Public Domain Problem

Re:Houston, We Have A Public Domain Problem by coldtea on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @09:11AM (#7943642)

>Is this sarcasm? An enormous amount of what we consider great literature consists of "fanfiction"; it would not be permitted under copyright law as a derivative work were it written today and based on modern stories instead. For example, most of Shakespeare's plays are based on older stories, or even the plays of other contemporaries.

Shakespeare's works are not what we call "fanfiction". For one, Shakespeare was not some "fan", creating derivative works in the same "fictional universe". Neither is Racine, or the tragic poets in Ancient Greece reusing older poetic themes and myths, etc.

Fan fiction has a quite specific meaning, not just reusing some myth/drama/story plot to create a new work.

In fact the Wikipedia lemma on fan fiction places the first precursors long after Shakespear's time, and is in line with the general understanding of the term "fan fiction".

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Re:Houston, We Have A Public Domain Problem by Amezarak on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @05:40PM (#7946906)

I honestly don't understand in what sense they are not fans creating derivative works in the same fictional universe.

To be sure, that's not what we usually mean by fanfiction, because part of the connotation of the word is that it's done by a modern "fan" (which has connotations of its own) writing about modern fiction. But I don't see a substantive difference.

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