Author Antics

[Blergh]

20 hours ago, GaT said:

‘Harry Potter’ Fan Sites Will Minimize Future J.K. Rowling Coverage After Condemning Anti-Trans Views

This is a big deal, these are the major fan sites.

I wonder how they're going to pull it off. I mean at least one CAN currently listen Richard Wagner's music without automatically thinking about his support of what would become NAZIism (and the NAZIs didn't come to power until decades after his death)  but Miss Rowling is still living. I guess it's going to be like having to tread carefully to avoid a room elephant's constant discharges until said elephant goes to that ivory state. 

[OtterMommy]

On 7/3/2020 at 8:24 PM, Blergh said:

I wonder how they're going to pull it off. I mean at least one CAN currently listen Richard Wagner's music without automatically thinking about his support of what would become NAZIism (and the NAZIs didn't come to power until decades after his death)  but Miss Rowling is still living. I guess it's going to be like having to tread carefully to avoid a room elephant's constant discharges until said elephant goes to that ivory state. 

Actually, I think it will be easier than we think.  The Harry Potter world is huge and a lot of that growth has come from the fans.  JKR's involvement, even though she was the creator, will become minimized.  I suspect she will try to maintain some presence over it, but if the fan sites (and other sites) are not covering it, it may not do her any good.

[Blergh]

17 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

Actually, I think it will be easier than we think.  The Harry Potter world is huge and a lot of that growth has come from the fans.  JKR's involvement, even though she was the creator, will become minimized.  I suspect she will try to maintain some presence over it, but if the fan sites (and other sites) are not covering it, it may not do her any good.

I still say that if one doesn't want to chance any of their monies going to support her, read Miss Rowling's books at the nearest available library. 

[DearEvette]

Oh.  Dear.

JKR just keeps going and going.  Now she has written a series of tweets supporting claims:

- that hormone therapy medications are being over prescribed to young people

- implies that being trans is a mental health issue

- conflates (wrongly) hormone therapy with conversion therapy

-thereby (wrongly) conflating 'young gay people' with young trans people

-again (wrongly) conflating sex and sexual attraction to gender identity

I mean... there is a whole salad of wrong in her tweets.  Has she ever considered, I dunno, just not tweeting about this?

[Katy M]

8 hours ago, DearEvette said:

- implies that being trans is a mental health issue

It is. It's called gender dysphoria.

[Mabinogia]

19 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Has she ever considered, I dunno, just not tweeting about this?

THIS! Does she think she's helping anyone by tweeting such ignorance? She's just showing that she doesn't know what she's actually talking about. Sure, she got the gender dysphoria right, man it would be nice if mental health issues weren't stigmatized because a person having gender dysphoria doesn't make them "nuts" it just means there is a disconnect between brain and body. 

I'm just sad that someone I once respected thinks sexual attraction and gender are connected. Being trans has nothing at all to do with who you are attracted to. It has to do with who you are. It's even sadder that someone I once respected thinks she needs to air every single brain fart she has in a public forum. 

[scarynikki12]

She's tweeting in such a way that I wonder if she does have people in her life pushing back and this is her way of winning. Surely someone in her life (publisher, agent, PR rep, etc.) has pointed out that her best bet is to shut up rather than continuing to dig the hole yet she keeps doing it. Every time she tweets her prejudice she gets negative publicity so surely her team doesn't want this to continue.

[DearEvette]

11 hours ago, Katy M said:

It is. It's called gender dysphoria.

You know I wonder... is the dysphoria itself considered a mental health issue or are the effects of the stress of the dysphoria the primary cause of any mental health issues? 

Also I think based on the tone of her series of tweets, rather than just the more benign 'mental health issue'  she really feels it is more analogous to an 'illness' which puts a more stigmatized spin on it.

[Katy M]

21 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

. Surely someone in her life (publisher, agent, PR rep, etc.)

Quote

 

Last night Hachette issued a statement backing Miss Rowling’s right to express herself. It said: ‘We are proud to publish JK Rowling’s children’s fairy tale The Ickabog. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing. We fundamentally believe that everyone has the right to express their own thoughts and beliefs. That’s why we never comment on our authors’ personal views and we respect our employees’ right to hold a different view.

‘We will never make our employees work on a book whose content they find upsetting for personal reasons, but we draw a distinction between that and refusing to work on a book because they disagree with an author’s views outside their writing, which runs contrary to our belief in free speech.’

 

 

[Blergh]

19 hours ago, Katy M said:

 

Gee that sure is a very wordy statement they appeared to have made when they could have cut to the chase and simply said 'Since Miss Rowling's works  have been   big moneymakers for us, we couldn't care less about how our other employees may be upset at her views and are willing to try to guilt them to insist on them working on her stuff despite giving lip service to free speech and fair mindedness.'

Edited July 8, 2020 by Blergh

[Katy M]

16 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Gee that sure is a very wordy statement they appeared to have made when they could have cut to the chase and simply said 'Since Miss Rowling's works  have been a big moneymakers for us, we couldn't care less about how our other employees may be upset at her views and are willing to try to guilt them to insist on them working on her stuff despite giving lip service to free speech and fair mindedness.'

If you can't do the job  you need to find another one. I can't really see how editing a children's book is going to hurt anybody.  Plus, again, she hasn't said anything all that ridiculous.

[Blergh]

1 minute ago, Katy M said:

If you can't do the job  you need to find another one. I can't really see how editing a children's book is going to hurt anybody.  Plus, again, she hasn't said anything all that ridiculous.

That's a matter of opinion which I respect your right to have even though I disagree with it. 

[dubbel zout]

If Rowling's current publisher dropped her, another one would immediately fill the void. How does this help anything? The success of Rowling's books make it possible for those employees to have a job. Anyone who doesn't want to work on her books ostensibly doesn't have to. (I'd like to know how comfortable the employees feel saying that, and does it apply to any book?)

[DearEvette]

Employees at Hachette refusing to work on a book is not new.  They walked out when Hachette was going to publish Woody Allen's book.  And ostensibly Hachette backed them. 

Hachette's statement re: "an author's views outside their writing" is somewhat disingenuous since the none of the reasons they gave for jettisoning the Allen memoir mentioned his writings or the actual content of the memoir.  But instead seemed to be  about the scandal surrounding Woody.   By the time Hachette had bought Woody's memoir, other publishing houses had already passed on it with the overall feeling in the publishing world was that it was a toxic property.  But Hachette took it anyway.  It wasn't until they got blowback not just from their employees but also from big and powerful names with big and powerful platforms that they decided to finally revert Woody back his rights.  And making is sound like they listened to their employees (I call bullshit on that but the optics are good).

Just like with Woody, they performed a risk calculus here.  But unlike Woody, the risk here is low for them.  There simply aren't enough big voices weighing in to object to her new book and JKR's earning  potential all on her own is enough to offset the activist voices.  IMO, this has nothing do with freedom of speech, ethics, or making some personal v. professional distinction.  If at any point during their mental calculations they thought this had the potential to hurt their bottom line, they would have kicked her to the curb and made themselves sound virtuous while doing it.  This is a money decision plain and simple. 

[Ohiopirate02]

54 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Employees at Hachette refusing to work on a book is not new.  They walked out when Hachette was going to publish Woody Allen's book.  And ostensibly Hachette backed them. 

Hachette's statement re: "an author's views outside their writing" is somewhat disingenuous since the none of the reasons they gave for jettisoning the Allen memoir mentioned his writings or the actual content of the memoir.  But instead seemed to be  about the scandal surrounding Woody.   By the time Hachette had bought Woody's memoir, other publishing houses had already passed on it with the overall feeling in the publishing world was that it was a toxic property.  But Hachette took it anyway.  It wasn't until they got blowback not just from their employees but also from big and powerful names with big and powerful platforms that they decided to finally revert Woody back his rights.  And making is sound like they listened to their employees (I call bullshit on that but the optics are good).

Just like with Woody, they performed a risk calculus here.  But unlike Woody, the risk here is low for them.  There simply aren't enough big voices weighing in to object to her new book and JKR's earning  potential all on her own is enough to offset the activist voices.  IMO, this has nothing do with freedom of speech, ethics, or making some personal v. professional distinction.  If at any point during their mental calculations they thought this had the potential to hurt their bottom line, they would have kicked her to the curb and made themselves sound virtuous while doing it.  This is a money decision plain and simple. 

I work in the book world, and nothing about the Hachette-Woody Allen deal made any sense.  The promotion of it was off like the Hachette knew it was a bad business decision but they were contractually obligated to publish.  Like no publicity at all, no preorders, no arc's to drum up reviews, etc until it was finally announced.  By that time,  there should have been thousand of copies printed sitting in warehouses to be distributed.  I don't think Hachette had any intention of actually publishing the book and was looking for a way to get out of the deal.  

Hachette will continue to publish any author who makes money for them.  Just like the rest of their competitors.  It is not nor ever been a free speech issue, but a money issue.  With all of the different imprints Hachette, MacMillan, Simon & Shuster, Penguin, etc own, there is always something being published that a person does not agree with.  Hachette owns Center Street and also the now defunct Weinstein Books.  

They will still support JK because she makes them money.  She is wrong on so many levels, but that does not matter.  

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

It is not nor ever been a free speech issue, but a money issue.

I think it's both, but money has a bigger say, especially in the more mainstream houses.

[Guest]

On 7/6/2020 at 4:17 PM, DearEvette said:

You know I wonder... is the dysphoria itself considered a mental health issue or are the effects of the stress of the dysphoria the primary cause of any mental health issues? 

You bring up a very important point.  Being transgender does not mean someone has gender dysphoria. It’s based on the distress caused when a person‘s assigned gender differs from the gender they identify with. It’s also something that can be resolved over time. Just because some trans people suffer from mental health issues as a result it’s not universal. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Guest

[Luckylyn]

Why JK Rowling’s Views Are So Insidious?

JK Rowling is An Umbridge

Here are my opinions:
1) Rowling truly believes she is being helpful 

2) Rowling sees herself as a victim of the people who disagree with her

3) Using hateful or threatening language towards Rowling feeds into her belief that she’s a victim 

4)She refuses to see how her words can be harmful to people in the trans community 

5)She sees this situation in terms of how she is impacted without taking the POV of those who disagree into account 

6)Rowling thinks she is being completely reasonable and righteous

7)Rowling is not self aware and quite defensive 

8)What do we do about it?  I think speaking out against the hate is important but harsh language and threats aren’t helpful.  We should use facts and not threats to dispute the harm Rowling is causing.  I think trying to change her mind may be a lost cause and so the focus should be on the people who listen to her to not just blindly accept the transphobia she is spouting.

[ursula]

5 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

What do we do about it?

Give up Harry Potter. She has a platform because of the franchise. We stop patronizing that franchise, she stops having a platform.

[VCRTracking]

I hope she's not an Umbridge. I hope she's a Percy Weasley and realize she's wrong some day. 

[Ultrahyenagirl]

I thought that these videos were good. I must admit, that I am horribly heartbroken over all of this. For me personally, Rowling and Harry Potter are too intertwined for me to continue to enjoy the franchise. Like sure, I can still enjoy Roald Dahl's work, even though he was a horrible anti-Semite and a bully, but he's also been dead for almost 30 years. Rowling, on the other hand, is a living author who is actively using her massive platform to spread transphobic garbage. *sigh* I'm just so sad. 

 

 

[DearEvette]

On another depressing note. I was on another board talking fantasy/sci fi and someone posted a link about David and Leigh Eddings.  Apparently they were imprisoned in the 70s for child abuse.    Here is a snippet of the article.

Quote

n 1969, alerted by neighbours to the sounds of mistreatment at their South Dakota property, police arrived to find the adopted son locked in a cage in a dirty basement (the basement shared with several animals) and being beaten by his parents with a belt. The Eddings were arrested and the children removed into protective custody (subsequently their adoption of the children was revoked). During the subsequent trial, exacting details of physical and emotional abuse emerged, with the children imprisoned in the cage for the slightest perceived disobedience and corporal punishment being regularly administered. Both children were traumatised by their experiences.

Man, I loved The Elenium and The Belgariad back in the day.  Sparhawk was my dude! I mean, I think I was like 15 -- but still.

But then last year I did a audio re-read of the Belgariad and I was struck by what a terrible guardian Polgara was to Gareth.  My memories of Polgara were very fond,  But new, adult eyes I found her kind of awful.

You have this little kid whose destiny is to become this great king. And you watch over him as he grows to adulthood to make sure he meets his destiny alive.  Great.  But you don't prepare him to become king.  You don't teach him anything about state-craft or politics.  You don't expose him to people he is going to be ruling or even anything about the outside world.  You don't warn him about the dangers he is gonna face and teach him how to defend himself.  Hell, you don't even teach him how to read. You keep him hidden away on some backward farm all his life.  And when the shit hits the fan and his destiny arrives on his doorstep and he is thrust into these new responsibilities and life, and he comes to you lost, lonely,  and confused and having no clue what to do.  What do you do?  You scoff at him, call him clumsy, implies he is a dolt.  And then you guilt trip him:  "I sacrficied 1000 years of my life getting you here."

So in light of these terrible revelations about the authors and their parenting philosophy, it is no wonder Polgara was written as such a terrible parent.

[Luckylyn]

A great factual with citations response to JK Rowling.  I appreciate how they break down why what Rowling said is problematic.  

 

Cats! And the weird mind of TS Eliot

 

Enjoying the Work of Problematic Creators

 

[Melgaypet]

Here's another great video explaining exactly why JK Rowling's views are so damaging and problematic. I highly recommend it for anyone who might not fully understand the big deal.

 

[Luckylyn]

I Still Like Harry Potter, Is That Bad?

I appreciated this video because I am struggling with my affection for Harry Potter versus my upset at JK Rowling using her fame to promote harmful and misleading information.
 

Dead of the Author 2: Rowling Boogaloo 

Separating the author from the art is tough.  I think it’s harder to get past a problematic author who is around actively tweeting about her problematic beliefs than it is to appreciate the art of a creator who is either not currently getting publicity or long dead.  You’ve got legislators quoting Rowling to get support for anti-trans legislation. Current harm is being done.  

I am so torn because I want to separate Rowling’s beliefs from my Harry Potter love but I can’t disconnect.  

Edited July 21, 2020 by Luckylyn
Editing redundancy

[Blergh]

Luckylyn,

 

As I've said before, go read Miss Rowling's works at the nearest library so you can enjoy the texts without contributing any monies whatsoever to her. 

[DearEvette]

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

As I've said before, go read Miss Rowling's works at the nearest library so you can enjoy the texts without contributing any monies whatsoever to her. 

Agreed.  I think every person has their own line in the sand about what will poison them on their enjoyment of a problematic creator's works.  Some things a person does or says can stop me from wanting to contribute to their profits, but I will still enjoy their works.  Other things a person says or does will just turn me off them so completely  to point I can't even go back and enjoy their stuff through re-reads that I previously enjoyed.

In the case of Rowling, she falls in the former category for me.  She has quickly catapulted herself into the category of celebrity I dislike.   I tried to read both The Casual Vacancy and her first Galbraith novel but have never been able to make it past a couple of chapters of either book and have never been tempted to read any of the spinoff stuff.  I figure her only appeal to me is the original 7 HP books which I like and have already bought all them books both in hardcover and audio.  So she's already profited off of me.  She's not getting any more money from me and I can still go back and re-read the HP books.

I feel the same way about the Eddings'. That is terrible what they did but it is more of a remove.  And I had already long outgrown their work, but again I own them and if I decide I want to revisit some of the older works I won't feel dirty about it.

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, DearEvette said:

I figure her only appeal to me is the original 7 HP books which I like and have already bought all them books both in hardcover and audio.  So she's already profited off of me.  She's not getting any more money from me and I can still go back and re-read the HP books.

This is where I'm at. I will continue to read the books, watch the movies I already have and enjoy them, but I won't try anything new from her. I'm just devastated because as a writer I learned so much from her and as a person, until now I've respected her but this one thing has put me off so much that I am questioning if I overlooked anything in the past because of my respect for her writing IRT HP. 

[Pachengala]

On 7/20/2020 at 4:55 AM, Luckylyn said:

A great factual with citations response to JK Rowling.  I appreciate how they break down why what Rowling said is problematic.  

 

 

I loved this video; thanks for sharing it. It really laid bare why Rowling’s article was problematic, because it does in parts appear to superficially make sense for me, as a feminist. 

I’m only vaguely a Harry Potter fan so I don’t see this reveal affecting my relationship with Rowling’s body of work much; the big heartbreak for me was Marion Zimmer Bradley. I love Mists of Avalon so much that I used to reread it every fall; it felt so lovely and cozy to just immerse myself in that world. But now I’m just grossed out whenever I read any of it, especially the passages involving sex. I’m shuddering right now thinking about it. 

[Cassidy Lynn]

On 7/20/2020 at 5:25 PM, Melgaypet said:

Here's another great video explaining exactly why JK Rowling's views are so damaging and problematic. I highly recommend it for anyone who might not fully understand the big deal.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyzZ3J6IG6s&t=115s

 

 

[VCRTracking]

I've read the books and seen the movies so the only way I'd spend more money on more Harry Potter stuff is if Warner Bros got Drew Struzan, who painted the first movie poster to do the rest of the series. Since they insist on having photoshopped ones I doubt that'll happen. His unreleased Chamber of Secrets:

Edited July 23, 2020 by VCRTracking

[proserpina65]

An author's antics very rarely influence my opinion of their work if I enjoyed the writing enough.  The Harry Potter books were ones I enjoyed, and probably would still if I re-read them.  I wouldn't buy them, but that's not to deny Ms. Rowling the money - it's because my best friend has them (in the British editions) and I can borrow them anytime.

One notable exception: Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon.  I'd already found some of the events in the book deeply disturbing, in a way which couldn't be written off as "those things happened back then" because it was fantasy, not history, and then when the accusations against her and her husband came out, that killed any appreciation I had for it.

[Luckylyn]

Into The Omegaverse: How a Fanfic Trope Landed in Federal Court

This was a take on some fascinating author drama.  I agree that tropes are a part of creative fields and that you can not own them.  There’s a difference between writing a story with established tropes and plagiarism/copyright infringement.  You can’t own a genre.  I do think Addison  was abusing the system to eliminate authors she viewed as competition.   At one point Ellis mentions Patricia Briggs as predating Addison.   I wanted to state that Patricia Briggs take on these tropes does not support nonconsensual sex.  The mating bonds she includes in her stories always include consent.  Briggs treats rape as the horror it is and not romanticized in any way.

This does make me wonder over whether or not Stephanie Meyers would have had a legal claim against EL James since 50 Shades of Grey was originally a Twilight fan fiction called Masters of the Universe.  I think it’s a good thing that Meyers did not attack James.  I know that the book Remedially Rocket Science by Susannah Nix was originally Arrow Fan fiction.  What is the legality of turning fan fic into novels with names/situations changed for profit without giving a writing credit/percentage to the creators of the material that inspired the fan fic?  Is it on the same level as simply using established tropes or borderline copyright infringement?    What about authors who write novels inspired by Jane Austen or Shakespeare?  I do not want to see fanfic mired in court cases and that community damaged.  I know some authors go after fanfic aggressively like Anne Rice who used lawyers to threaten and harass fanfic writers. 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Luckylyn

[scarynikki12]

7 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

What about authors who write novels inspired by Jane Austen or Shakespeare?

I don't know about the rest of it but I'd assume nothing would happen to anyone writing Austin or Shakespeare inspired stories since that work is in public domain.

[GaT]

7 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

This does make me wonder over whether or not Stephanie Meyers would have had a legal claim against EL James since 50 Shades of Grey was originally a Twilight fan fiction called Masters of the Universe. 

I can't imagine that she couldn't since James was actually calling her characters Edward, Bella, etc. There must be something there that Meyers could sue about.

[DearEvette]

It sounds like this woman was lucky enough to be the first person in her very small, very niche genre to go commercial and wanted to make sure no one else did.  You are right, you can't copyright a trope.  And it sounds like this very specific sub-genre of erotica has some very genre specific tropes that if you don't use them then you aren't in the genre.  LOL.  If she can transport those tropes into commercial fiction why can't others?  Plot is also a very hard thing to try to own.  I mean a book plot where "a man who is suspected of murdering his wife goes on the run and tries to find the killer himself" isn't necessarily an infringement of copyright whereas " a doctor who is suspected of murdering his wife goes on the run and tries to the real killer, a one-armed man, himself"  is because of specific character details that are critical to a previous work.

Copyright infringement cases are decided  case by case and various things are weighted to determine the validity of the suit.  Fanfic itself is protected under fair use as long as the works are not for profit.  The minute they go commercial then it becomes potentially liable for suit.  There are some standards that will protect it such as, could it be considered parody?  Parody is protected.  How much of the original copyright work is actually used in the new work?  Would the new work damage or harm the value or spirit of original work?  For instance if I wrote a sequel to 'Hairspray' and Tracy Turnblad in my play is now a raging racist. Also is it a transformative work?  I think what this basically means is the derivative work a story that is sufficiently different that it adds something to the story? 

In that sense I don't think Stephanie Meyer would have had much of a case against EL James.  For one, if people didn't know her original was Twilight Fanfic would you read 50 Shades and immediately think ''Ah yes, these people are just Edward and Bella with different names."  That is a legit question by the way.  I only read Twilight under duress and hated it so much that I only remember being aggravated with how much of a Mary Sue Bella was.  And I never read so much as a one single word of 50 Shades.  My only awareness of it is what has trickled out in public consciousness so I just know about its basics.  I did wonder if EL James had any sort of case against Sylvia Day whose Crossfire series (even down to the book covers) seemed to be summed up everywhere as '50 shades but with better writing."

And yes, anyone in the public domain, their work can be used without any issues.  So Jane Austen and Shakespeare are Fair Game (see what I did there...?)

[Luckylyn]

When I mentioned Jane Austen and Shakespeare, I didn’t mean that someone could sue on their behalf.  I was referring to the idea that people have been inspired by other peoples’ works for centuries.  So an author who reads Pride and Prejudice and then decides to write a ‘hate to love’ trope novel (ex: Bridget Jones Diary) is very similar to someone who decides to write fan fiction.   The tropes are not the author’s original idea, but they are making a new product inspired by what has gone before.  When I watch Amy Hecklerling’s movie Clueless I can see how she was inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, but Clueless innovates to become it’s own story.    

[Anduin]

I was going to watch the video until I checked the running time. An hour? Sorry, that's right off the table.

I don't know of any cases where authors or their estates have taken people to court over thinly veiled knockoffs. The Tolkien Estate didn't get into Robert Jordan, and Lucasfilm left Christopher Paolini alone. Maybe it's a case of if you change just enough, you can get away with it. Let's say you have an idea. Harry Potter died during book 3. His friends are left to carry on the fight without him. But you don't set it at Hogwarts, it's a cyberpunk-lite setting with a school for new cyborgs. Ron is a superhacker, Hermione has an extra arm, while Voldemort can shoot lasers from his eyes and remotely controls spiderbots. It starts to look a little more original than your starting premise.

To an extent, I think that's the nature of art. Breaking down what came before and reassembling it into new forms. Also, there's a quote I read but can't place. If you draw from one source, that's plagirism. If you draw from many, that's called research.

[Irlandesa]

8 hours ago, DearEvette said:

I mean a book plot where "a man who is suspected of murdering his wife goes on the run and tries to find the killer himself" isn't necessarily an infringement of copyright whereas " a doctor who is suspected of murdering his wife goes on the run and tries to the real killer, a one-armed man, himself"  is because of specific character details that are critical to a previous work.

I even think that wouldn't necessarily get someone in trouble for copyright as long as the characters weren't called Kimble and Gerard (who are basically fanfic adaptations of Val Jean and Javert mixed with real life Sam Sheppard.) The standard for copyright is quite high even when there is pretty good evidence that something is based on another work. 

 

 

[MsNewsradio]

On 8/11/2020 at 3:47 PM, proserpina65 said:

An author's antics very rarely influence my opinion of their work if I enjoyed the writing enough.  The Harry Potter books were ones I enjoyed, and probably would still if I re-read them.  I wouldn't buy them, but that's not to deny Ms. Rowling the money - it's because my best friend has them (in the British editions) and I can borrow them anytime.

One notable exception: Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon.  I'd already found some of the events in the book deeply disturbing, in a way which couldn't be written off as "those things happened back then" because it was fantasy, not history, and then when the accusations against her and her husband came out, that killed any appreciation I had for it.

I've been going through boxes at my parents' house, clearing out items. My copies of Marion Zimmer Bradley's books went into the "get rid of" pile. Even though the books are a sunk cost, I can't revisit them without thinking of what she and her husband did, and it has completely soured me to all of her writing. 

[starri]

On 9/6/2020 at 4:57 PM, GaT said:

I can't imagine that she couldn't since James was actually calling her characters Edward, Bella, etc. There must be something there that Meyers could sue about.

She absolutely could have sued, and the prevailing legal opinion is that she likely would have won.  And that would have had a chilling effect on fanfiction.  I give Meyer a LOT of credit for not going there.  I don't know if she actively encourages fanfiction, but I think it speaks very well of her that she wasn't willing to potentially take that away from other people.  I think JK Rowling could have made a similar case against Cassandra Clare, the author of the Mortal Instruments books, but despite everything else that one can say about her, she seemed to give fanfic a wide berth.

And then there's Anne Rice...

[MadyGirl1987]

23 hours ago, starri said:

And then there's Anne Rice...

What about her? Has see been anti- fan fiction?

[starri]

2 minutes ago, MadyGirl1987 said:

What about her? Has see been anti- fan fiction?

Twenty years ago, she told her fans to stop and take down their stuff, which is why there is very, very little Vampire Chronicles fanfic out there.  She's sicced her lawyers on individual authors.

She, and Star Trek, and the X-Files, are the reasons that fanfic generally has an acknowledgement of non-ownership and naming of the actual rights holder.

[Luckylyn]

1 hour ago, starri said:

Twenty years ago, she told her fans to stop and take down their stuff, which is why there is very, very little Vampire Chronicles fanfic out there.  She's sicced her lawyers on individual authors.

She, and Star Trek, and the X-Files, are the reasons that fanfic generally has an acknowledgement of non-ownership and naming of the actual rights holder.

Her lawyers even threatened to call fanfic writers employers which would have outed some writers who are closeted at work.  She took things to such an unnecessarily nasty level.   

[starri]

6 minutes ago, Luckylyn said:

Her lawyers even threatened to call fanfic writers employers which would have outed some writers who are closeted at work.  She took things to such an unnecessarily nasty level.   

It's so hard for me to square all that with the knowledge that she also kept her number in the phone book for a long time, and would happily converse with fans who called her.

She got very sick in the late 90s, and then her husband died, and she seemed to get mean and crazy (well, crazier).  And that's without touching on her Jesus fanfic period.

[DearEvette]

Anne Rice had also famously weaponized her followers on several occasions for nothing but negative reviews. And not just reviews on her work, but basically on anyone she decided she didn't like a review.

Back in the day a bunch of butthurt authors decided to create a website called 'Stop The Goodreads Bullies" that was supposedly a safe space for authors to commiserate with each other over goodreads reviewers that "bullied" them.  In fact it was a place where they all bitched about negative reviews.  Later, It morphed into a completely toxic site whose driving purpose seemed to be to dox reviewers and sent author's fans after them. 

Anne Rice championed the site in very high profile places.  At the time, she had over one million followers on her Facebook platform and would link to 'bullies' (i.e. negative reviews) on Goodreads and Amazon and suddenly those reviews would become battlegrounds.  On her facebook, she would famously delete any dissenting posts. 

She also called author Jenny Trout a "gangster bully" and sent her followers after her.  Her followers and the other members of the STRGB website went on a focused campaign to and complained to Jenny's publisher.  As a result her contribution to a 12 author anthology was cancelled.  Out of solidarity the other 11 authors pulled theirs as well.

So yeah, Anne Rice stays being an asshole in arenas outside of fanfic.

Edited September 13, 2020 by DearEvette

[Blergh]

21 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Anne Rice had also famously weaponized her followers on several occasions for nothing but negative reviews. And not just reviews on her work, but basically on anyone she decided she didn't like a review.

Back in the day a bunch of butthurt authors decided to create a website called 'Stop The Goodreads Bullies" that was supposedly a safe space for authors to commiserate with each other over goodreads reviewers that "bullied" them.  In fact it was a place where they all bitched about negative reviews.  Later, It morphed into a completely toxic site whose driving purpose seemed to be to dox reviewers and sent author's fans after them. 

Anne Rice championed the site in very high profile places.  At the time, she had over one million followers on her Facebook platform and would link to 'bullies' (i.e. negative reviews) on Goodreads and Amazon and suddenly those reviews would become battlegrounds.  On her facebook, she would famously delete any dissenting posts. 

She also called author Jenny Trout a "gangster bully" and sent her followers after her.  Her followers and the other members of the STRGB website went on a focused campaign to and complained to Jenny's publisher.  As a result her contribution to a 12 author anthology was cancelled.  Out of solidarity the other 11 authors pulled theirs as well.

So yeah, Anne Rice stays being an asshole in arenas outside of fanfic.

I'm confused! Did Miss Trout's contribution get cancelled or was it Miss Rice's contribution that spurred the others to pull out of the anthology?

[DearEvette]

There was a 12 author romance anthology in which Jenny was supposed to contribute a novella.  Rice was not part of the anthology at all.  Rice had been part of a long campaign against Jenny calling her a "gangster bully" because of Jenny's vocal denunciation of the STGRB site.    Here is a snippet from Jenny's blog post about it:

 

Quote

Today was the day that the Bad Boy Next Door boxed set was supposed to come out. Unfortunately, due to a big name author taking up a crusade against me, an author in the set was uncomfortable having her story sold alongside mine. Other authors were given the choice to either release the anthology without me, delay the release of the boxed set indefinitely, or release the set with my story included, in which case the author who objected would withdraw from the project and her publishing company would withdraw promotional support. The majority decided that they would pull their stories from the boxed set rather than kick me out, and that was, sadly, the end of the Bad Boy Next Door boxed set.

 

[Blergh]

22 hours ago, DearEvette said:

There was a 12 author romance anthology in which Jenny was supposed to contribute a novella.  Rice was not part of the anthology at all.  Rice had been part of a long campaign against Jenny calling her a "gangster bully" because of Jenny's vocal denunciation of the STGRB site.    Here is a snippet from Jenny's blog post about it:

 

 

So via Miss Rice's blackballing of Miss Trout, the whole enterprise collapsed. What a bummer!

[Cherpumple]

On 9/6/2020 at 8:35 PM, Anduin said:

I don't know of any cases where authors or their estates have taken people to court over thinly veiled knockoffs.

I know of one case: in 2001 the estate of Margaret Mitchell sued the author (Alice Randall) and publisher (Houghton Mifflin) of a book called "The Wind Done Gone," which was a retelling of "Gone with the Wind" from the perspective of an enslaved woman on the Tara estate who was the daughter of Mr. O'Hara and Mammy (and was Scarlett's half-sister). It's a darker version of the original story, including the plot points of Mammy possibly using her position as wet-nurse to kill the male O'Hara babies in an effort to drive the White masters off the plantation, and Ashley Wilkes having a homosexual relationship with an enslaved man, who is later whipped to death on the orders of Ashley's wife Melanie. Interestingly, all the original GWTW characters are referred to by different monikers throughout the book. Scarlett is only known as "Other," Rhett Butler is "R" and Melanie Wilkes is "Mealy Mouth." I'm not sure if this was always the author's plan, or if it was a result of the lawsuit.

In any event, the case was settled in 2002, and publication was allowed to proceed, with the stipulation that the book cover include the words "Unauthorized Parody." Also, the publisher agreed to make an unspecified donation to Morehouse College, a historically Black men's college in Atlanta.

Considering the recent reevaluation of GWTW in terms of its portrayal of race relations, "The Wind Done Gone" is an interesting read. The naming conventions may be confusing for people not familiar with the original GWTW characters and locations, but it's quite short and I would recommend it to both fans and critics of the original book.