Interesting...
Jul. 23rd, 2006 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkSome of you may recall a post of mine a while back about fan art, Windstones, and my disappointment that Melody Pena doesn't allow fan works.
Interestingly I finally asked her about it, explaining my point of view on the subject, and got a reasonable answer. (My version is much shortened, but I think gets the idea across.)
Windstone, being a very small business, has a bit of a struggle to be widely recognized. And thus it's all too easy for copycats to spring up and for people to never realize that the copycats are not the original. So they have to actively go after the guys who are re-casting Windstones and selling them as their own work.
If Melody's pieces are is 100% unique, then it can be proved that these copycats are stealing her work, and they can be prosecuted.
But if it's not, if there's fan art out there, the copycat could say they were copying the fan work, not Melody's copyrighted stuff.
Pretty much it's a case of she has to squish it all, or she can't squish any of it, even the ones stealing it and claiming it as their own.
Which sucks, but at least that's a reasonable explanation. She told me, in fact, that when she first started getting fan art she was so happy about it she tried to set things up so that fans could post freely on places like Elfwood and Deviantart, but that her legal counsel proved it would be impossible to do so and still protect their copyright.
I guess I add this to the list of things about how modern society works that suck hugely. Bleah. But at least I know that Melody really is the nice person everyone insists she is, and not some stuck up twit.
Interestingly I finally asked her about it, explaining my point of view on the subject, and got a reasonable answer. (My version is much shortened, but I think gets the idea across.)
Windstone, being a very small business, has a bit of a struggle to be widely recognized. And thus it's all too easy for copycats to spring up and for people to never realize that the copycats are not the original. So they have to actively go after the guys who are re-casting Windstones and selling them as their own work.
If Melody's pieces are is 100% unique, then it can be proved that these copycats are stealing her work, and they can be prosecuted.
But if it's not, if there's fan art out there, the copycat could say they were copying the fan work, not Melody's copyrighted stuff.
Pretty much it's a case of she has to squish it all, or she can't squish any of it, even the ones stealing it and claiming it as their own.
Which sucks, but at least that's a reasonable explanation. She told me, in fact, that when she first started getting fan art she was so happy about it she tried to set things up so that fans could post freely on places like Elfwood and Deviantart, but that her legal counsel proved it would be impossible to do so and still protect their copyright.
I guess I add this to the list of things about how modern society works that suck hugely. Bleah. But at least I know that Melody really is the nice person everyone insists she is, and not some stuck up twit.