Fanfic writers and artistic rights

Some time ago, there was a discussion on Absolute Write about fanfiction, so I peeked into the thread. It was interesting to read, but there was one claim I disagreed with : the assertion that fanfic writers have a right to the characters that original authors create. All quotes in blue are paraphrased from that discussion.

“Not a legal right, but an artistic right.”

I was puzzled as to what gave fanfic writers this artistic right when they hadn’t created the characters.

“They love the characters.”

Is love alone enough to establish any sort of right over someone else’s intellectual property? I like the original Transformers cartoon, and my favorite characters from it are the Stunticons. I heart these incredibly dysfunctional ‘cons and have written a lot of fanfics about them—fanfics which developed them far more than the cartoon did. Readers have often told me how they never noticed or cared about these minor background characters before encountering my fics.

But I don’t own the Stunticons in any way, nor do I feel entitled to any such rights.

Because I didn’t create them.

“Your characters are like your children. Once you publish them, it’s analogous to their growing up. You don’t have any more control over them after that.”

Well, if we’re pursuing this (bizarre, IMO) analogy, then a fanfic writer who feels an artistic right to my characters doesn’t get that either, because my characters didn’t consent to it.

“I don’t believe characters can be owned by anyone.”

It’s nice if you believe that I can’t own or control my characters, but the thing is… I’m the person who thought about them and wrote about them and got them published. They didn’t exist before that.

Here’s the other thing. If I write a future novel where, say, Alyster and Miri from The Farthest Shore separate for some reason (which they never will; together forever, those two, but humor me for the purpose of this discussion), and a fanfic writer pens a similar novel where they stay together despite their differences, guess which one will be canon?

The fanfic writer can swear on a stack of Kama Sutras that his/her vision is more artistically true to the characters. More romantic than what I wrote. What the characters would want. It still doesn’t make a difference to whose version is the official one, and who gets to say what happens to the characters.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law. And I possess all my heroes, oh yes I do. Heroines too, of course. And villains, mustn't leave them out.

“Trying to own characters is like trying to own people.”

At this point I realized my worldview and that of the person making this claim were so far apart that there was no point in continuing the discussion. A slavery comparison is only one step away from Godwin’s Law.

Plus, as I said, I don’t consider my characters to be real, actual, living people entitled to all the same rights and freedoms that real, actual, living people have.

I don’t care if someone else feels their characters can’t be owned. Do whatever you like with the characters you come up with—renounce copyright, let them roam free, whatever. But I don’t have to humor any such claims about my creations. And now I’m off to make more of them.

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