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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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I don't know if y'all have been aware of the kerfuffle caused by Lori Jareo, but here's an article by Chris Bridges , a friend of mine from another forum, on the subject.
Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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Features Writer
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Holy cow! Rivka, thanks so much for posting that. I hadn't heard about any of this, and I've just spent some time - TOO much time - trawling through various blogs, etc., reading about what this woman has done. I wonder what was going through her head the day she decided that it would be a good idea to publish...
The book listing has been removed from the US Amazon, but I did find it at Barnes & Noble as well as Amazon.ca.
Kathy
"Our thoughts form the universe. They always matter." - Babylon 5
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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Originally posted by KathyM:
The book listing has been removed from the US Amazon Yeah, but that only happened midday today.
Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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Boards Chief Administrator Emeritus Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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Boards Chief Administrator Emeritus Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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<sigh> My first response was too rude to post.  It's fans like this one who spoil everything for everyone else. LabRat 
Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly.
Aramis: Yes, sorry.
Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.
The Musketeers
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Beat Reporter
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Wow. I haven't had enough coffee yet to be tactful, so I'll just say good grief! What was she thinking? Thanks for the link to the article, Rivka. Your friend is obviously knowledgeable about fanfiction and fandom. This is so true: But the group most outraged by this, probably even more so than Lucas' legal staff, is the fan fiction community. When you know that what you are doing is, at best, tolerated by creators you respect who can make you stop at any time, you get very annoyed when someone walks up and slaps them. All it would take is for enough authors to start yelling: "That's it, everyone out of the pool," and the online world of fan fiction would fade away. She is certainly correct in later saying that fanfiction will never entirely disappear (and the overall quality might even improve if it suddenly took a lot more effort to disseminate our writings) but it would make me very sorry to see it under major attack. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would weigh the pleasure of writing against the threat of getting sued and decide that being able to send my kids to college was just probably more important. I am most happy when I can tell myself that fanfiction is slipping under TPTB's radar. One of the most fascinating things about fandom to me is how effectively it polices itself considering the diversity of the fans. Rules regarding feedback etiquette, intolerance of plagiarism, respect of source material, etc. might differ slightly from one fandom to another, but there is always a code by which a writer must live if he/she wants to be welcome. I suspect that no matter how the Lucas lawyers choose to respond, this author will receive a smackdown from her fellow fanfic writers that will serve as a warning to any other writer considering a similar path. /coffee ramble. Caroline
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Pulitzer
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Unbelievable.
I hope this doesn't ruin anything for SW fandom...
PJ
"You told me you weren't like other men," she said, shaking her head at him when the storm of laughter had passed.
He grinned at her - a goofy, Clark Kent kind of a grin. "I have a gift for understatement."
"You can say that again," she told him.
"I have a...."
"Oh, shut up."
--Stardust, Caroline K
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News to me. But I'm trying to imagine how crazy a person would have to be to try to pull off a stunt like that. In America, the country where you can sue a doctor who stops to help you on the side of the road, you are seriously going to plagiarise a blockbuster film series and proceed to sell the product? And against the Lucas empire no less. Wow.
That is definitely sad, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that someone eventually tried this. Still, my guess is that Lucas's people see that fanfiction, in general, keeps people interested in their films and keeps them buying paraphenalia so it's to their benefit to allow most writers to continue without interference. Not that I know them personally, but it seems to make marketing sense.
**~~**
Swoosh --->
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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Chris Bridges is a he.  And he should be knowledgeable about fanfic; he and his wife are quite into Firefly, and he has written some fanfic. If anyone is interested, I can find a link. His column is weekly, and one of the reasons I look forward to Wednesdays. 
Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
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I think I would have to disagree with the "unsung heroes" part of the NPR piece. I'm not sure fanfic writers are particularly heroic, just enthusiastic. Not that I don't love everybody here, but I feel heroic should be reserved for something stronger, like firefighters rushing into a burning building.
And Jareo's not really how I'd like the uninitiated to view fanfiction either. Most of us view fanfiction as a fun pastime, and therefore, aren't trying to infringe all over copyright laws. Because, unlike downloading music for instance, the products produced aren't available elsewhere for a fee. We're not depriving the original owners of the ideas nor are we profiting from what we're creating. Jareo was.
To me, what she did is just like what students do when they sell term papers. Writing the term paper isn't in itself a problem, because maybe you're one of those weird people, like me, who likes writing term papers. It's when you sell it with intent to defraud that it becomes one, because the original idea is no longer associated with its creator and someone else is profiting from the deception. And this troubles me, probably because today, for the third time this month, I caught one of my students plagiarising. How can you stop the kids if their parents are already doing it?
**~~**
Swoosh --->
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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To give credit where credit is due, I have to admit, the cover is quite well done. Wonder if she designed it herself. How does one go about publishing one's own book?
**~~**
Swoosh --->
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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She is co-owner of a Print-On-Demand vanity press . Which is how the book ended up on Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, Powells.com, etc. -- they have contracts to carry all of WordTech's books. And those of several other POD vanity presses. Or did. I think it likely that one bit of fallout will be revising such contracts. The potential liability in similar future cases is just too high.
Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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Columnist
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*shakes head sadly*
Of all fandoms to do that in as well...Lucas isn't the most "tolerant" when it comes to fanfic...
Most get left alone as long as NO PROFIT IS MADE...for somebody to do something so STUPID as to try to sell it is just beyond me.
It makes the rest of us look bad.
*sigh* Sometimes I wonder how mankind managed to invent the wheel.
Spike: "There's a hole in the world...feels like we ought to have known."
-Angel
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Pulitzer
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Q: Having set Another Hope in an already existing universe, I find myself wondering if there was any concern on your part regarding copyrights?
No, because I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book. Yes, it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there. Excuse me... so if a customer browsing around Amazon wants to buy it (thus resulting to actual profit for her and her company), they won't be allowed to? *much rolling of the eyes* Q: What would you say to others who dream of writing a novel based on an existing world setting?
Writing such a novel is a lot of fun, especially if you have friends who are constantly saying, “Well, what if a certain character were put in a certain situation? I wonder how it would turn out.”
In 1999, that question was put to me, because as you know, the first three episodes of Star Wars were finally in the works. In these new movies, there are additional characters that could have made the older Star Wars universe even more exciting.
That’s what happened to me, as I found the characters of young Anakin and Padmé from Episode 1 and Ryoo and Pooja from Episode 2 impossible to resist. How would they grow and change over so many years? That is a fascinating question. Okay, that's... I mean, Jesus! It's FUN? That's ALL she has to say?? Gah. See ya, AnnaBtG. P.S.: ABSOLUTELY LOVE the tags the customer gave it on Amazon. Hee
What we've got here is failure to communicate...
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Q: Having set Another Hope in an already existing universe, I find myself wondering if there was any concern on your part regarding copyrights?
No, because I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book. Yes, it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there. Yeah, your family, friends, acquaintances, and everybody else who stumbles across it on Amazon.  Anna,  Yeah, Amazon pops up a note in your shopping cart saying, "you'll need to fax us a signed and notarized affidavit stating that you are a member of the Jareo family/friends/acquaintances group, or you can't buy this book." Somehow, I don't think that's happening. Q: I also wonder how far a writer is allowed to write in a world and to use characters introduced by another author?
If it’s not a commercial project, I don’t see any problem. George Lucas’ Star Wars universe is fertile territory for so-names “infinities,” or alternate storyline material. Thousands of people write them, and they are posted on hundreds of unofficial Star Wars-themed web sites on the Internet. Lucas himself said that as long as no one is making a profit, he thought such tributes were wonderful. Ummm... I think I remember learning this in about what, second grade? It's been awhile but the lesson sort of stuck with me: If you pick an apple from a tree (paying nothing for it) and you sell it for $1.00, you'll have a) no apple, and b) $1.00. Unless you are a horse, the $1.00 has more value than the apple. You have made a profit. One could extrapolate this to: if you sell a book for $20.00, you have made a profit. Even if it's your mom who bought the book - it was her $20.00 and now it's your $20.00. Hmmm. A profit. Also... Rivka's friend says this person is a journalist?? Where did she get her degree, out of a Cracker-Jack box? I want to know which university it was, so I can make sure my kids never go there. It's obviously not teaching journalism students about plagiarism. I think somebody needs to call her professors and get them to revoke her degree. The professors will be easy to find - they'll be the ones walking around with paper bags over their heads, hoping no one will recognize them as her former teachers. ~Toc
TicAndToc :o)
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"I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three."
-Elayne Boosler
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From the Amazon comments, posted by someone named Inverse Reality. Let's review a few facts. Jareo's husband, Kevin Walzer, holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati and they've both been linked to open-source projects. This establishes both some intelligence and awareness of the situation of copyright and public domain in the U.S. today, as well as possible leftist leanings/sympathies. I'd like to suggest that this may not be as clueless a decision as it seems. Yes, it looks totally idiotic on the surface, but I wonder if this might not be a PR move for challenging established copyright laws gone terribly wrong... S/he's right, my immediate assumption was that she was just utterly clueless and was going to spoil the fun for the rest of us. As tvnerdgirl said, Lucas isn't known for being very tolerant of fan creation. But the other side of this could be that she knows exactly what she's doing. Her husband has a doctorate in English. In addition to the vanity press, the two of them run a poetry publishing company and have apparently been publishing books for some time, at least one of which has been very successful (at least in terms of critical reviews, notoriety). And they managed to convince Amazon, B&N, et al to carry their books. They must know something about what they're doing. And apparently they run or ran (the website isn't available) a software company that had produced some Open Source products. Open Source is, to paraphrase badly, releasing things into the public domain so that others can use or add on them. The Firefox internet browser is an example of this; all of the code to create Firefox is available on their website. This means that independent coders everywhere can write their own extensions or modifications and share them on Mozilla's website without fear of a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Mozilla encourages them to do so. So anyway, they both have to know at least a little something about copyright law. Is it possible she thought she was making some sort of statement or protest? (Although, if I were going to stage some sort of protest, I'd at least pick a fanfic the fans liked .) And it isn't a particularly effective protest, as what she did falls clearly on the illegal side of the line and doesn't really have any controversy to make it worth protesting for. But it has garnered a lot of attention. Mostly negative, but maybe she was following the old "any publicity is good publicity" adage? Either that, or all their college education and publishing experience really has left them clueless, which makes it that much sadder. She (and her husband) weren't uneducated people. She should certainly have known better. Kaylle
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There's another case of plagiarism making headlines . This one is unrelated to fanfic, however.
Fanfic | MVs Clark: "Lois? She's bossy. She's stuck up, she's rude... I can't stand her."Lana: "The best ones always start that way.""And you already know. Yeah, you already know how this will end." - DeVotchKa
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How could you end up with 40 different instances of clear plagiarism by accident? I can't remember what I ate for lunch.
**~~**
Swoosh --->
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Pulitzer
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Her answers to the interview (especially the ones I quoted) look like pure idiocy to me. If she had wanted to make a statement, I think she'd have jumped up at the opportunity of the interview and spoken her mind. After all, the question about plagiarism did come up. But NOOO. Not that I would mind to see the copyright laws changing and allowing fanfic to be published for profit but I'm sticking to the facts. And the facts don't seem to suggest she knew what she was doing. Besides, as you said, Kaylle, this is very ineffective a protest. See ya, AnnaBtG.
What we've got here is failure to communicate...
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