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58 S.M.U. L. Rev. 1551 (2005)
Fanfic and Fan Fact: How Current Copyright Law Ignores the Reality of Copyright Owner and Consumer Interests in Fan Fiction

handle is hein.journals/smulr58 and id is 1561 raw text is: FANFIC AND FAN FACT: HOw CURRENT COPYRIGHT LAW IGNORES THE REALITY OF COPYRIGHT OWNER AND CONSUMER INTERESTS IN FAN FICTION Leanne Stendell I. INTRODUCTION TEENAGERS do it. Grandmothers, too. It's rampant on the In- ternet. Even Mark Twain was known to dabble. It is reading and writing fan fiction.1 One of the most unique outgrowths of popular culture of the last three decades, fan fiction involves stories based on popular books, television series, and films that expand and em- bellish upon the plots, characters, and settings found in those works.2 Fan fiction, largely a fringe hobby before the advent of the Internet, has exploded onto the scene. Stories now number in the millions, spur- ring the mainstream news media to periodically discover the phenome- non.3 This newfound visibility, while legitimizing production and consumption of fan fiction as a pastime and increasing the ranks of its devotees, has also provoked the copyright owners of original works to consider their legal options. Some are content to ignore fan fiction's exis- tence, but others feel the need for legal grandstanding accomplished by firing off cease-and-desist letters to the operators of fan websites.4 The sincerity of these maneuvers is difficult to gauge; to date, all conflicts be- tween fans and the corporate interests that own the objects of their fasci- nation have been settled out of court.5 Nevertheless, as long as fan fiction remains, the legal questions will surround it. Do fan stories violate the original creators' copyrights? Are 1. Mark Twain's A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT could be con- sidered a work of fan fiction loosely based on the King Arthur legends. 2. See Rebecca Tushnet, Comment, Symposium: Using Law and Identity to Script Cultural Production: Legal Fictions: Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law, 17 Loy. L.A. ENT. L.J. 651, 655 (1997). 3. See, e.g., Natasha Walter, Comment & Analysis: Fan Fiction on the Internet is Revi- talizing Classic Stories and Bringing an Oral Tradition Back to Society, THE GUARDIAN (London), Oct. 27, 2004, at 24; David Orr, The Widening Web of Digital Lit, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 3, 2004, § 7, at 26. 4. Cease and Desist Notices: Fan Fiction, Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, http://www. chillingeffects.org/fanfic/notice.cgi (last visited Jan. 19, 2005). 5. Tushnet, supra note 2, at 664. 1551

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