You wrote: 

Henry J Cobb penned:

From: Kergma <kergma@sv.net.au>
Hmmm - theres a point.  How many of the writers of the manga follow 

the

fan fiction that arises from it?

Hopefully none.

As long as they have no contact, they can't have their copyrights
"contaminated" by stories they've never heard of neither will they 

sue

us, if they never hear about us.

We paint the colors of the shadows they'll never see.

Anou... that seems a little paranoid.  They can read it without
"contaminating" their copyrights.  They simply cannot "recognize" 

them.  As

long as they do not GIVE permission, or WITHHOLD permission, plausible
deniability remains in the eyes of the law.

It's like that 10th Amendment says, paraphrased,
of course, "If it's not expressely illegal, then it's allowed."

Go to the FFML Archive, and read Sebastian-san's post... he had a 

quote
>from Terry Pratchett that summed it up nicely.

Hey, Zen, how do we get there if we want to look
up stuff ourselves?

Oh, bugger.  Zen'll save you the trouble.  Here is message:

<quote>

Resent-Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 06:40:00 -0400
To: fanfic@fanfic.com
From: bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de (Sebastian Weinberg)
Subject: Re: [FFML] resignation: HAYES + story request
Reply-To: bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 12:42:49 +0200
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On Sun, 11 Aug 1996 01:06:26 -0600 James Bateman said:

<snippy snip>

There's something that Terry Pratchett (author of the Discworld
fantasy novels) said about fanfics, that sums it up quite neatly:


 "....Publishers
 are used to getting stories with a covering note saying 'Here's a 

story

 I've set in Harry Spiven's 'World of Hurts' universe...' and the
 publishers say 'Did you get his permission?' and the writer says 'I 

don't

 have to do that, do I?' and the publishers go white and say 'Does 

the

 Pope shit in the woods?'

Hmmmm, must check out Prachett's work.  He's got a style
of writing that interests me.  And I can't believe that
people have done that in the Real World(tm).

 That's the REAL world. Now let's talk about FANDOM.

 The law isn't any different. But there's people out there writing 

HHGTTG

 stuff, Red Dwarf stuff, Star Trek stuff and Discworld stuff for the
 amusement of their friends. Authors react on an individual basis. 

Some

 hate it and try to stop it. Anne McCaffrey -- I think, although I'm 

open

 to correction here -- doesn't mind so long as her main characters 

are not

 used. Douglas Adams seems to have tolerated/given permission for a 

welter

 of Hitchhikers stuff in the ZZ9 fanzine.

Yup.  I went to take a look at the Usenet group for 
McCaffrey, and the FAQ says that if you don't use her characters,
you can write fanfics.  It's as simple as that.

(Back to Sebastian)

I'm sure that Takahashi-san and all other manga creators would say
pretty much the same, if asked.

Also, what they must understand is that we're
not trying to rip them off, but trying to fill
the void left when some stories aren't complete
or something isn't explained to our satisfaction.

We don't do it to make money, just to keep that
little section of the fiction universe alive.

Though, speaking of painting shadows, Cobb-san, are you *ever* going 

to

finish "Promises"?  ^_^

* tap * tap * tap * tap * ...

Hmmmm, if that wasn't the perfect opening of
an invitation to prod, well....

Oh Henry!  Where are you????

Zen-

Foxtrot the Furryous, BTFH