On Wed, 28 Aug 1996 08:41:11 -0400 Zen said:
: Joe (JMS) is justifiably worried that if he is KNOWN to read these
: newsgroups, that John Q Bab5Fan will see the plot to the last fanfic he
: posted in an upcoming episode, and sue JMS (!) for stealing the idea!
:
: Don't laugh! It HAS happened! (not with B5, but the court cases in LA are
: FULL of examples.)
:
: And, the sad truth is, there are few people that can compete with rabid
: fanfic authors for density when it comes to story ideas. [Someone else had
: this idea too? HA! This is a *completely* original idea! How DARE you
: imply...]
:
: So it is easy to see why JMS would run like bloody hell away from these
: groups. He is a wise man, who has learned (some things) from experience.
: (not that he doesn't have a long way to go, just like everyone else! ^_^)
For the same reason Terry Pratchett has kindly asked that fanfic
please not be posted directly to alt.fan.pratchett, which he
reads. The suggested proceeding is to post a message *announcing*
that the fanfic exists and asking interested parties for email, to
receive it. I was told that as often as not Terry is among those
who request a copy (although that may have changed).
There was one case, that remains in my memory. Some pretty daft
bugger posted an incredibly crude fic *directly* to the group,
with a Subject: of "HEY TERRY LOOK AT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", and an
opening note stating in essence "Your latest books are so boring.
You should write like this:" followed by a totally out of
character and "out of style" one-page fic.
Well, he got a pretty angry reaction - from everybody, except
Terry. Terry apparently sat back for a while and watched the
flames fly, as the fic author continued to piss off everybody with
his strange concept of rights and duties an author had in his
opinion and how Terry sucked and everything.
Finally Terry stepped in and stated his reasons, why he didn't
like fanfic to be posted where he was bound to see it. It was
pretty much, what Zen just said about JMS, only he said it in his
own, witty stile. I wish I had a copy. :)
Sebastian