On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Ross wrote:
No offense, but that is kind of a paranoid statement. Not only would
Anne McCaffrey have to find out about it, she would also somehow have
to find out who you are. The internet is great for keeping privacy.
Finding out about a fanfic is rather easy, since the author would have to
show it to others for it to be read/become popular. Of course, if you just
wrote it in private and kept it so, then fine... I guess. :)
But if you post, there will be someone, somewhere, who is a fan of anime
fiction and of Pern fiction and will know of the policy and pass it on to
the author. Provided you have an email address with your fic, or a url,
then you will be amazingly easy to find, due in no small part to the
cooperation of your ISP.
The internet is NOT great for keeping privacy. That is an illusion. For
people with legal access to the ISP's, all of whom in their "terms of
usage" contract with their clients(at least in the US), have sworn that if
the authorities request the information to be turned over, they will
comply completely. There are no "anonymous" users in the true sense of
them being anonymous, only unknown to most other users.
All it will take is a court order and all logs regarding who logged in at
what time and who owns what domain/subdomain/used what ip at what time/etc
will be transferred over. No ISP wants to get involved in the problems
their clients make for themselves with third parties.
I don't condone writing stuff if the authors don't want you to, out of
courtesy, but I would not fear them.
I would. Like the plague, actually. People are very protective of things
they create. If I took one of your fanfictions and rewrote it in a way you
didn't like, I'm sure you'd be miffed. You wouldn't have much of a legal
leg to stand on, but does that mean I'll go out of my way to get you
upset? Probably not.
But an author who's got a raw nerve about her work and is willing to throw
lawyers at people who violates her policies isn't someone to mess around
with. Her works are copyrighted, she has made her intent to defend her
copyright to the utmost. Any attempt to violate her rights regarding her
works would be a very cut and dry issue and give her very good legal
standing to bring a suit against whomever violates her policies.
Fear is relative. I think one is much better off giving a tank mine it's
respectable space instead of stomping on it, claiming only a tank can set
it off. (bad analogy, I know)
Wing. (Okay, I've said too much... Gonna lurk again.)