No one expects the Fanfic Inquisition.

[timepiececlock]

April 27th, 2005 -- FanFiction.Net would like to address a growing problem. For whatever reason, some writers feel it's okay to copy-n-paste musical lyrics they have not written into their fiction. If you did not write it, do not post it. This has always been our policy. Please remove these entries immediately to avoid account closure.

Um...wow. Okay.

"If you did not write it, do not post it."

By that rule taken not much farther, fanfiction itself is unadmissable.

Also, cutting out songfics? WTF? I mean... that's a fanfic trend I've long since grown out of, but you can't take that away. That's an integral part of the fanfiction community.

So if not songs... what's next? What about quotes of famous authors/movies/speeches at the beginning of the chapter?

What about fanfiction where you transcribe your own version of a given scene? It's not your dialouge, so does that count?

What if you use a song lyric for a chapter title?

::shakes head::

This seems unreal. The ff.net maintainers had to have known about songfic for ages. But worse than that, this really would hurt fics like sidewalksg's Leadbelly, and other fics that quote lyrics often in the beginning or end of stories, but aren't actually songfics.

I'd say this was a joke, except... well, it does seem to be right there on the ff.net front page.

Comments

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

That place gets dumber and dumber every single update. Are they going to start booting previous fics? I always credit any song lyrics I use. I don't see the problem as long as credit's assigned. Like you said ... um ... fanfiction.net.

::shakes head::

wow, seems very weird

[klytaimnestra.livejournal.com]

I can see them saying "if you are going to quote lyrics you didn't write, you must supply appropriate citation giving title, author, and publication info", which is what I tell my students. If you cite it, it's not plagiarized. Has the idea of footnoting crossed their minds?

[mildmay.livejournal.com]

Oooookay. People have been doing that forever (well, not really. But, you know what I mean). And I've noticed a lot of times authors give credit to the artist for the lyrics in the disclaimer, just like they give credit to the creators of the characters they're using.

Crazy.

[mutster101.livejournal.com]

I was pointing at this post by an incredulous friend. And, based on what I've seen in published novels, etc, you need the permission of the author to reproduce song lyrics, even if you are still giving them credit. It's not like citing the written word, because what you are reproducing is not the written word, it's a component of a musical work. I will check up on this, as I have contacts who work in music copyright - but I think it's basically that copyright laws are different for music than the written word.

[uiggu.livejournal.com]

It's the same as their ban on the entire second-person voice. You can still 'unleash your imagination and free your soul', but only in certain prescribed forms. Fucking Nazis.

[zebeckras.livejournal.com]

Aaaagh. Lame. I wonder if they've actually been told by an external source (or threatened by same) that songfics are violating copyright laws? 'Cause it just seems knee-jerky otherwise. "If you didn't write it, you can't post it"... like you pointed out, that's a really, really gray area as it is.

[herongale]

ff.net chased me away with the NC-17 ban. Not too many of my fics were NC-17, but I removed all my stories in protest. It hurt a LOT at the time... basically, I was deleting the online archive of HUNDREDS of reviews. But since then I've been so happy with that decision... who wants to put one's work up in a place where the rules of creativity are so needlessly circumscribed?

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Those people have made it clear, repeatedly, that they have no respect whatsoever for artistic integrity. The NC-17 ban (and subsequent deletion of thousands of stories and reviews) was straightforward enough. Anyone who continues to use fanfiction.net at this point is only asking to be mistreated.