Into 5,083 posts, some wank must fall

[court1429.livejournal.com]

Well, it's 5,082 posts now... :) Gotta say that today's now-deleted post is the first of its kind that we've ever seen in this community. And dickish as it was, one post out of 5000+ is not even a blip on the meter.

For those who didn't see the post and wonder what's up, someone who rounded up a bunch of fics that are no longer available for sharing in this community, decided she'd create a new username expressly to upload said fics to an individual 4Shared page and then posted the link here in the comm.

As we've said repeatedly, what anybody chooses to save to their own hard drive and share privately is not and cannot be any of our business, but *in this community*, we go by the rules that have been posted. There aren't many, but one rule that is if an author ever notifies the maintainers that they have pulled their fics and they ask specifically that sharing *within the comm* be disallowed, we will abide by that author's request.

So far, the only author who's done so is jans_intentions. niquita_gia is the author who notified us today of this now-deleted post and has made a similar request regarding her fic, which we will honor.

As far as Carly's "That Darn Gus" fic, no such request has been made. Apparently, she posted her fics to bjfic.net and they were made unavailable because that archive has been dead for over 18 months now and the current owner chooses not to release it for someone else to step up and maintain. But if the archive came back online, that fic and many others would be available once more.

This should answer any questions regarding the wee bit of drama that is now over and done with. Carry on reading and searching and being the awesome comm members that you all are!

Comments

[gaedhal.livejournal.com]

Actually, this has been going on in the RW for
a long time. I know at least four published authors
who began by converting their fanfiction (in this
case from "Star Trek" and more recently from
"Brokeback Mountain") into regular fiction. They
were all massively AU, although if you'd read the
original, you could tell. But the vast majority of
readers would not have read the original fics and
would have no way of knowing what they used to be.
Editors/publishers are aware of that and don't care
all that much as long as "the serial numbers are
chiseled off" as they say. Most "original" characters
in popular TV and fiction are not all that original
when it comes down to it. Harry Potter owes tons
to children's characters that came before, while
Roddenberry based "Star Trek" on "Wagon Train" (!?).
And most modern detectives owe their lives to Sherlock
Holmes, who owes his to Poe's Dupin, et al. Once you
start teaching lit you realize how much everything is
completely connected and that "Rebecca" is only "Jane
Eyre" in a different dress.

That said, posting fics that any writer has decided
to delete, for whatever reason, is shit stirring.
I've railed about this in the past and been called
a party pooper. So -- if you're going to do it, at
least have the decency to do it furtively via private
e-mail and not in an open community. Because that's
just not very nice.

[court1429.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. "No new ideas/plots/etc. under the sun. They're all derivative."

And again, yes. Unless you were a member of a specific fandom, you wouldn't recognize a recycled fic and no, the publishers or producers aren't probably going to take any steps in that author's direction.

Authors can remove whatever they want. They also have to realize that if it was posted online, it's probably still available somewhere somehow. We do want to be responsive to authors who make the request to not share in the comm, but publicizing that request is the most we are willing to do, and really, it's the most we *can* do.