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General meta about fanworks tends to be written by fanfic writers(*), and I often get a squidgy feeling of "that's not right" when I try and apply their conclusions/assumptions to fanart. Unfortunately I suck at this sort of sociological analysis so this is just some vague impressions, please let me know if your experience is different.
Some major differences that jump out at me:
a) A lot of successful artists openly draw fanart as fanart, but few successful writers will openly share their fanfic unless they call it a "postmodern pastiche" or something.
b) It's considered more acceptable to show creators fanart of their work than fanfic.
(b) There are many examples of fanartists being hired as commercial artists based on their fanart, but I don't know of anyone getting a writing gig directly via fanfic (though I wouldn't be entirely surprised, I know people have gone from fanfic to official spin off novels) EDIT: Two counterexamples so far in the dw comments. I get the impression it is still rarer for fanfic, but maybe not!
c) Lots of fanartists openly sell fanart and do fanart commissions of copyrighted works, while selling fanfic is usually considered unethical and dangerous. (Opinions on the legality of both differ wildly, I'm not sure of any consensus in either case)
Thus it annoys me when fanfic writers talk about how fanworks "are always done for love and can never make money" etc. There is a gift economy around fanart (all mine is certainly done for free), but there's a thriving cash economy as well. NOTE: I do not want to get into whether or not this is a good thing. My point is that it exists.
EDIT: Plus of course people sell fanfic of out of copyright works all the time e.g. Pride and Prejudice fic. WHICH I WRITE. *thwaps self* This post is (I realise belatedly) focussed on attitudes to fanworks based on in-copyright works, though if you have opinions about out-of-copyright stuff I'd still be interested to hear them. Also! As always my POV is very much limited by my experience (English speaking, Western country, mostly lj-clone and DeviantArt based etc)
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to ponder why these differences exist.
( Read more... )
Some major differences that jump out at me:
a) A lot of successful artists openly draw fanart as fanart, but few successful writers will openly share their fanfic unless they call it a "postmodern pastiche" or something.
b) It's considered more acceptable to show creators fanart of their work than fanfic.
(b) There are many examples of fanartists being hired as commercial artists based on their fanart, but I don't know of anyone getting a writing gig directly via fanfic (though I wouldn't be entirely surprised, I know people have gone from fanfic to official spin off novels) EDIT: Two counterexamples so far in the dw comments. I get the impression it is still rarer for fanfic, but maybe not!
c) Lots of fanartists openly sell fanart and do fanart commissions of copyrighted works, while selling fanfic is usually considered unethical and dangerous. (Opinions on the legality of both differ wildly, I'm not sure of any consensus in either case)
Thus it annoys me when fanfic writers talk about how fanworks "are always done for love and can never make money" etc. There is a gift economy around fanart (all mine is certainly done for free), but there's a thriving cash economy as well. NOTE: I do not want to get into whether or not this is a good thing. My point is that it exists.
EDIT: Plus of course people sell fanfic of out of copyright works all the time e.g. Pride and Prejudice fic. WHICH I WRITE. *thwaps self* This post is (I realise belatedly) focussed on attitudes to fanworks based on in-copyright works, though if you have opinions about out-of-copyright stuff I'd still be interested to hear them. Also! As always my POV is very much limited by my experience (English speaking, Western country, mostly lj-clone and DeviantArt based etc)
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to ponder why these differences exist.
( Read more... )
