[Lisa Brundage]

This week, John and Andre will lead discussion. Here is a place to discuss!

[SarahA27]

While we’re on the topic of copyright infringement, especially with creative work, the first thing I thought of was the huge AO3 controversy that surfaced when AI started generating text by scraping existing writing. What’s interesting is that fanfiction typically relies on using characters from copyrighted intellectual property, and the human author / fan simply adds their own creative spin on it. So it almost like AI becomes a third layer of distortion where it’s taking and building off something that was already a reinterpretation of an original work.

I wasn’t sure of the specific legal protections behind how people can create fan work based on a registered intellectual property, so I looked into it. It seems like non-commercial writing is protected since it’s a “derivative work,” but even the legality of that is iffy.

https://vlaa.org/the-role-of-copyright-law-in-fanfiction/

Defense can also be dependent on the fair use clause, which is judged based upon:

1. “the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction

Overall, when it comes back to the AI issue, I think this article gives a pretty good summary of events:

https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2397&context

 

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by SarahA27.

[Lisa Brundage]

This is a great topic for AI and human creativity! I haven’t had time to read up on the sources you provided, Sarah (thank you!), but I hope that fanfic writers do have protections. Fanfic isn’t just remixing work in random fashion, it’s creating the worlds the writers and readers want to see, and often for niche audiences who crave representation. Maybe we’ll have time to talk about it today!

[Author]

Posts