#Intellectual Property Blog

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

[otto-wood]

I don't know if it's supposed to feel like daytime or nighttime or anything, but you know what? (x)

[brainwashed-parxie]

I'm still here btw

I stayed here

[kotatsudotme]

Waterparks Songs/Lyric inspired blinkies

Notably inspired by the visuals during the Intellectual Property tour in April 2023. from top to bottom: ST*RFUCKER, TURBULENT, and [REBOOT]. UPDATE 5/29/24: We fixed the way "soulsucker" was formatted to match the new release! PLEASE REBLOG THIS VERSION.

f2u on your neocities, tumblr, or where ever! credit is not required, but greatly appreciated/encouraged. reblog if you use please!

[hunnyblonde]

soooooo shaped arghhhhhh

[kinnie-coins]

SOULSUCKER // ST*RFUCKER

☆ Names + Pronouns ☆

Based on the characters of course, however some are simply based the album Intellectual Property.

Names -

Star, Soul, Angel, Lucifer, Nephilim, Faith, Seraphim, Ritual, Grey / Gray, Spirit, Virtue, Melatonin, Nyx, Aura, Crimson, Lilith, Lucian, Blaze, Rose, Halo

Pronouns -

star/stars, st*r/st*rs, soul/souls, cross/crosses, halo/halos, ven/heavens, vir/virtues, pray/prayers, angel/angels, demon/demons, wor/worships, dark/darks, night/nights, fall/fallen,

☆ / * / +

❤️/💚/🖤/❤️‍🔥

🪽/⭐️/🌟/🌓

✨️/🩸/💫/🫀

🔴/🟢/🟥/🟩

⚫️/⬛/🚫/❗️

[ameliadallon]

you literally cannot steal ideas in a way that matters, especially in a fucking fandom. Fanfiction and even fanart is """"stealing"""" somebody's ideas and going "what if i did it like this?" It is by its nature transgressive with ideas. If disney uses your ideas and makes money, then sure, get mad, thats righteous, but if some rando uses your idea and doesnt credit you? Enjoy having your idea out there for free with practically zero effort on your part.

[website-com]

i have been stressed and thusly only able to pay attention to stupid shit so if my blog gets stupid shit on it please ignore and pretend im still really cool. thank you i love you. unless you didnt think i was really cool then i am neutral towards you, tit for tat.

[vampyretaemin]

thinking about that post where that anon says they report people for copyright infringement when they watermark their gifs... i think most people dont actually know what copyright infringement is bc making gifs and posting them on tumblr is not even close to that ❤️

[steampunk-ghostxx]

Doing my best to appear like a functioning human being😅

(bg 🎵: 'FUCK ABOUT IT (feat. blackbear)' by Waterparks)

[arathyputhillam]

it’s very weird being a swiftie who LOVES Taylor’s re-recording projects while also being a PhD student publishing papers because it’s like why am I signing away my intellectual brainchild to a damn publisher for nothing except a line on my CV 😭

[notwxrriors]

some parx blogs on here r so negative and foul like bro why are you even interacting w parx media if ur just gonna constantly shit on em,,,,make it make sense

[intellectualpropertydaily]

(nope!)

song: ST*RFUCKER | line: 21 | word: 133

[brainwashed-parxie]

MY IP2 MERCH FINALLY SHIPPED.

[kotatsudotme]

Waterparks Album inspired blinkies

from right to left: double dare, entertainment, fandom, greatest hits, intellectual property

f2u on your neocities, tumblr, or where ever! credit is not required, but greatly appreciated/encouraged. reblog if you use please!