Some thoughts on how copyright and Fanfiction fit together that I had while pushing carts at ye old Wal-Mart, that I thought might make for some interesting discussion.
I think it's safe to say that most people here understand that one of the basic principles of American copyright law is that if you do not activly protect your copyright you lose it. To the best of my knowledge the law currently makes no distinction about whether or not the people using a copyrighted work are making a profit off of it. To this end I got to thinking about what might happen if someone were to to try and publish their own for profit work of, say Harry Potter, justifying that the with the amount of fanfiction out there Rowling's copyright has already been weakened to the point that she has lost it.
Now I'm not naive enough to believe that individual would actually win the case, but I do think that one of two consequences would come from this. The first one would be that the major fanfiction sites would be shut down permanatly, and that there would be a media push to keep other sites from popping up, as this is an issue that cuts across artistic mediums. The second major possibility I forsee is that major media companies TEMPORARILY shut down the fanfiction sites, and then make a major push to have copyright laws rewritten to accomadate not-for-profit works. I truly see this as a distinct possibility of happening, as fanfiction is a major way of keeping interest alive in a property. It promotes and advertises without any commercial business spending a dime. I truly believe that it would be in the best interests of the companies to advocate for those changes in copyright law.
