Thursday Prompts on Friday: IP Law
Okay, so I'm a bit late on "Thursday" prompts. Personal life got... interesting, these last two days.
The news sweeping fandom (or at least the fandom I'm most involved with, which of course means all the important fandoms in the universe) is the JKR/RDR trial. I expect a huge pile of wank meta to be inspired by it, and so here's some prompts in case anyone wanted to discuss something other than "Steve is a low-down thief/JKR is a greedy bitch." As always, these are potential prompts for the whole week (or forever; it's not like they wear out).
Canon Meta: Does your fandom-of-choice have copyright/trademark/patent/whatever IP laws? Do wizards sue each other for stealing spells? Could some upstart clever wizard patent spells in Muggle law? (This leads into the whole issue of "do wizards ever manipulate Muggle authorities to go after other wizards;" you're welcome to tackle that one as well.) That Stargate design... has it been released on the internet? Have parts of it been released, and if so, who gets prosecuted for what? If it's alien technology, can it be patented? Can Sam & Dean support themselves by patenting "Demon Hunting Technique #34a?" Do the Ghostbusters get into trademark battles with an upstart group of kids calling themselves SpiritSmackdown, Inc? Have you ever read a story focused on intellectual property issues? Ever considered writing one?
Fandom Meta: Does it bother you if someone wants to use your fic/art/vid as a basis for another fic/art/vid? If you write fic, would you expect someone to ask permission to take a quote and iconize it? How much control do you expect or want over your creations? Where do you draw the line between "homage" and "infringement?" Do you release your stuff under a Creative Commons license, and if so, do you release different things under different licenses? (Do you know what CC licenses are, or does the whole copyright thing confuse you utterly?)
Meta Meta: Do you think canon authors/creators have any rights over fanworks? Do they have the right to suppress them--and do they have the right to use them? If an author gets an idea from fanfic and writes a story based on it, does s/he owe the fanfic author credit or $$? Do we, as fans, have an obligation to inform other fans of the legal issues around IP? Are there differences between fannish understandings of the law, and non-fannish interpretations? (Since that's usually a resounding YES... anyone want to explore those differences?) What's your understanding of the legal issues around copyright, as they relate to fandom?