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Fictional Character Rights

18:57 / 13.08.03

I've been thinking about rights for fictional characters, specifically open source characters. I've seen suggested that there is something wrong with having a character who could be used "without permission" by anyone and everyone, as if that character is used like a piece of meat.

This lead me to considering the implications of the rights of, not only these characters, but of any. After all, even with a single creator, the rights of a character ends where the creator's rights begin.

This may seem silly, but consider the outcry seen by people whose favourite characters are tampered with, even by the creator with the original vision. As an example, Star Wars fans petitioned to have George Lucas replaced by Peter Jackson. Though I can't think of any other examples off-hand, I'm sure people who write the same characters over years change their worldview and have that reflected through the character. Is that fair to the character?

When, if ever, should a character have the right to not be exploited by its owner or creator?

09:17 / 15.08.03

I think this thread topic rocks. I just wanted to say that, and also to bump this thread a bit, because I think it deserves some traffic.

Thanks, moriarty, 'cos I had no idea about the Peter Jackson petition, and it sort of has some bearing on stuff that I'm interested in academically.

I think it's basically tough luck, on us all, and on the character, if someone decides to do a George Lucas with one of their creations. Robin Hobb also seems to be on her way to retroactively ruining half her output in a way that I can't mention without spoilerising all over the place. Fuck that. I suppose it brings in the notion of a pick and mix attitude towards canon that someone was talking about in the Blake's 7 thread - can you decide to ignore certain things, or are you stuck with Anakin Skywalker the petulant teenager forever?

It's different with open source, to some extent. Put very loosely, it's almost like it's all fanfic, in the sense of a larger degree of flexibility (I think someone said similar in one of the Jenny Everywhere threads - or perhaps they simply said the opposite, which amounts to the same thing in the end)... I do think there's something in the notion of rights for fictional characters, but I don't think people who write with open source characters, or indeed people who write fanfic, necessarily have any less respect for the characters than the original creator. In the case of fanfic, I sometimes think they have more.

Spyder Todd 2008

22:21 / 15.08.03

Dude, since I condider myself a fictional character, I love this thread. I demand equal representation! Down with our oppresive creators and writers! (My writer is currently Bendis though, so I'm not going to complain to much)

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:19 / 16.08.03

Who?

Bendis.

Who?

Bend - Jesus, are you even -

The guy who -

Yeah.

Look (because I'm feeling like my boundaries are NOT being respected here) I don't think - if you think - If there is any thinking going on here -

I just don't fucking understand you sometimes.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:30 / 16.08.03

I remember when I was at university writing an essay on Hjortsberg's Angel Heart, in which I concluded that Angel was treated really unfairly by Hjortsberg because he just wasn't a character who was designed to be in that story... I think I may have been doing too many drugs at the time. Got a good mark, though!

This is why I've never given into the temptation to write my own Jerry Cornelius story... I think I'd be unfair on the poor guy.

Never stoped me with the Cthulhu pantheon, though. Maybe that's cos they're real ...

16:24 / 16.08.03

Hmmm interesting

I think there are a number of different strands here which could rapidly drift into the realms of theology especially if we start questiong how creator/gods can allow 'bad things' to happen to their creations.

I'd like to know what you meant when you compare unrestricted use of a character as being akin to trating that character as a piece of meat?

It seems to strike at an idea of essential charicteristics of a character divinely created by an author/god figure (a notion that is worried by the Barthesian notion of the death of the author ). The authorial part in creating a character actually relatively small. An author writes (or more accurately, publishes) once. Readers are both plural and infinite and can invest the work of the writer with similarly plural and infinite readings.

Copyright legislation would seem to add a degree of authority to a single writer, but does so by rendering a character more discretely into a piece of intellectual property (which seems to me to be pretty close to the piece of meat analogy) . In addition to this there is also the Lucus factor that chol and moriarty point to. Simply put just because you created an interesting character/story, does not necessarily mean you are unable to entirely debase it either through revisiting the character too often etc.

We may be way off at a tangent here but what i'm trying to say is that characters have no rights that can be safeguarded because they are created multiple readers precludes prevention of interpretation by some readers.

20:27 / 16.08.03

Perhaps this is the opposite of the ideology of Slash, but I've always felt that characters who are created with a certain amount of dignity have some kind of right to maintain it..

Or I've felt that way ever since I read a dodgy Illuminatus! rip-off in which Kilgore Trout was fucked by a goat, anyway..