tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post3575505734336000101..comments2024-03-23T15:28:15.198+00:00Comments on Icy's Blunt Pencil: Public Domain CharactersIcy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post-50126997288042534102011-11-18T08:22:57.801+00:002011-11-18T08:22:57.801+00:00As I say, I understand why people might want to wr...As I say, I understand why people might want to write it and I don't have any problems reading it, I'm just saying that personally, I don't want to write it, and I wouldn't want people using my characters.Icy Sedgwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post-34259500238958463222011-11-18T03:37:10.038+00:002011-11-18T03:37:10.038+00:00Under the right conditions, I don't see a prob...Under the right conditions, I don't see a problem with using public domain characters. That's the whole purpose of public domain, after all: to allow people to do something new with something familiar. The (IMHO) "right conditions" are similar to what several of y'all have already mentioned — do it as a spoof (or in the case of a Bertie Wooster type, the opposite), or use them as secondary characters. There's also the professional courtesy of explicitly citing the originals.<br /><br />Musicians remix stuff both new and old these days, why can't writers join the fun beyond the odd bit of fan fiction? (Of course, I mistranslated the lyrics to "Hey Jude" for a #FridayFlash once.) I wonder how many people who read <i>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies</i> were moved to read the original as well. Many writers have used (or at least alluded to) Lovecraft's characters in their works, published and online, and the lawyers of R'lyeh haven't demanded anyone's soul that I'm aware of.<br /><br />Now if I were to grab one of E.E. "Doc" Smith's space operas off Gutenberg, modernize the language and social structures, and republish that as my own, that would be icky. Not illegal, but icky. However, if I had my own characters find the <i>Skylark</i> frozen in a comet, and revived the crew to find… something? It could potentially be a fun read, and stimulate interest in the originals.<br /><br />If someone wanted to borrow a character from <i>White Pickups</i>, I guess it would depend on what they wanted to do and how I'd get recognized. But by the time they pass into public domain, I'll be long dead, buried, and (if I'm awfully lucky), the characters will outlive me and find their way into other stories.Larry Kollarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08317037795075278427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post-27419642272064373162011-11-17T21:20:18.759+00:002011-11-17T21:20:18.759+00:00I once wrote a FridayFlash filling in a fictional ...I once wrote a FridayFlash filling in a fictional backstory for Bertie Wooster, and another as a joke piece with Star Trek characters. I think it's an easy shortcut to take someone else's world or characters and overlay your own plot on top of them. Very difficult for it to be anything very original, though. In the Eyre Affair, most of the plot revolved around Tuesday Next, while the literary characters were secondary and acting way, way out of type anyway. That helped a lot.Tony Nolandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15090583562737225942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post-50843307620158786992011-11-17T15:04:46.526+00:002011-11-17T15:04:46.526+00:00I would feel incredibly gross getting paid for usi...I would feel incredibly gross getting paid for using characters someone else invented and didn't consent for me to take. It's different in comics, where the writers invent things for a publisher and yield rights. To compose a full novel using somebody else's stuff... that seems like cheating. Certainly the glut of bad books and movies that steal other people's IPs, like the recent Three Musketeers movies, gives it a whole extra distasteful layer. The only exception I'd have is where someone wrote it deliberately absurd, winking at, if not embracing the reality that this fiction isn't how it's supposed to be. That it's legal for someone to rewrite Lord of the Rings explicitly to attack Tolkien's politics repulses me. Yet if you do it over the top, like the comic that put Twain and Tesla in control of a giant robot, I can see the fun in it.John Wiswellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07416044628686736927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post-63490969995052977232011-11-17T14:49:59.966+00:002011-11-17T14:49:59.966+00:00I use goblins, trolls etc... but no well defined p...I use goblins, trolls etc... but no well defined public domain characters.Craig Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07176851401465801580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6396788184066846681.post-73470647466464741062011-11-17T11:38:23.975+00:002011-11-17T11:38:23.975+00:00I probably wouldn't use a public domain charac...I probably wouldn't use a public domain character in my works. Reckon it would be like describing your second cousin; you know the back story but you don't quite see the world how they see it.<br />I wonder how many modern literary characters will still be around to become public domain. Race you to have the first modern character public domain :)<br />Adam B @revhappinessAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com