Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 22:45:27 -0400
From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Amazon "Kindle Worlds"
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 5/22/2013 8:28 PM, Samuel Lubell wrote:

> normally the author can't copyright fanfic or make any money off it.

Why not?  If you write it, you have a copyright on it (unless it is an
infringing derivative work and therefore not copyrightable).  You can
certainly sell or give away your rights, but at the instant it is
created, you have a copyright on it.  You can register the copyright if
you like, but that doesn't get you the copyright...it mostly gets you
the right to sue for triple damages for infringement of it.

If you own rights to something that someone else wants, you can sell it
to them...unless the transaction is unlawful for some reason (for
example, if what you have ownership rights to is a crop of cannabis
sativa).  Are you saying that fanfic, by definition, is unlawful?  I can
easily agree that at least some fanfic would constitute copyright
infringement, but I would object to any claim that it all does, so it
would appear to me that your statement above is only true in some (where
"some" is anything less than all ;-) cases.

-- Mike B.