Roger Kreuz

So if an artist writes a song that's an homage to a different artist, the artist might be flattered or they might say, that's too similar to my work, you're actually capitalizing my notoriety and therefore I'm going to sue you.

So even in some cases trying to show respect or admiration for a previous person's work

and trying to imitate that work can cross a line that some artists might find very problematic.

But somebody has to sue.

Right.

The original artist has to sue.

A really interesting case is fan fiction.

This is when somebody takes the characters and world building of somebody else and uses that for their own purposes.

It actually began with Star Trek fan fiction.

When the series was canceled in the late 60s, a bunch of people began to write new stories based upon the same characters, the same ship, the same kinds of adventures.

And you can't publish that work.

It would be a violation of the copyright of the people who created the series originally.

But a lot of it circulated online, and now there's a huge amount of fan fiction, literally millions of stories that exist online of the Harry Potter universe,

almost any work of fiction or any movie, you can read people writing stories about that.

And some authors hate that.

They regard their characters as their children.

Anne Rice, the woman who wrote Interview with a Vampire, was famous for sending out these cease and desist letters to people who are trying to develop the characters in their own stories.

Whereas other authors don't have a real problem with it.

C.S.

Lewis thought it was perfectly fine for people to write new Narnia stories.