I'm not one for current events; I'm usually about 3 or 4 weeks behind any major event that happens. Mostly because I lack TV service and don't make a habit out of watching the news. But I read in TIME a quote about J. K. Rowling sueing over someone trying to publish a Harry Potter Encyclopedia and investigated further today. I'm in danger of being all over the place due to choking on outrage, so I will try to keep my bloggery to a few key points.

For those of you that don't know: [link]
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I've read numerous articles and blog and forum posts in which people are going after Rowling for being an elitist. Apparently they take her saying "I want my encyclopedia to generate money for charities and this guy will take money out of that pocket" means "Screw all my fans." I'm sorry, what? Did anyone else think up Harry Potter? Did anyone else shed blood, sweat, and tears over it? Harry was Rowling's idea, and she's getting dragged into court because someone else wants to make money off of her idea.

I find it disturbing that fans of my work could someday unite to revolt and overthrow me. It seems to me like the rule is "We love it, so we can do anything we want to it!" Who has more power, the idea or the fans of the idea? And believe me, Rowling has been plenty generous. Considering Anne McCaffrey of the Pern Dragonriders series said "no fan fiction, bitches", to the point that she cracked down on websites with cease and desist orders ... yeah. And in my opinion, McCaffrey and Rowling both have the right to say "Hands off. This is mine." Considering the response to art theft here on DA, the principle of the thing is shared by many, which brings me to my second point.

In the last couple of weeks, I discovered a consensus here on DA that drawing copyrighted characters is actually kind of a lucrative business. You can draw a comic of Link from the Zelda series, ink it, color it, and sell it at a con. And people will buy it, 'cause it's Zelda! And even better, the company won't come after you because what you're really giving them is publicity, and they won't sue you for the $500 of chump change in your pocket.

Does the idea of that feel dirty to anyone else here? Cause I think I'd feel a bit like a whore.

I don't need to tell you that I think people who spend the whole of their artistic talent copying someone else's idea and designs are wasting their time. I find it pathetic. I did NOT SAY that fanart is stupid, because I think reinterpreting someone else's vision as your own is half the fun and appeal of fanart. But there are people who copy and copy, to get those eyes exactly right, or the nose motif perfect, so they can draw just like someone else. And odds are, if they draw a fan piece, and see someone with a similar pose, they'll go after them for art theft! I'd rather see furries having sex than that, and that's really kinda saying something.

It's one thing to pay an homage to something, it's something entirely different to try and make money off of it. The dude who was a fan of Rowling crossed that line. (And that's not to say he's a super-evil dude; the guy's a Christian schoolteacher who cried on the stand. The poor sucker.) I just really hate to see someone who has a better grasp of light, shadow, and composition than me using it to draw a Kingdom Hearts comic. 40 pages long. With color. We are not all ~spacecoyote , people. (And even she did a reinterpretation; her own style landed her the job with Matt Groening.)

Fan fiction is regarded by real authors to lure aspiring writers into a false sense of security. You can have Spock and Kirk make out, and people will love it because "ZOMG, it's Kirk and Spock in a situation I've only dreamed about!" They love it because it is A (wherein A is something they were predisposed to wet their pants over.) It's not you, it's the thing you had nothing to do with creating. I think fanart taken to extremes does the same thing. You really aren't that great, and in the meantime the person who really did the work is missing out on some kudos. You're an originality whore.

We all know such whoring lands lots and lots of pageviews, to the chagrin of all the "real" artists. (You know, dressed in black berets sniffing at anything that's isn't an incomprehensible jumble of abstract shapes on a squiggly background.) I think some (not all) of people think their own ideas stink. All of us go through phases of copying and tracing. I had an unhealthy obsession with The Lion King, Princess Mononoke, Balto, and Spirit, let me tell you. I moved past it. Some people, I think, don't. They think, "I'm so stupid. This turned out so crappy. Let's go back to that picture of Cloud Strife; that turned out good." They stay where it's safe, where their art makes them feel good. And other Philistines make them feel doubly good because they can recognize a Pikachu no matter how badly it's drawn and exclaim, "I can't even draw a straight line, but I recognize this highly marketed commercial denizon! You're awesome!" Whereas the rest of us push on, to where it hurts, and we get the hacks so bad it makes us curl up and contemplate suicide. But we get out of it, and keep going, so that when someone admires our art we know it's all us, not a regurgitation.

I could really get going on some other things, like how I think society takes the role of designers and artists completely for granted, and that imagination is being stifled in our kids, but I'm already working on one novel. I guess the two main points I'm trying to make is that the bread the Little Red Hen baked belongs to her, because she planted and threshed and baked. She gets to say who's allowed to eat it. That goes for Rowling, too; I'd say that even if she was a money-grubbing witch laughing manically atop a pile of starving babies. (But she's not; she's giving to charity.) Co-opting an idea doesn't make it yours, no matter how much you love it. You can love a dog as much as you want, but if you don't respect it and give it boundaries, it's still going to bite you.

Think about the people behind A. Look them up. What was their process like? Their inspiration? Their technique? People love the icons but they never stop and think about the artist(s) behind them and what it took to get them there. I want to be published someday, and beloved by millions, but I don't think I've quite grasped how I'm going to react if people start writing my characters in slash fic. I think I'll be hunting for a few cease and desist orders of my own. For those of you who have suffered art theft (and take offense to it), you know exactly how that feels. Ideas are not thing to be taken lightly, or for granted. There are some bad ones out there, I'll admit. (Twilight and Eragon, anyone? Actually, half their problem is that they copied previous ideas and did it badly.) But ideas are treated like something somehow less important than the money or the marketing used to bring them to fruition. You wouldn't have the thing in the first place without the idea!

So stop pimping for Poke'mon, or whoever. Go out and make something that hasn't been there before. It'll make us all a lot happier.