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I assume what you actually mean is I'm arguing that it's not fanfiction.SailorAlea said:You're just arguing that because a legitimate company produced it, it's fanfiction.
And I stand by that argument. Everything you said about DBGT not being part of Toriyama's artistic vision I agree with 100 percent, as I always have. If Toriyama decided tommorow to create his own sequel to DBZ, that would be the authentic continuation of the story. However, I have been using the terms canon/non-canon, and I'm not sure if you fully understand or acknowledge them. From your argument, it would appear you believe fanfiction is the same as non-canon, but that is not true at all. If something is non-canon then it is not normally considered to be authentic or authoritative: part of the creator's artistic vision as you said. Therefore ALL fanfiction is non-canon, but not ALL non-canon material is fanfiction. The reason for this comes back to copyrighting.
Now, in the final part of your (edited) post it appears you finally acknowledged the fact that fanfiction is, for the most part, illegal, albiet in a slightly esoteric way which I will have to address shortly. If you write a story based on another's work, with the officially licensed rights to so, through an official publisher, that is not fanfiction. What you have done is create an official non-canon story; "official" is the important word here. On the other hand, if you write a story for your own personal enjoyment, to share with your friends, or host on the itnernet, that is fanfiction. You could ask the company's/creator's permission to do so (for non-profit purposes), in which case you would avoid any potential legal woes, but it would still be unofficial and thus fanfiction.
However, I can see you're obviously not going to budge on this issue, so I think it's best that we agree to disagree. Perhaps someday when fanfiction is an official word in the dictionary it will have two meanings to facilitate both our arguments.
I think you misunderstood what the purpose of the DMCA is; the DMCA was created in order to restrict the online sharing of books, movies, music etc - these items were previously protected under the old fair use doctrine. The section that you quoted does not support fanfiction in the slightest; it's expressing that tampering with copyright management information is a big no-no. CMI is information that facilitates the management of rights for a given copyrighted work (so, information concerning its conditions of use, the creator, the publisher, other rights holders and so on.) The section you quoted is basically a list of what constitutes the CMI for the purposes of being covered by the DMCA. It occurs to me that you simply misread the text, and believed that it was a defense for non-rights holders who would be protected so long as they included the CMI. It's the other way around; it protects rights holders from people who tamper with their CMI.This section is a bit vague, but this is where the right to write your own story regarding existing shows/books/movies is protected.
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As long as you give proper credit to where the ideas came from, (i.e., author and the company who produces the animation) you can't be prosecuted for copyright violation.
Also, giving proper credit will not protect you from being sued, because it doesn't change the fact that you are using somebody else's work without permission; including a disclaimer is merely a good way of mitigating the size of your fine in any potential court case.
Couple of things:Edit: I also agree that under this act alone, Fanfiction is still technically illegal, but the information written here, added with the digital privacy act, ensure Fanfiction's legality, and that no one who writes fanfiction will ever be prosecuted.
First of all, perhaps you missed the explanation and links I provided in my last post, where I showed you that the Digital Privacy Act has nothing to do with what we're talking about?
Secondly, fanfiction is illegal, and I have proven this several times over with links and information, but there are ways you can get away with it. I don't think you visited the two websites at the bottom of my last post, and I will suggest to you again that you do so; they include much valuable information on the subject of copyright laws and how they pertain to any possible legalities concerning fanfiction.
The problem is that much of the legal issues surrounding fanfiction are theory where the internet is concerned, since there have been no major cases (to my knowledge) where authors of fanfiction have been prosectued; most people will remove stories from the net, or their webhosts will do so for them when the copyright holder demands it. As I said in the very beginning, most people turn a blind eye to to fanfiction because it usually isn't very harmful, and can often often help spread interest, or serve as a good market guage for companies. It's almost like free advertising.
I sincerely hope you do not consider our debate a "fight," because I would be offended if that were the case. From my perspective it has been calm and civil, with both of us arguing our positions strongly. I've noticed from many of your other posts that you do have a very forceful personality, and I just hope you're not getting upset because you've found someone here who is willing to stand up and argue his convictions in a thoughtful manner (which is not to say that there aren't many others here like that.) Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on the internet has the IQ of a toilet brush.Anyway, I'm tired of the fighting and arguments that are inherently present in Forums