ALERT: Fanart and fanfic theft!

[krait]

Thanks to allzugern for alerting me to this:

Ebay user doctor_beth2000 appears to be selling "fanzines" (stories she has printed out and bound, including stories that have never been printed in a 'zine) for profit... without the consent of the artists and writers used.

One of the works listed for sale was discovered by the artist and has now been pulled, but there are 450 listings for this person's account, and I bet that there's more stolen stuff than just that one "fanzine"...

If you're an artist or writer in Smallville, Star Trek, Stargate, Due South, or and inform other Fen to go to this ebay page and also check to see if their work is being sold at her store: doctor_beth2000. There are 744 Zines offered there. 744!

There is fiction being offered from an astounding variety of fandoms. In five pages of browsing, the list of fandoms on offer contained:


Beauty and the Beast
Sentinel
Man from UNCLE
Riptide
Airwolf Scarecrow
Battlestar Galactica
Blake's 7
Buffy
Dead Zone
Doctor Who
Due South
Equalizer
Forever Knight
Garrison's Gorillas
Highlander
Horatio Hornblower
Indiana Jones
LotR
MacGuyver
Magnificent 7
Magnum PI
MASH
Miami Vice
Power Rangers
Professionals
Rat Patrol
Real Ghostbusters
Red Dwarf
Russ Logan
Seaquest
Simon and Simon
Smallville
Stargate (SG1 at least)
Star Trek (TOS, Voyager, DS8 at least)
Starsky & Hutch
Star Wars
The A Team
The Bourne Identity
The Mummy
TJ Hooker
Twin Peaks
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Wild Wild West
Without a Trace
X-Files
Young Guns

Keep in mind this is a partial list -- I read only one-third of the auction titles and perhaps three actual listings!

I also see at least one original work, "Solace" by Alexa C -- anyone know this person, and whether this is an authorised production?

Some of the zines look authentic -- one gave a publication date of 1996 and had some water damage. However, many had no date at all, which makes me very suspicious. Artists and writers, please, no matter how obscure your fandom, do a title+description search for your fandom within this seller's items. (I've noticed a lot are listed only by acronym, so search "MFU" as well as "Man from Uncle", etc.)


I don't know what a word would be worth from me, since I am not a writer, but at least one author has submitted a complaint to Ebay (I think; and I know allzugern has), so let's see what we can do, folks!

Comments

[allzugern.livejournal.com]

It's a mixed bag. Some of it is legit, some of it not. She did pull down a fanfic when the author contacted her, but how many more fanfic writers stuff is up there without permission? I've tried to contact two that I'm certain never gave permission to have their stuff copied and sold, but they've been out of fandom for a couple of years and I don't know if they will even get the messages.

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Which ones do you think are not legit?

[allzugern.livejournal.com]

Definitely the Smallville story by Joyfulgirl41. I've e-mailed her, but she hasn't been around for a couple of years. That story is at the SSA, easy for someone to copy and sell. This seller may not even be aware of it - maybe she bought it herself and is re-selling. But I'm very skeptical.

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Which one's that? I saw Blue and Big Girls... and a couple of others, but they are legit, but I didn't see the author's names. I know a few of them were released as zines then put online a while afterwards.

I'd like to purchase the Big Girl's zine but I know M.Fae Glasgow's writing is often very depressing and the major story is a cross over :(

[allzugern.livejournal.com]

'The Road Not Taken' it's a Clark/Lex story that's archived at the SSA.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

So far, there are only 3 out of 700 (all Smallville) we know may be fan fic printed without permission. But do keep checking.

With respect to the legit copies, only the fanzines dealers can tell if she's selling photocopies of their originals. We should be focusing on the fan stories that were printed off the net and sold without permission (the unauthorized fanzines).

My advice is to contact the publishers and writers to verify before pulling in copyright police. We don’t want to put the fan writers and publishers who genuinely published their work into the cross-hairs. The broad approach has scared on fan away from thinking of publishing her own fan fic. She’s afraid that people will report her. Which is not what you're trying to accomplish.

ps ender wiggen has a great list of authorized smallville fanzines. Use that as a starting point of sorting out the fan fic.

For other fandoms, we have lists of 'genuine’ fanzines
http://morgandawn.dreamwidth.org/995000.html

I just finished a list of Supernatural fanzines in print, so fanzines for newer fandoms and fan sitting in archives not always ‘stolen’. Publishers release fan fic after one year or sometimes they reporting online fan fic (with the author’s permission).