Yeah, times change. Used to be people didn't even get credit for their work.
I actually don't like the "oh if the author's dead and ancient then it's fair game" leniency towards making derivative works because that strikes me as a tad hypocritical. So you want people to respect you, but you don't want to respect long dead or anonymous authors who you shamelessly pilfer from because that means you might not be able to steal from them? When the author's dead, there's no way they could see how their creations are (mis)used by others. Hypothetically speaking, if my pipedream of getting "officially" published came true, that's how I'd think about my own characters, too, so I don't think it's hypocritical.
My rambling about inspiration was more about your line "I also recognize that every author is to some extent deriving their ideas from half-remembered and mis-remembered bits of things they read as well." This sounded to me more like inspiration than re-telling to me, taking some small detail of the original story and building something otherwise new around it. (Or rather, otherwise drawn from other sources, making at least the combination new. Nothing new under the sun, and all that. :))
You have to passively take my story and enjoy it only one way and that's the way I tell you to. People don't do that and I think an author is doing a disservice to the fans by cutting them off from engaging with their text. I find the way you phrased this objectionable, because it sounds like you are trying to dictate how people should deal with their reading material, as if you think someone who does not want to write fanfiction is doing it wrong. I read a book and feel with the characters. I look for foreshadowing, or references to other books in the same series. I like to draw comparisons to other books, or myths, that might have been inspiration, or might have drawn from the same source. Is that not engaging with the story?
I do agree that banning fanfiction is a bad move, because it alienates the people who like to write fanfiction.
Re: I really like categorising things, I think.
I actually don't like the "oh if the author's dead and ancient then it's fair game" leniency towards making derivative works because that strikes me as a tad hypocritical. So you want people to respect you, but you don't want to respect long dead or anonymous authors who you shamelessly pilfer from because that means you might not be able to steal from them?
When the author's dead, there's no way they could see how their creations are (mis)used by others. Hypothetically speaking, if my pipedream of getting "officially" published came true, that's how I'd think about my own characters, too, so I don't think it's hypocritical.
My rambling about inspiration was more about your line "I also recognize that every author is to some extent deriving their ideas from half-remembered and mis-remembered bits of things they read as well." This sounded to me more like inspiration than re-telling to me, taking some small detail of the original story and building something otherwise new around it. (Or rather, otherwise drawn from other sources, making at least the combination new. Nothing new under the sun, and all that. :))
You have to passively take my story and enjoy it only one way and that's the way I tell you to. People don't do that and I think an author is doing a disservice to the fans by cutting them off from engaging with their text.
I find the way you phrased this objectionable, because it sounds like you are trying to dictate how people should deal with their reading material, as if you think someone who does not want to write fanfiction is doing it wrong.
I read a book and feel with the characters. I look for foreshadowing, or references to other books in the same series. I like to draw comparisons to other books, or myths, that might have been inspiration, or might have drawn from the same source. Is that not engaging with the story?
I do agree that banning fanfiction is a bad move, because it alienates the people who like to write fanfiction.