maggie-stiefvater:

Dear runwiththewolf,

This is sorta a complicated question. Well, maybe it isn’t. No, probably it is. Well — ok, so here’s the thing. You should know that when I wrote before that when someone wrote fanfic with my characters for money, they were doing what is truly and legally and contractually my job, I got a fair amount of heat about it from fandom. Talking about how my writing pays my mortgage always ends up a very weird and unpleasant conversation and so I mostly avoid doing it. So I guess let me start with a link to some info on how I actually get paid. 

And repeat this upfront, because it’s always going to be the most unpopular bit, I guess: legality aside, it doesn’t make me feel good when other people charge money for writing about my characters. 

Onward:

Fan art is a squishier area —the visual rights to my characters are somewhat protected in my copyright or in the right Scholastic holds, but I don’t make my living creating Raven Cycle art. I love seeing fan art, I love that fans are so invested that they bring it to life in a more colorful form than just words on a page. I’m glad it exists.

Fan merch is weirder — I don’t really make my living off merch, but a really complicated feeling plays through my head when I see someone using my characters in their online shop with the somewhat ironic warning on the page: PLEASE DON’T STEAL MY DESIGNS.

Zines … zines are another thing altogether. In theory, I think they’re a cool thing, a miracle of collaboration across states and countries. In practice, they often actually are cool things. However, if you told me I had to take an official stance? This is where it gets complicated. I’d have to tell you they make me uncomfortable, because even though the hypothetical zine in this case is supporting a cause I’m 100% great with, if it’s ok for anyone to make a zine with my characters as long as the proceeds are going to a cause instead of to an individual, it would be equally legit for them to use my creation for a cause that I very much really do not stand for. TRC zine for meninists or whatever. 

And that would sort of make me dead inside.

This is kind of what copyright is for, to make sure that your work doesn’t get used in ways that you aren’t ok with. 

So like I said, it’s complicated. They don’t hand out booklets to creators when fandoms begin to form. I prefer getting to be the parent who hands out new stories rather than the parent who enforces the bedtime and other laws. 

Complicated.

urs,

Stiefvater