3 ms·

Yep. I read a blog post once about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe ought to be the shared collective "mythology" of American society the way ancient Greek myt

Yep. I read a blog post once about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe ought to be the shared collective "mythology" of American society the way ancient Greek myths (Zeus, Hera, etc) existed. But, it can't be, it never can be, it never will be, because of copyright. No one gets to publish their own stories about Iron Man and Captain America. Regardless of your opinions about the MCU and whether you actually feel this is part of your culture or whether you'd like it to be, I think this point is very salient. We're deprived of a collective mythos because of IP law.

nradov 4y ago
We can just create a different collective mythos around characters not protected by copyright law. Like "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" or "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters".
- inawarminister 4y ago
  I think the 80's and 90's answer to this issue is to make their own expies (e.g. Homelanders, DC/Marvel mutually inspired characters, etc.) Might be well and good to make open source characters? Licensed as public domains and able to be used by anyone?
tzs 4y ago
> No one gets to publish their own stories about Iron Man and Captain America Here are 49400 stories people have published set in the MCU [1]. 15600 include Captain America and 21400 include Iron Man. There's even 1300 where Captain America and Iron Man are in a romantic relationship with each other. This excludes stories that are crossovers between MCU and something else. Here's another 397000 stories in the MCU (although there is probaby some overlap with the ones above) [2]. That list I've filtered down to stories that are in English and complete. 124000 include Captain America and 121000 include Iron Man. 67000 include them both. 24500 of them have those two in a romantic relationship People seem to be doing fine at building a shared collective MCU mythology, and even taking it in some directions the Marvel would probably not approve of. [1] https://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Avengers/?&srt=1&r=10 https://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Avengers/?&srt=1&r=10 [2] https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=F&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=T&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=en&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Marvel https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%...
- vannevar 4y ago
  This is a good point. While fan fiction authors generally don't have a legal right to make derivative works, the copyright owner isn't obligated to sue them, either. This article is a good overview of the copyright issues around fan fiction: https://blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu/2021/04/is-fanfiction-legal/ https://blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu/2021/04/is-fanfiction-legal/. It notes "While on their face, these fanfiction communities may seem like harmless outlets for fans, existing copyright doctrine actually renders much of these works as infringements of copyright. The problem is that most fanfiction could be characterized as derivative works of other already existing original works, as defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101." Marvel clearly tolerates online fan fiction to an extent, but I imagine if someone tried to publish an illustrated anthology of Marvel fan fiction and sell it on Amazon, or make and release a film based on it, they would probably find the limit of that tolerance.
rcarr 4y ago
I’m pretty sure they can do under the banner of fan fiction if they don’t seek to profit off it.

nradov 4y ago

We can just create a different collective mythos around characters not protected by copyright law. Like "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" or "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters".

inawarminister 4y ago
I think the 80's and 90's answer to this issue is to make their own expies (e.g. Homelanders, DC/Marvel mutually inspired characters, etc.) Might be well and good to make open source characters? Licensed as public domains and able to be used by anyone?

tzs 4y ago

> No one gets to publish their own stories about Iron Man and Captain America Here are 49400 stories people have published set in the MCU [1]. 15600 include Captain America and 21400 include Iron Man. There's even 1300 where Captain America and Iron Man are in a romantic relationship with each other. This excludes stories that are crossovers between MCU and something else. Here's another 397000 stories in the MCU (although there is probaby some overlap with the ones above) [2]. That list I've filtered down to stories that are in English and complete. 124000 include Captain America and 121000 include Iron Man. 67000 include them both. 24500 of them have those two in a romantic relationship People seem to be doing fine at building a shared collective MCU mythology, and even taking it in some directions the Marvel would probably not approve of. [1] https://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Avengers/?&srt=1&r=10 https://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Avengers/?&srt=1&r=10 [2] https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=F&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=T&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=en&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Marvel https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%...

vannevar 4y ago
This is a good point. While fan fiction authors generally don't have a legal right to make derivative works, the copyright owner isn't obligated to sue them, either. This article is a good overview of the copyright issues around fan fiction: https://blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu/2021/04/is-fanfiction-legal/ https://blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu/2021/04/is-fanfiction-legal/. It notes "While on their face, these fanfiction communities may seem like harmless outlets for fans, existing copyright doctrine actually renders much of these works as infringements of copyright. The problem is that most fanfiction could be characterized as derivative works of other already existing original works, as defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101." Marvel clearly tolerates online fan fiction to an extent, but I imagine if someone tried to publish an illustrated anthology of Marvel fan fiction and sell it on Amazon, or make and release a film based on it, they would probably find the limit of that tolerance.

rcarr 4y ago

I’m pretty sure they can do under the banner of fan fiction if they don’t seek to profit off it.