When is Permission permission?

[AmyMcClair]

I recently came across a set of drabbles. At the end of the fic, there is a note saying essentially if anyone wants to turn this into a full fic, feel free. Is this permission enough to avoid plagerism or does this site need personal permission than that?

I contacted the author and got her specific permission. If I were to run across this in the future, say where I found the drabbles elsewhere with no way of contacting the auther and wanted to post a fic here, would I need more than her word at the bottom of her post?

I would obviously make the same considerations in the disclaimer for that person's work as I would to the creator of the series, etc.

Anyway, I was just curious.

[EveKnight75]

I'm going through a similar situation. There was this one fic that I loved but I didn't feel that it was thorough enough. The summary claimed "I'm not writing another one so have at it!" Either way, I contacted the author, pointed her towards my work in the same fandom, then got her express permission to write a companion fic and a sequel as well as a beta offer for them so that they'd match the first fic.

You have a disclaimer. right? When posting your fic, credit the original drabbles and their author explicitly, no matter where you post it. If you want an extra safety measure, save the e-mails which prove you have permission.

When an author states that anyone is free to continue, s/he is not only giving indirect permission to continue the fic, s/he is also giving up the copyrights to the fic. That's enough to avoid a plagiarism charge.

If you mention the author and the first fic no matter where you post your related fic, you're innocent of plagiarism because you're crediting the source. The only one who can effectively bring up any charges after that is the author who wrote the drabbles (but that's unlikely), but the e-mails stating permission is enough to dismiss that as well.

Really, the only way you could get in trouble is if the person who posted the drabbles plagiarized someone else and the actual author didn't want anyone to write another fic that related to them. Again, you're just going to have to weigh the odds on that matter. I'd say that this last scenario is highly unlikely.

[Guest echtrae]

I think Eve sums it up for the most part. The only part that I would be hesitant to support would be the "s/he is also giving up the copyrights to the fic." That author could very well be allowing others to play in their personal playground, but not necessarily surrendering their rights to their original work. As I'm sure Eve is aware of, copyright law is a tricky and murky arena.

[EveKnight75]

That I'm aware of. Law and writing are two of my strong areas. As far as I know, stating that others are free to do what they wish with their work but not adding "as long as you let me know first" does equate to giving up copyright in legal terms.

People who state those things may not always be aware of giving up copyright, but in law wording can mean everything. I'd say that Amy did the right thing by asking anyway, but I'm also saying that it wouldn't have equated to plagiarism even if she hadn't because of that one statement.

Oh well. When people who state "have at it" then either change their mind later or find out someone ruined their fic, they usually end up starting a petty flame war. Who needs that?

[AmyMcClair]

That's what I figured. I just wanted someone else's opinion on the topic. Thanks.

[Guest DarkAvenger]

What you did would be just fine so long as you keep the proof to submit to us should we request it. So save the emails from the author, save the link to the portion of the fic that says "have at it" or whatever. Post the link to said portion of the fic as "proof" when you post your story/stories on any site.

I'd say just to be safe, you should always email the author. They could have changed their mind since they posted the fic or something and it's nice to give them the option to approve/veto the idea of you writing from their original story.