| rdfs:comment
| - When a creator (usually writers, it seems) bans or restricts their fans from writing fanfic, drawing fanart, or generally using the author's work "creatively". You can buy the books, buy The Merch and read "officially sanctioned" material, but the hounds of hell will be unleashed should you write their characters into your story. A milder form exists in the form of restriction; the creator might ban Slash Fic or PWP material, for example. Other creators are more picky, setting "rules" to which all fic/fanart creators have to adhere to. How they keep tabs on such things is a mystery.
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| abstract
| - When a creator (usually writers, it seems) bans or restricts their fans from writing fanfic, drawing fanart, or generally using the author's work "creatively". You can buy the books, buy The Merch and read "officially sanctioned" material, but the hounds of hell will be unleashed should you write their characters into your story. Reasons for such a ban/restrictions vary. Robin Hobb wrote an article sounding a bit like a PSA ("Fanfic -- JUST SAY NO!") that had the basic premise of "Those characters are like family to me. You don't like seeing your family put into weird or perverted situations, do you?" Others take the legal ground; that's how they make their living, and that's their intellectual property you are messing with. Others simply don't think anyone else can write their world as well as they can (detractors, however, might comment that they're worried that someone can write them better than the author can). A milder form exists in the form of restriction; the creator might ban Slash Fic or PWP material, for example. Other creators are more picky, setting "rules" to which all fic/fanart creators have to adhere to. How they keep tabs on such things is a mystery. This does not count all those authors who decide for legal reasons not to read fanfic of their work, whether or not they support it. If someone writes a fanfic and the author reads it, and later installments of the published work have elements similar to the fanfic, then there could be some messy legal issues. A fanwork ban can be particularly annoying if you get into a show/book/whatnot after it's ended. In the Internet age, the first thing many such fans will do after the series ends is look for fansites or fanwork. If a Fanwork Ban is in place, these sites will be extremely hard to come by, if they exist at all, and it's usually the case that most fans foolhardy or reckless enough to skirt a Fanwork Ban usually aren't intelligent or dedicated enough to put together good fanwork. In extreme cases, this may result in a dead fandom, unless the fans are pretty social and don't mind restricting themselves to facts and discussion. It might also result in a Broken Base between fans who support the author's decision and fans who rail against the ban. Of course, it could work out exactly as the author hopes; instead of reading fic based on one of their works, you'll probably find yourself looking into the author's other works in the hope of finding something similar. This is predominantly a Western trope; bans on fanwork are almost unheard of in Japan due to the widespread popularity and acceptability of Doujinshi as well as the tendency of Japanese companies to view fanwork as free advertising. However, recently there has been an attempt to change all of that. See also Rule 34 Creator Reactions. Examples of authors who have imposed fanwork bans/restrictions
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