Shraddha Sharma, LLM, Intellectual Property and Trade Laws, School of Law, Christ University, Bangalore
ABSTRACT
The internet is a significant factor in the growth of fanfiction. Fanfictions ended up being published in numerous websites with almost no expense to the fans because to the development of the internet and its widespread use and popularity worldwide. There are specific websites for the production of fanfiction for the many fandoms since some aspects of popular culture (pop culture) are tremendously popular. Due to the availability of these websites, the concept of a publisher as a whole has been abandoned, which increases the likelihood that works will be plagiarised and so violate the author's rights. The fanfiction community is a self-governing, regulatory entity. Since fanfiction is based on original material, its authors still have a right to protection against plagiarism within the fandom because they are producing original material that is the result of their imagination and ingenuity. It happens frequently when a writer steals an existing piece of fanfiction, alters the character names, and then passes it off as the writer's original work for the fandom in question. This paper studies how the fanfictions published on the internet have in them significant properties for protection of copyright.
Keywords: fanfiction, popular culture, internet, original work, derivative work, copyright
