A "Book" Revisited

Back in March I posted a little something about reading works that were once fan-fiction but have been self-published. The topic of one of the works I discussed has come up over and over again in the last couple of months. 

The Fifty Shades of Grey Series is not something I would consider literary genius.  I can't even consider it decent literature.  There are so many errors and repetitive use of words and phrases that it becomes difficult for me to read.  It's annoying because I know that I've read something similar just a few paragraphs back.

What prompted today's post started out so simply. 

A very dear friend of mine texted me this morning with a link to this article on Crushable.com.  She thought I would get a kick out of it because she knew how I felt about the subject matter.  The author of the article, Natalie Zutter, let the cat out of the proverbial bag about E.L. James' true feelings about those that helped her to get where she is today.  She's making millions of dollars thanks to those that loved her "original" story.

If you read the article, you find out that Fifty Shades of Grey was originally written as fan-fiction.  The name of it was Master of the Universe (affectionately known as MotU) and yes, it was Twilight fan-fiction. What does that mean?  Well, Christian and Ana were originally Edward and Bella.  James built a huge fan base through the Twilight fandom, and if you believe the quotes from a former confidant, she doesn't much appreciate those people.  

The article did spark a question in my mind.  How did Zutter find out about James' dislike of the fandom?  Did she speak directly with the source or pull from a blog?  A bit of a search took me to the spot I was looking for--which brought a great amount of respect for Zutter because she obviously believes in doing her research well.  I found the original source known as "gentleblaze"--well her journal.  Actually her final journal entry.  

I try not to judge people that are so negative--it takes me down a road I don't want to go down--because I'd hate for anyone to judge me so harshly.  I'm sure gentleblaze aka AngstGoddess003 had her reasons for doing what she did.  To be honest, if James had told me how she felt, I don't know that I could have kept that to myself either.  I'd want the fandom that adored her so much and gave her such high praise to know the truth. 

Psst...she doesn't really like you. 

What is sadder still is that James contends that Fifty Shades of Grey is an original work.  She even has Vintage Publishing backing her claim.  Those that read MotU before it was pulled know that this is false. James did pull the story down from Fanfiction.net and Twilighted.  She even went as far as to shut down her site 50shades.com.  If you were to try to go to that site now, it shoots you over to James' current site.  

I understand the drive to get published, believe me, I do.  When you get where you eventually hope to be, you should praise those that helped you get there.  Why would you try to ignore them as if they were a kid throwing their fourth tantrum of the day because you don't want anyone to know they're yours? Oh...wait...is that what it is?

I decided to go ahead and watch Erika James on The View.  One of the things that truly bothered me was that she couldn't look any of the hosts in the eye when speaking to them. She kept playing with her mug of water or looking at the table, finding the grain rather interesting.

"I had no idea so many people had been reading the story." 

Really?  Have she really forgotten about all those people in the world of fan-fiction that helped her with her research and kept telling her how great she was?  Is her memory that short?  Apparently so.

She also said she had an idea and put the "idea" out there. Well, let's see, she put more than the idea out.  She wrote the full story and put it out there on her website.  People have pdf copies of the entire thing.  If you google it, MotU can be found available for download. 

To this day, I don't think MotU should have been published. It was a mess then and it remains a mess.  The editing is bad, there is constant repetitiveness, and let me just say, inaccurate on certain subject matter.  I cannot believe the bull rubbish that she is spilling in these interviews. 

I was laughing my fool ass arse off about the BS-storm from James' camp regarding 50 Shades. I did find some very interesting articles.

For example: Vintage, James' publisher and an extension of Random House, says that MotU and FSoG are two distinct fiction pieces.

 **choking cough**  

There was an actual analysis done.  The gist of it, 89% the same. The 11% difference includes name changes and punctuation additions. Yeah...not at all impressed, but it was interesting to see the few changes she did make.  89% the same does not make two distinct works of fiction.  So sorry.

In the Summer of 2010 a woman by the name of Anne taught a unit in Twilight fanfiction for her Theories of Popular Culture course.  Her blog has the information on the coursework and I found it interesting. I think I may have liked that class and probably would have ripped James' story apart. Oops! Did I say that?   

I found another blogger that brought some interesting points. Fan-fiction cannot be copyrighted.  Not truly.  It's a bit of a GREY area, but the gist of it is that if it's on the net, sadly it falls under "fair use".

I did the research.  A person would have to pay a copyright fee for every piece of work written.  You can't do a general copyright based on your name.  For that you'd need a trademark and the requirements for that get even hairier.  Now James is published and her story copyrighted as Fifty Shades, so under those laws MotU is still fair use.

DISCLAIMER: I have nothing to do with legal.

That being said, I am sure a lawyer could figure out a way to say that MotU was copyrighted.