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Ian Fleming Publications sends C & D to Fan Fiction Writer
Daltonforyou
The Daltonator
https://www.instagram.com/bondinspiration/
Ian Fleming publications has sent a c & d to a bond fan fiction writer on instagram:
"A couple of days ago, I received a legal letter sent on behalf of Ian Fleming Publications @ianflemings007 , asking me to remove any reference to James Bond or other characters created by Ian Fleming from the storytelling in my posts.
I replied that @bondinspiration is fan fiction with a non-commercial intent, which one could argue is “fair use” of the IP (as has been the case with other literary franchises). I also politely suggested we might have a brief conversation. So far, no reply.
We had, of course, all hoped IFP might see a real opportunity in my writing and in my sincere efforts to honour Ian Fleming’s work and his great legacy – which has prompted a number of Bond fans to buy, read, or reread his original novels and short stories with new interest.
Alas, this is not the case.
While IFP have picked up my idea of serializing a Bond story in instalments (as one of their recent announcements revealed), my Bond stories themselves appear to be seen as a threat that needs to be shut down.
To comply with their demands, I have now edited all my previous posts (even deleting some), removing any overt reference to James Bond or other characters created by Ian Fleming.
The protagonist in my original spy story is now referred to simply as “Banned” 😊
Many members of this community have expressed their conviction that @bondinspiration is a great way to approach literary Bond – keeping the character’s true spirit alive in a contemporary setting. In a survey IFP posted on Instagram last year asking for customer feedback - “Tell us what books and products you’re interested in seeing from us in the future” - almost every single one of the 83 comments on the post referred to @bondinspiration as the way to write James Bond for today’s readers.
Though the response from the global Bond community – the people who actually buy and read IFP’s books – was overwhelming, it was perhaps unwelcome or unpalatable. Who knows?
So much for the “voice of the customer”🍸
As for me, my priority remains serving this wonderful community with the kind of content you love.
So, am I disappointed? Yes. Surprised? No.
Let’s talk about a way forward together…🍸"
What do you all think of this?
Ian Fleming publications has sent a c & d to a bond fan fiction writer on instagram:
"A couple of days ago, I received a legal letter sent on behalf of Ian Fleming Publications @ianflemings007 , asking me to remove any reference to James Bond or other characters created by Ian Fleming from the storytelling in my posts.
I replied that @bondinspiration is fan fiction with a non-commercial intent, which one could argue is “fair use” of the IP (as has been the case with other literary franchises). I also politely suggested we might have a brief conversation. So far, no reply.
We had, of course, all hoped IFP might see a real opportunity in my writing and in my sincere efforts to honour Ian Fleming’s work and his great legacy – which has prompted a number of Bond fans to buy, read, or reread his original novels and short stories with new interest.
Alas, this is not the case.
While IFP have picked up my idea of serializing a Bond story in instalments (as one of their recent announcements revealed), my Bond stories themselves appear to be seen as a threat that needs to be shut down.
To comply with their demands, I have now edited all my previous posts (even deleting some), removing any overt reference to James Bond or other characters created by Ian Fleming.
The protagonist in my original spy story is now referred to simply as “Banned” 😊
Many members of this community have expressed their conviction that @bondinspiration is a great way to approach literary Bond – keeping the character’s true spirit alive in a contemporary setting. In a survey IFP posted on Instagram last year asking for customer feedback - “Tell us what books and products you’re interested in seeing from us in the future” - almost every single one of the 83 comments on the post referred to @bondinspiration as the way to write James Bond for today’s readers.
Though the response from the global Bond community – the people who actually buy and read IFP’s books – was overwhelming, it was perhaps unwelcome or unpalatable. Who knows?
So much for the “voice of the customer”🍸
As for me, my priority remains serving this wonderful community with the kind of content you love.
So, am I disappointed? Yes. Surprised? No.
Let’s talk about a way forward together…🍸"
What do you all think of this?
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Comments
Who know, maybe he can find a way to make it even better with his own hero "Banned", do things that he cannot with a defined carracter like Bond.
I get what you're saying but that's not the law. It all has to do with monetization. Is Warner Bros going to sue ever Harry Potter or Lord of the Ring fan who does fan fiction on a forum? They're just being a bully because they think they have deeper pockets than the guy writing it.
If they were actively making money off of this then yeah I can see the problem, but from what it appears this is just harmless fan-fiction. There’s nothing that can actually hold up in a court should it get to that point.
Yeah, this feels a bit heavy-handed to me.
Fan-fiction by design doesn’t really infringe upon intellectual property rights. It’s almost always a case of some diehard fan writing absurd nonsense that they put out for free so the other diehard fans look at it should they come across that - there’s no profit being made off it typically which would make it fall under “Fair Use”. You may mention that IFP are perfectly within their rights to send a Cease and Desist but this person is also fully within his rights to publish this work (regardless if featured Bond or not) and as long as he isn’t making money off of it - it shouldn’t harm IFP’s bottom line. Otherwise does fan art suddenly become at risk of getting a Cease and Desist by rights-holders? How about critical analysis of films and television? Fan reviews? Fan trailers? It becomes a slippery slope.
I remember a few years ago when someone was remaking Goldeneye 64 using the unreal engine before that got a C&D from MGM/EON because that actually would’ve harmed their bottom line (especially if they were planning on re-releasing the game themselves) and I thought it sucked but oh well I saw why they felt that way. In this case? I’m not so sure.
I suppose (to play Devil's Advocate) you could argue that fan fiction is often a slippery slope too. Many of those who write fan fiction material often go on to publish it either online or as an unauthorised print on demand book on Amazon or some other site. Some examples of this have been mentioned here over the past year or so. Fair use is an American legal concept so it doesn't really have any bearing in a UK legal context. I can see what you are saying of course. I think it has long been the law that reviewers both in print and online can only quote so much from a book before they are technically infringing copyright. As for fan art I'm not aware of any legal disputes regarding that within Bond. I know that MI6 Community itself was warned by Eon some years ago not to post stills from the films or have its members use images from the films in avatars. The site is semi-official so it had to crack down on this in order to keep in Eon's good books. I see that this restriction no longer seems to apply so either Eon eased off on it or the site owners did. I recall that CBn Forums also had to delete their Fan Fiction section years ago at the request of IFP. So these sorts of things are hardly new, however unpleasant they may be for those affected at the time. People are always free to create their own characters and write about them and the affected party in this case seems to have done just that. Well, good luck to him.
Oh yeah I don’t disagree with you at all - at the end of the day there isn’t anything we can really do about it but give our opinion on the matter. Nonetheless it’s interesting to discuss and the potential ramifications are interesting. I wonder if this person was monetizing his instagram page from the attention this fanfiction was receiving. I can imagine this would’ve slipped under IFP’s radar if it were published on a lesser popular website - but something like Instagram where you can monetize your page if you’re popular enough is a different story.
EDIT;
https://www.reddit.com/r/JamesBond/comments/1ksty4v/the_007_legal_team_is_working_overtime_right_now/
Scrolled on the 007 Reddit and found this post about a fellow who was selling his artwork on Etsy and just had a listing struck down due to Copyright. Most interesting.
When Bond enters public domain, it's no longer an issue, am I correct?
That makes sense, I guess new people have it so they're taking a different tack, can't blame them. I've been prepared for this sort of thing for a while, I had a good run, can't complain.
I do know that the Broccolis themselves were actually gifted my fan art poster by someone I printed some copies for, that makes me quite happy!
Yes, we are mere onlookers to these events. Of course there is thankfully still the right to free speech and we can voice our opinions on it. Funny, I was going to make the point that one of the reasons why this man may have been sent the cease and desist letter by IFP was because he was possibly monetising the fan fiction content through Instagram. In that sense he would be profiting to some degree from the fan fiction. That might've been enough to tip it into a potential copyright infringement case and for IFP's lawyers to swing into action. I'm sure they didn't send these cease and desist letters for nothing.
Another point I'd make is that, unlike Eon, I'm sure that IFP probably aren't making millions or billions of pounds in turnover so they want to protect what revenue streams they do have from any "freeloaders" on the James Bond character. I'm obviously not privy to IFP's accounts but I'd imagine books are much less lucrative than films and it would only take a handful of people writing unofficial Bond books to potentially weaken their IP and their sales. They therefore understandably want to keep all literary Bond content "in house". These sorts of things seem to go in cycles though I'm sure IFP are paying someone to check up on any unauthorised literary Bond product.
Yes, it does seem to be more complicated than it used to be. It doesn't quite sit right with me. IFP do own the literary copyright in Bond though, as did Glidrose before them, so I'd imagine that would be enough for them to send out these cease and desist letters. Perhaps they have to clear any such action with Eon first though? I'm not really sure to be honest. I'd like to think that they still have dominion over some things of their own to do with the literary Bond copyright. As there's sadly much less interest in the Bond books than the films the history of this stuff is rather hard to unpick. We're often reliant merely on educated guesses as opposed to hard facts!
I would assume so.
Ah thats really cool!