Sturgeon's law is in full effect, of course, but don't forget its fuzzy-logic contrapositive: 10% of everything isn't crap. I can't say I've drunk deeply from this well, but I've read a couple of things that makes you wonder why the author bothered to "steal" the setting at all, when they could quite clearly make their own. (Though it also shows the value of editors and their mighty Red Pens of Cutting Out About A Third Of The Text.)
> makes you wonder why the author bothered to "steal" the setting at all, when they could quite clearly make their own.
It gives the work a prefabricated audience. It's much harder to convince [random member of the public] to read "my original novel" than it is to convince [random ______ fan] to read "my ______ fan-fiction."
I've read a couple of things that makes you wonder why the author bothered to "steal" the setting at all, when they could quite clearly make their own.
That's branding in action. Some people think "branding" is only about logos and letterheads, but it can come down as far as a group of characters and a setting in a story, too. Having the same characters and setting as novels they've already enjoyed, Harry Potter fans would probably get more out of even badly written fan fiction than they would from an all-new environment.
(From the author's point of view, perhaps they just didn't get a break or didn't have the determination to make it. At least by hijacking the Potter brand, they might get read.)
When I was a kid in the early 80s, I had a racing game where you could set the names of the other drivers to anything you liked.. so I set them to names of my friends, family members, etc, and it made the game far more fun even though there was no logical reason for it. Instead of winning a race against generically named computer racers, instead I could be kicking my grandpa's ass until the last corner.. there's something fun about that. So it goes with fan fiction, themed/cartoon porn, and similar pastiches.
As much as I like that story, it doesn't seem to be quite as well received outside the HN/Reddit communities. Most people don't really enjoy/understand the concepts that much (or disagree with their use), and categorize it as crack (typically short fanfiction that contains amusing or interesting concept but lacks the depth or structure to qualify as being good fiction).
Yet we all think Apple's App store policies are draconian. Besides, it's not about copyright. It's about trade marks being expanded to include characters. I'm cool with trade marks (I wouldn't want to buy a book by JK Rowlings if it was actually written by Umberto Eco), but re-using characters doesn't seem so bad.
JKR is better than Umberto Eco in some ways. You don't have to think much (you just know that most of the twists at the end will be some sucker-punch magical tricks that you never even heard of), and her early stuff was like Roald Dahl. I wouldn't read Harry Potter and The Name of the Pendulum unless I had a lot of time on my hands.
I'm not sure about that Sturgeon's contrapositive... Are you sure that there is a 10% of, say, Goregrind or telenovelas or vampire romance that is not crap?
http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/ -> "we currently hold over 60,000 stories"
The search page must truly be seen to be believed: http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/storytype.php Metadata search as you've never seen it before!
Sturgeon's law is in full effect, of course, but don't forget its fuzzy-logic contrapositive: 10% of everything isn't crap. I can't say I've drunk deeply from this well, but I've read a couple of things that makes you wonder why the author bothered to "steal" the setting at all, when they could quite clearly make their own. (Though it also shows the value of editors and their mighty Red Pens of Cutting Out About A Third Of The Text.)