As a fanfiction writer, I have to address a few crucial points in your argument; > "By making fanfiction part of the canon of the story, it takes away from what the author originally intended." Only kids and the pretentious write fanfiction with the delusion that it will ever be made canon. Contrary to popular belief, altering the source material is *not* the point of writing fanfiction. Fans enjoy exploring the world of their favorite stories, and imagining what things would be like in X scenario, or if X happened instead of X, or what if the story continued, what if the characters changed, what if you took Star Wars characters and put them into The Oregon Trail, etc. Literally *no one* who takes fanfiction writing seriously ever claims to be writing canon material. It's basically the adult's version of "playing pretend." > "I think that authors and artists that do fanfiction have a right to publish their work, with the original author's permission." A fair concept, but an ultimately unrealistic one. For example, I highly doubt that if I contacted Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers to get permission to publish a Lion King fanfic, that I would get a response. Chances are, they're too busy, too famous, or just *plain don't care*. Nevertheless, this is why seasoned and responsible fanfiction writers preface their work with a *disclaimer* acknowledging who the actual copyright holder is, and distinguishing what the fanfic author owns (i.e. original characters, ideas, etc.), and what the official source author owns (i.e. everything else). > "But I don't believe other people can make money off of someone else's idea, without their explicit permission." Virtually *no* self-respecting fanfic writer attemps to make money with their fanfics. What you're probably thinking of are Etsy artists who make unofficial fanart buttons, stickers, art prints, 3D printed figures, etc. and sell them. Which, I believe (I'll look this up later to confirm) is legally considered a transformative work (i.e. significantly altered to the point of being *derivative of*, not *copying* the source material), and therefore considered fair use. Technically, fanfics fall under the same category -- but again, very few fanfic authors try to sell their work. Most publish to free sites like [Fanfiction.net] (https://www.fanfiction.net/) or [AO3] (https://archiveofourown.org/). I also want to point out that one reason fanfic authors don't try to sell their work is because they want as many readers as possible -- they don't want to exclude anyone who can't pay. That's because we want to *share* in a communal love for our favorite fandoms, exchange ideas, gush about our favorite characters, and constructively critique others' work -- because, 99% of the time, people write fanfics to practice and improve their writing skills in *a safe environment where they can get constructive critique without being blasted by inane non-writers in book reviews*. Your argument is based on the misguided notion that fanfic authors are out to profit off of someone else's hard work, when the truth of the matter is that all we wanna do is share our love of our favorite fandoms with other fans. We *support* our favorite fandom creators by buying and collecting official merch, and we even help each other spot bootlegs so we can avoid and even report them. And, yes, there *is* a difference between a bootleg and the fanart you see for sale on Etsy. Bootleggers try to con people into believing they're buying the real deal, whereas fanart artists explicitly state that their art is derivative and not official merch. Some even put this disclaimer right on the package. Anyway. The point is, fanfiction writing is an expression of love for our favorite media, not some slimy get-rich-quick scheme where we hide out in a dark basement and produce illegal contraband in attempt to cash in on popular media. You wanna discredit someone, go seek out the bootleggers on eBay, sketchy off-brand sites, and in flea markets (of course, you can also find legitimate fanart creators on these platforms, too -- so really, don't go raising up the pitchfork unless you know enough about the official merch to be able to spot the difference).

I don't think fanfic etc should be made cannon either, and most fanfic authors dont make money off of their works and don't intend for their work to ever make it into the cannon. They usually upload for free and sometimes take commissions for specific prompts (usually alternate universe variations of existing properties or their original stories/characters). I think where your argument is strong is in regard to fan art. I myself have done embroidery projects that include copyrighted characters, but avoid selling them incase I get copyright claimed. What I want to emphasize is that Fanfiction etc should be seen as **art.** The creation of fan works requires a level of input from the artist that creates a new, but derivative, piece. This is participatory culture - if you know anything about 3D printing, it is my experience that a lot of 3D designs are crowdsourced and publicly accessible. I think this idea of participating collectively in an artistic endeavor applies to fan works and should be a reason they qualify as art. Also, you might find interesting that, in my experience, there is a practice among fanfic authors to put a disclaimer before the story along the lines of "all characters, names, etc belong to the original owner, but [the author] is just playing in the sand box." This hasn't protected authors in the past from being pursued by IP owners, but it is a direct acknowledgment of the non-cannonness of fanfic.