Taken from another
site: ...Of course, fanfiction probably goes back as far as literature; even such luminaries as John Stuart Mill contributed unauthorized, original stories set in a fictional universe. Before medieval French troubadours were shipping Launcelot and Guinevere, the ancient Greeks were writing plays about relationships between characters in The Iliad. In Plato's Symposium one character complains that a fanfic play by Aeschylus got the characterization of Achilles and Patroclus wrong.
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The distinction between Fanfic and original fiction, as we know it today, is largely created by modern copyright law; much of classical writing is actually "fanfiction" based on older sources. The major distinction between fanfic and a story inspired by another story is that the story a fanfic is based on has one or more "official" versions, usually owned by a company, a creator, or both. Thus, things like The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a piece of biblical apocrypha featuring Angry!Uber!Baby Jesus, or variations on Arthurian legend where there is no Holy Grail and Lancelot's affair with Guenivere never happens, would not "count" by this definition.
....Post your thoughts. Personally I agree and think copyright law in a way is killing creativity
razz 
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