has anyone gotten a ceist and desist order as a result of fan fiction?

Question

When someone creates fan fiction for their own personal pleasure, and has no plans to produce or expose it in anyway, what happens if the person gets a ceist and desist order over the phone? Does that mean the person is now on a list for possible suit? How long would that last, and how could that person get their name off of the list.

Answer 1

You can't possibly get a cease and desist order for something you have not "exposed in any way" - how would anyone know you had written it? Think about it.



You also would not get it over the phone. It would be an official letter and it would come in a fashion that you had to sign for, so the person who sent it had proof that you had received it.



I don't know anyone who has ever got one. I do know that Anne Rice has sent them out in the past.



If you had an official cease and desist letter and carried on doing what you had been told to cease and desist, then the next stage would be a lawsuit.

Answer 2

Your name will remain as one for the original author to watch until you stop posting fanfiction using their ideas.



Cease and Desist means stop posting it unless you want to face a lawsuit and don't start posting again, no matter how much time has passed. I can't imagine a legal order coming over the phone (why'd you put your phone number online?) but I don't know how it works with online activity. A Cease and Desist _order_ usually arrives by sheriff and is issued by a judge. A Cease and Desist _letter_ can be from anyone. It's basically a warning.



If it's simply for your pleasure, there's no need to post it online. If it's posted online, it's already exposed to the public, whether you profit from it or not. Many authors don't care about fanfiction, but those that do have every right to ask you to stop.



Getting an order by someone over the phone seems off to me. Like a friend playing a joke or something.

Answer 3

The theory behind the question seems wrong to me. If 'someone' created fan fiction for their own personal pleasure and has not produced it or exposed it in anyway (to the public) then how would anyone know to submit to this 'someone' a cease and desist order?



I would also think that a cease and desist order would come in the form of a legal document either through the mail (probably certified) or served from an attorney or the copyright holder. The reason is because there would be no way to prove it was the violator who recieved said message from the accuser. There is nothing to say they drag that 'someone' into court and the someone says 'that wasn't me on the phone this is the first I'm hearing about this'.

Answer 4

First of all..the term is Cease and Desist. Orders such as this rarely, if at all, arrive over the phone. It is a written order usually issued by a judge, at the request on a individual or business. This sounds fishy but without details, I can't say more.



Secondly, fan fiction guidelines can be tricky. If you are posting this fan fiction, remember, even though it is YOUR writing, you are working under the original authors name and if you are in anyway adding information that is detrimental to the original story, you could be held libel. Yes, this means you could face a law suit if you are using any type of slander, defamation, etc. (If you are unclear of these definitions, look them up. Dictionary.com can help you with that. If you have violated any of the fan fiction terms/guidelines you could be fined. Writing for you own pleasure is fine but if you post these stories on the internet, they then become public (exposed, as you stated). If you write them only for you, say in a document, to print, keep, etc. that is fine.



There is a ton of fan fiction on line and this is not illegal, just follow the guidelines and you should not have a problem.