DERIVATIVE WORKS: Legitimacy, Ownership and Creation (The Community Fires Dan Harmon Remix)

Do you know what’s puzzling about the divide between ‘legitimate creative works’ and ‘illegitimate creative works’? The idea that the creator and unique voice of a creative work can be legally prevented from creating it further, and that someone who has never been a part of that project can, without the creator’s consent or permission, [...]

Derivative Works IV: Taking Back the Culture

In previous Derivative Works pieces, I’ve written about how the stigmas regarding fanfiction are inaccurate, and how derivative works can use a majority-centric work to create a space for a minority. In that last essay, I wrote about how cover songs can ‘queer’ a mainstream song, giving queer voices a way to access a song [...]

Derivative Works I: What and Why

One topic I foresee myself writing heavily on is the field of derivative works; that is, works using the creative property of another artist as a foundation of a new creative work. This field includes music like mashups (see the works of Girl Talk, DJ Earworm and some compositions created for Glee) and cover songs, [...]