Hitchhiker's Fan-Site Started By Douglas Adams Shows Why Authors Shouldn't Panic Over Derivative Works

Timothy Geigner — Wed, 1 May 2013 03:14:00 PDT

We've talked a great deal about how content creators handle derivative works in the past, be it musicians, TV/film makers, or authors. The responses are predictably varied, with some creators embracing derivatives, some abhorring them, some that draw the line on commercial use, and others that use derivatives to build even further works. The least controversial of the lot is work done by fans, of course. Few creators want to go to war with fans that love their work so much they make fan films, or write fan fiction. But what would happen if a creator not only allowed derivatives of their work, but actually made the conscious decision to build an entire platform for it themselves to encourage the practice?

Well, you'd end up with something like h2g2, otherwise known as the fan-created build of the Earth-version of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. They recently posted on April 28th to celebrate their 14th "birthday", congratulating the community on making the site a wonderful place for Hitchhiker fans to contribute with their own submissions. They also rightly said thanks to the book series' author, Douglas Adams, as it was Adams who started the site from the beginning.

Although h2g2.com might not yet quite be a complete guide to Life, The Universe and Everything it is a thriving online community, where Hitchhiker's fans and many other creative folks can work on The Guide and help fulfill Douglas' vision of a real-life, mostly useful, Earth Edition of his fictional Guide (not, incidentally, a real-life version of the Encyclopedia Galactica).

Today we welcome everyone, active and returning researchers, new researchers, visitors and viewers, to celebrate. Thanks to Douglas Adams, who saw a way to bring his idea of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy into an actual Guide, the Earth Edition, we have been around for 14 internet years!

Resulting in, or from, the immense popularity of the Hitchiker series, h2g2.com is hugely popular with fans. Whether the books caused the site's popularity more than the site has caused sales from the book is an unknown, but that each has an effect on the other is undeniable. The site's history is interesting and somewhat convoluted, but what is unquestioned is Adams' wish to embrace fans of the books and set them off on building their own guide of Earth. And, while ownership of the site has transitioned several times, from Adams to the BBC and so on, it is back in the hands of die-hard fans that have an allegiance to its community. Hell, the site puts out its own broadsheet newspaper.

All of this thanks to an author who wasn't misguided in seeing derivatives as a threat, but rather as a wonderful way to connect with fans, all the while pointing them back to the original works off which they were based.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Aliens v. The RIAA! Win An Early Release Copy Of Year Zero, Techdirt's July Book Club Offering

Mike Masnick — Thu, 7 Jun 2012 14:31:00 PDT

Okay, I know it was just two days ago that we announced the Techdirt Book Club book for June (and, a reminder that tomorrow at 1pm PT/4pm ET, we'll be holding a Q&A with Patricia Aufderheide for the Techdirt Book Club book for May), but today we're "pre-announcing" the Techdirt Book Club book for July. And that's because if you want to get a free hard copy of the book, you can enter a giveaway starting today. You may remember, a few months back, Rob Reid (founder of Listen.com, among other things) got plenty of attention for his rather humorous talk about copyright math. And, earlier this week, we wrote about his op-ed for the WSJ concerning ways to compete with "free."

But none of that compares to Year Zero, Reid's new novel, which is being released on July 10th. It's all about aliens who go bankrupt after they realize they owe the record labels more money than exists in the universe, because they got hooked on our music, and shared that music with other aliens. Rob has released a video trailer as a teaser for the book, which is quite amusing:
I've had a chance to read the book, and I can say that it's awesome. Think Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but with copyright law driving a major plot line. A mainstream humorous sci-fi novel that uses the Berne Convention as a key plot point and tosses aside casual references to Larry Lessig and Fark? Yes. Count me in. And, unlike most novels that bring up copyright, this one gets the legal issues mostly right (there is one point where trademark and copyright get confused, but it's so minor, you'll let it slip).

Anyway, as we said, this will be the Book Club book for July, and we'll be doing some fun things with Rob to have him engage with everyone here—but, if you're lucky, there's a chance for you to get a physical copy of the book delivered a month before it's actually released. Rob has the details on his blog, but basically you have to let him know (via a comment on his blog, a tweet or a Facebook comment) what song you'd like to beam to the aliens. Thirty winners -- ten from the comments, ten from Twitter and ten from Facebook (though you can enter all three) -- will be chosen at random to get books. So, go ahead and beam some songs to aliens. And just hope the RIAA doesn't claim that you're "inducing" infringement by doing so...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Techdirt. Stories filed under "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy"

Hitchhiker's Fan-Site Started By Douglas Adams Shows Why Authors Shouldn't Panic Over Derivative Works

Aliens v. The RIAA! Win An Early Release Copy Of Year Zero, Techdirt's July Book Club Offering