Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

When Real People Become Fictional: The Collision Of Trademark, Copyright, And Publicity Rights In Online Stories About Celebrities, Stacey M. Lantagne

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

"Fanficion is frequently defined as the writing of fiction involving the characters or setting of someone else’s creation. However, there is a subset of fanfiction that is known as Real Person Fiction, or RPF. This subset writes stories not about other people’s fictional creations but about real people, whether they be hockey players or movie stars, and it has long been the scene of heated debate in the fan community. Some fans who readily and enthusiastically engage with fanfiction draw strict “squick” lines about RPF and call it “creepy” and “disturbing.” "Perhaps for this reason, scholars have paid little attention …