Mixing it Up

Within the publishing industry, remixes, and remediations aren’t too common, however there are a few situations in which assemblages can be found. The most popular form, especially in recent years, is the genre known as fan fiction. This genre takes plot lines, majority of the time from television series’ and movies, as well as from book sagas and rewrites the storyline in a way preferred by the author. This type of remix has become so popular there are even apps for it now, the most used one to my knowledge being Wattpad.

Click here to view Wattpad’s website

When considering fan fiction and its relationship with composing, I feel that the author is most affected by this change of genre, or platform. Audiences will tend to stay the same, or pretty similar since the fan fiction stories involve the same characters, often just different relationships or a different ending. However, the author has to try and compose this new story in a similar style to how the original author wrote and thought, which obviously is not the easiest thing. Being that these new stories are created and uploaded either online, or via an app, that also changes the way the author is reaching its audience, and how this media reaches people. This also effects the publishing industry in the fact that anyone can upload their pieces to websites like this, and no longer necessarily need a publisher to help, or do anything for them.

Since these reimagined stories are only using characters from the book and putting them in a new environment, changing the storyline, or even combining two completely different, already published books, these new authors are not really disobeying the copyright laws. They are taking the foundation of something and changing it, or creating something completely new from it. I like to compare it to remixing a song; when someone samples a beat in their song, or uses another artist’s music to rap over, they’re creating their own remix. With fan fiction, the new author is essentially doing the same thing, just with words only. I think it’s a fine line, however if proper credit is given when necessary, then the composer is still on the good side of that line.

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