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What was the address for sending notions for the post-mortem again? I think
I may have mislaid the message with it in a fit of dusting out my inbox.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 6 Oct 2005, at 00:17, C Dodd wrote:

> What was the address for sending notions for the post-mortem again? I
> think
> I may have mislaid the message with it in a fit of dusting out my
> inbox.
>
>

Hi Rabidsamfan,

mefasupport@gmail.com

And by all means, do spread that address around to anyone who has
questions or comments relating to the awards.

Marta


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,

I just joined this list this morning and have not yet had time to
spend looking through all of the rules, FAQ's and such, which I will
do later, I promise. In the meantime, I have one quick, but very
important question. What is the policy on stories with song lyrics?
Are songfics allowed as long as the lyrics are attributed to the
correct source? Are they confined to 10% of the lyrics or are they
banned altogether? This will have a major impact on which stories I
nominate, so I would appreciate any advice anyone can give me on this
topic.

Thanks,
Misty

Hi,

Marta will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall anything in
the rules regarding how song lyrics affect the eligibility of
nominated stories, unless the fiction is so dependent on the song that
it would violate the plagarism rule, which states:

10. Pieces found to be plagiarized will be withdrawn from the awards.

10-a. For the purpose of the MEFAs plagiarism is defined as "the
deliberate attempt to deceive the reader through the appropriation and
representation as one's own the work and words of others."*

10-b. All co-authors should be listed in the story information at the
MEFA voting website. Failure to do this will be considered plagiarism
(provided the omission is intentional), even if the co-authors are
given credit at the page where the piece is archived.

10-b-i. For fiction, a co-author is defined as someone who wrote a
significant portion of the piece in question.

10-b-ii. For non-fiction, a co-author is defined as someone who
contributed a significant portion of the piece in question, whether
this contribution is verbal or non-verbal. For example, both someone
who created a chart that an essay relies upon and someone who wrote a
section of that essay would be considered a co-author.

10-b-iii. Authors are encouraged to discuss in advance with their beta
readers and anyone else who contributed to the piece whether they
consider themselves to be co-authors.

10-c. Plagiarism must be intentional.

10-c-i. If an author did know or should have known that another person
was a co-author, and did not list this person as such at the MEFA
website, the story will be withdrawn from the awards.

10-c-ii. If an author does not list a co-author as such at the MEFA
website but the MEFA administrators conclude that this was a mistake
rather than a deliberate deception, the site will be edited to list
all authors as co-authors, but this will not be treated as plagiarism.
The piece will remain in the competition.

10-d. Any decisions made by the MEFA administrators will not affect
third parties such as web sites where the site is hosted. People
claiming to be co-authors should take this matter up directly with
these websites.

I hope this helps. :-)


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "mistycracraft" <mistycracraft@...>
wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I just joined this list this morning and have not yet had time to
> spend looking through all of the rules, FAQ's and such, which I will
> do later, I promise. In the meantime, I have one quick, but very
> important question. What is the policy on stories with song lyrics?
> Are songfics allowed as long as the lyrics are attributed to the
> correct source? Are they confined to 10% of the lyrics or are they
> banned altogether? This will have a major impact on which stories I
> nominate, so I would appreciate any advice anyone can give me on this
> topic.
>
> Thanks,
> Misty
>

On 17/4/06 11:14 am, "mistycracraft" <mistycracraft@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just joined this list this morning and have not yet had time to
> spend looking through all of the rules, FAQ's and such, which I will
> do later, I promise. In the meantime, I have one quick, but very
> important question. What is the policy on stories with song lyrics?
> Are songfics allowed as long as the lyrics are attributed to the
> correct source? Are they confined to 10% of the lyrics or are they
> banned altogether? This will have a major impact on which stories I
> nominate, so I would appreciate any advice anyone can give me on this
> topic.
>
> Thanks,
> Misty
>

Hi Misty,

To my knowledge this hasn't come up before. I have no problem with songfics
competing, so long as the source is attributed. I freely admit to not being
an expert on copyright infringement and may change my mind if someone
replies witgh more knowledge of this than I have - but my feeling is that
this is no more a copyright infringement than allowing movie images to be
used in banners.

Marta

On 17/4/06 2:32 pm, "elliska67" <elliska67@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Marta will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall anything in
> the rules regarding how song lyrics affect the eligibility of
> nominated stories, unless the fiction is so dependent on the song that
> it would violate the plagarism rule, which states:
>
> 10. Pieces found to be plagiarized will be withdrawn from the awards.
>
> 10-a. For the purpose of the MEFAs plagiarism is defined as "the
> deliberate attempt to deceive the reader through the appropriation and
> representation as one's own the work and words of others."*
>

<snippage>

Thanks, elliska. You're right, this isn't an issue that's come up before. If
a songfic has been nominated, no one has asked specifically for permission
and I haven't noticed it.

Looking at the definition, the crucial part seems to be "to deceive the
reader through the appropriation [...] as one's own the work and words of
others." Songfic takes words that are identifiably the words of others and
does not deny that they came from another's song, right? So there is no
intention to deceive someone into thinking the author is writing original
poetry. And a reasonable person wouldn't be deceived, especially if they
read all the way to the footnote where the original songwriter is credited.

If we want to be really careful about plagiarism, I suppose we could add a
line like "Based on both the works of JRRT and the song "[title]" by [group
name]." or something like that.

Marta

Thanks, this helps. I enjoy writing songfics, but I always make an
effort to attribute the song to the proper people in the disclaimers
so that everyone knows they aren't mine.

Thanks for the quick replies.

Misty

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@...> wrote:
>
> On 17/4/06 2:32 pm, "elliska67" <elliska67@...> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Marta will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall anything in
> > the rules regarding how song lyrics affect the eligibility of
> > nominated stories, unless the fiction is so dependent on the song that
> > it would violate the plagarism rule, which states:
> >
> > 10. Pieces found to be plagiarized will be withdrawn from the awards.
> >
> > 10-a. For the purpose of the MEFAs plagiarism is defined as "the
> > deliberate attempt to deceive the reader through the appropriation and
> > representation as one's own the work and words of others."*
> >
>
> <snippage>
>
> Thanks, elliska. You're right, this isn't an issue that's come up
before. If
> a songfic has been nominated, no one has asked specifically for
permission
> and I haven't noticed it.
>
> Looking at the definition, the crucial part seems to be "to deceive the
> reader through the appropriation [...] as one's own the work and
words of
> others." Songfic takes words that are identifiably the words of
others and
> does not deny that they came from another's song, right? So there is no
> intention to deceive someone into thinking the author is writing
original
> poetry. And a reasonable person wouldn't be deceived, especially if they
> read all the way to the footnote where the original songwriter is
credited.
>
> If we want to be really careful about plagiarism, I suppose we could
add a
> line like "Based on both the works of JRRT and the song "[title]" by
[group
> name]." or something like that.
>
> Marta
>

> If we want to be really careful about
> plagiarism, I suppose we could add a line
> like "Based on both the works of JRRT and the >

song "[title]" by [group name]." or something >
like that.


I've written a few songfics and fics based on
quotes or lyrics. What I do is put a Notations
field in all my headers - just like a Warnings
field, except there I put all credits to anyone
who has helped me or who I have taken lyrics from
etc. Would that sort of thing do the trick?

Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com

On 19/4/06 9:33 am, "Naresha" <north_shore_fruitcake@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

>> If we want to be really careful about
>> plagiarism, I suppose we could add a line
>> like "Based on both the works of JRRT and the >
> song "[title]" by [group name]." or something >
> like that.
>
>
> I've written a few songfics and fics based on
> quotes or lyrics. What I do is put a Notations
> field in all my headers - just like a Warnings
> field, except there I put all credits to anyone
> who has helped me or who I have taken lyrics from
> etc. Would that sort of thing do the trick?
>

As far as the MEFAs are concerned, I don't want to deal with what an author
does or doesn't do at the page where the story is hosted. Our rules really
only deal with the information at our website. So I'd definitely encourage
people to add a line to the headers if that's possible where their piece is
archived - but for our purposes, it's kind of beside the point.

As far as adding a credits field, that might be a good idea - but I don't
want to do it for this year because we're too close to the start of the
awards. For this year I think we're best incorporating this information into
the story summary, where necessary.

Marta