A story is worth a great deal, especially if it is your income.  Anyone who has actually written and struggled through a true manuscript would NEVER say that a story is worth less than nothing, published or not.

I think the problem is that you misread that quote - I was talking about a fanfiction story, not the original story - naturally, that's worth exactly what was paid for it. The reason a fanfiction story is worth less than nothing is that you make no money off it, and also invest quite a bit of time and effort into it. If you understood me correctly, and stand by your statement, then I must feel very taken aback by your last comment - it implies a very ad hominem attack, which is to say that you're inferring I'm not an honest writer. I've been writing since I was able to put two words together, and I've put most of my life into it. Even if I am not a perfect writer by your standards, I've still put in the work, and I put more work into it every day. Perhaps I'm taking your statement the wrong way, but it didn't come off very nicely. Again, perhaps I'm in the wrong there.

As I said if you are using it in private to learn, great.  If you are putting it out on the internet, which I consider to be the same as publishing you are "taking" the property of others. Perhaps someone with more law experience could address the internet issue as I'm certainly not an expert on it.  I'm pretty sure that an e-book is copywrited the same as a paper manuscript?

An e-book would be something that you sell through a publisher, and therefore make money off of. No one sells e-books of their fanfiction. I'm not certain where people keep getting the idea that fanfic writers think they're able to sell their stuff, or that they think they're somehow better than the original author, but neither is true (except in extreme cases - and you can't judge an entire group by the fringes, for obvious reasons). Fanfic writers do not "publish" an e-book of their work. They usually put it on an archival site meant specifically for fanfiction, which means that someone out there is actually losing money on fanfiction by paying for the hosting costs. No one makes money off of fanfiction. Period.

As for the law issues, I've seen this debated many times. Fanfiction falls into a gray area in the law, not very well defined, if I'm correct. Most copyright lawyers and laws only bother with things that either make money off of someone else's ideas or somehow hurt what that person has already made, and fanfiction does neither. It is generally up to the author to say whether or not they like fanfiction because of this, and their wishes are supposed to be followed if they claim 'nay'. Authors who don't come out and state either way are generally assumed to not care about it. Perhaps that's wrong, but if they don't care enough to make a simple statement - anywhere, even on a blog or in a short email to ff.net - then people are going to assume it's all right.

I really appreciate the quote from BolshevikMuppet, with which I thoroughly agree.  "The bad thing, however, is growing lazy and too accustomed to the simplicity that fanfiction writing provides us.  I, for one, have trouble coming up with my own in-depth characters, as for so long I've just borrowed other people's."  The challenge is to create those characters and do them well.  Applause to BolshevikMuppet!

BolshevikMuppet was making a very balanced statement, which I also applaud, but you're taking this quote slightly out of context. "The challenge is to create those characters and do them well" - as in, this is the only challenge worth talking about? Learning to write well, creating a mood, learning to use diction correctly - these are not entirely worthless. I would like to add my own personal experiences, which are obviously only one person's case - I have no problems making original characters, and I mostly learned by writing fanfiction. And, as I already mentioned, not everyone writes fanfiction in preparation to be an author. Some people really just enjoy writing fanfiction as a hobby, and that should be all right - you can't demand that everyone in the world take writing as seriously as a published author. We do need people who are good at other things too. (Who do I get to fix my dishwasher? I don't do it. I wouldn't expect the repairman to edit my manuscripts for me either, but who knows whether he writes fanfiction in his free time or not?)

You've been ignoring many of my other comments, possibly just because you didn't have anything to say either way on them. I think one of the problems of this debate is that we haven't outlined what exactly we're debating. Fanfiction in general? Fanfiction when the writer has asked you not to write it? Most everyone here agrees that you shouldn't write fanfiction when the authors says not to. If they say you can, then, do you still feel I'm stealing their furniture?

Fanfic is like anything else in the world - dependent on the person behind it. Unfortunately, we have a rather large amount of stupid in the world, so the vast majority of the people behind it are going to show through badly.

In short, as in the Harry Dresden universe: magic is neither good nor evil. It is a tool. (Yes, I am that geeky. No comments on that, please.)

As for the major arguments against it...

You can't be a writing elitest and say 'why not write something of your own' because not everyone wants to be a full-fledged author. Some people just watch a tv show or read a book and say "hey, I wonder what would happen if..." And if they later make the transition over to writing their own stuff because of this, that's all right as well. After all, we probably wouldn't have new writers if we didn't also have old writers for them to be inspired by. Fanfiction, though, is a hobby - and just like reading, or roleplaying, or even horseback riding, it doesn't need to have a purpose other than fun. That's what hobbies are for.

On the author's right to ban fanfiction: I agree. If you don't want people writing fanfiction, they shouldn't do it. But people shouldn't download music illegally either, and they do it anyway. Some things, you just can't help, and it's honestly not worth the expense it would take to track down one of your own fans and tell them off. And why alienate someone who loves your work that much anyway? (Then again, I happen to be terribly non-confrontational.) J.K. Rowling doesn't mind fanfiction, for example, as long as it isn't explicit - she's even mentioned that she looked through it some to see what the fans liked and didn't like about her books so far.

My personal opinion of fanfiction is positive. I've used it as an opportunity to develop random background characters, create new plots, and even try out very different writing styles and techniques. The best constructive criticism I've ever received has been from fanfiction, as I was lucky enough to find a very literary-minded group of 'ficcers' to help out. The difference between fanfiction and published material here is not to be understated - there's more people willing to read your fiction, as they already know they're interested in at least part of it, and there's less paranoia about ideas being 'stolen' (a ridiculous thought, but I suppose it's happened before). There's less stress, fewer deadlines, and the certainty of encouragement in the form of regular reviews.

In closing, I'd like to add that in my case, my fanfiction has not been a wasted effort at all. I have a very large, loyal base of readers begging me to tell them when my original book will be out so that they can buy it. If and when that book comes out (it's finished, and currently going through the submission long-haul), I will already have a convenient way to advertise it: on the next chapter of my story.