Thread by @textfiles

Quick story. It's not heartwarming but it's certainly warm.

Friend of mine really liked Dragonriders of Pern, which is the science fiction series where people train and ride dragons. She was also an artist. People would roleplay Pern online, naming themselves, describing and naming dragons, you know, nerd stuff.

My friend (a real person, I assure you) started drawing friends riding on their dragons, and drawing them based on requests. Got pretty good at it. Did commissions. Drawing people on dragons.

One day, she gets a very stern letter. The letter is from Todd MacCaffrey, son of Anne MacCaffrey, creator of the Dragonriders of Pern series. In it, he says that drawing people on dragons is copyright of the MacCaffrey organization, that my friend is liable for penalties.

He demands she stop drawing people on dragons, and in doing so indicates that she had already made her liable for many thousands of dollars of damage. She has kids and a family. She was not doing this for a living.

So, she burns everything.

Just makes a pile and burns all her art, past and present, out of fear this could turn them out of their home and that something she was drawing was some sort of felony that would me thousands to defend, thousands if she lost, and maybe jail time.

Burned all of it.

Never drew again.

Now, lawyers will arrive and go "you should have hired lawyers" and that's nice and all, and I'm sure some people would have, blasting all potential return for their works into the sea to pay a legal bill. I talk to people shaken to the core with these letters.

People really on the edge, barely getting by.

So if you're new to The Jason Scott Experience and wonder why I get a little intense about people being threatened legally and new laws implying massive drain and weight, the fire in my eyes is reflected from my friend's bonfire.

As this goes viral, let me mention this is late 1990s.