“In the past few years, a curious literary genre known as ‘fan fiction’ has been flourishing. The term refers to all manner of vignettes, short stories and novels based on the universes described in popular books, TV shows and movies. Similarly derived works are appearing in music, where fans are using their computers to mix songs from popular artists into new works that they call ‘mashups.’ Movie fans are taking digital copies of films such as the ‘Star Wars’ epics and creating alternate endings or deleting characters such as the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks. The explosion of these part-original, part-borrowed works has set authors of fan fiction against some media companies in a battle to redefine the line between consumers’ right to ‘fair use’ and copyright holders’ rights to control their intellectual property.”