since the legalities of fanfic prohibit any conventional sort of publication
No, they don't. They just mean it takes a publisher with a little guts, willing to defend it under fair use grounds (in MoR's case, parody)
They would lose, and probably correctly so. If that defense worked for MoR, it could be applied to any situation where someone just made up their own story using someone else's characters, and the whole concept of copyright would be effectively abolished.
(Not that abolishing copyright wouldn't be a policy worth considering...)
Actually, in fact, it seems obvious to me that any publication at all -- "conventional" or not -- of fanfiction is blatantly illegal, just like distributing your own modified version of Microsoft Windows would be.
(Note that "is illegal" is not the same thing as "should be illegal".)
They would lose, and probably correctly so. If that defense worked for MoR, it could be applied to any situation where someone just made up their own story using someone else's characters, and the whole concept of copyright would be effectively abolished.
Are you under the impression that fair use has never worked before or parody in particular? Because otherwise I don't understand why you are so certain of what you are saying.
The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 82. The previous thread passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. Comment in the 13th thread until you read chapter 82.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: