There are stories I've written that I want to make money off of. Gemini is not one of them. More importantly, there is not the slightest chance that more people would read a free fanfic and say "Wow, good thing I don't need to find the original anymore" than would say "Wow, I need to find the original!" Or, even more likely for somebody reading fanfic in the first place, "Wow, good thing I already did read/watch the original!"
I'd have no problem with someone writing fan fiction of my work. But what you're describing still doesn't sound like fan fiction to me. The "disclaimer somewhere on an obscure title page" perception of fan fiction is just weird. Standard fanfic doesn't get published for sale, not without serious copyright issues, so we're talking about works that don't have formal title pages, and they're actually promoted based on being fan fiction. If I wanted to read a Shelter fanfic I'd go to AO3 or wherever and search for the fic based on the original series name. There really isn't room for reader confusion about who wrote a given piece. So as long as there's no confusion about authorship, I'd have no problem with fan fiction of my work because I disagree with your premise that reader interest is finite and consumable. I think fanfic creates more excitement and more demand for the original product. It builds a community of fans who all love the original work and I think they create a sort of feedback relationship where the enthusiasm of one fan increases the enthusiasm of another, and then cycles back around to increase the enthusiasm of the first. You should see the frenzy on some fan sites when a new form of canon is released. The next time there's a big new release of something in a major series, go ask the people who are cosplaying the characters, sleeping outside overnight in order to be first in line for tickets, etc... ask them if they read/write fanfic. I bet a significant portion of them do. When teen girls put posters of their pop band heroes up on their bedroom walls, they aren't diminishing their interest in seeing the heroes in person - they don't say, Oh, if I want to see him I can just look at my poster, so there's no point going to the show. The trappings of fandom increase the popularity of the source material. So, yeah, I'd be thrilled if someone wrote fanfic (actual fanfic, not the strange published-for-profit-through-trickery version you seem to be imagining) of my work.
If it wasn't for fanfiction and roleplaying forums for certain fandoms, I almost certainly wouldn't be writing today. They're a good learning experience for a writer and I see no harm in them.
Absolutely! I read a spin-off (not exactly fan-fic) of Sherlock Holmes. As soon as I finished it I downloaded the complete original Sherlock Holmes stories. Slightly different since SH is now in the public domain, but I would've paid for it if it wasn't.
I've always believed anything that inspires you is good and worth writing about. Times are hard these days!
I just went to FanFiction.net (Not sure how that could be mistaken for a website of original work) and clicked on the link for stories based on Movies rather than those based on Books, Anime... (You have to really know what you're looking for) Frozen is #3 as having inspired almost 5500 fanfics, beating Thor, Iron Man, the Dark Knight, Tangled, Lion King, Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind... If Disney did not know how ridiculously obsessed Frozen fans (myself included) still were 2 years after the fact, would they know how much of a market there was for the sequel that they are going to make a fortune off of? Sequels in general have been decried as a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of the original (gee, I wonder who says that), but I can't think of any Disney sequel before Frozen 2 that received theatrical release. My understanding is that all of them were direct-to-TV, direct-to-video, or direct-to-DVD. Frozen 2 is going to make a boatload more than any other Disney sequel before it, and without fanfic Disney would not have known about this opportunity to make a fortune.
