[drb91]

Being creative and copying ideas are not mutually exclusive.

For instance, I love the harry potter universe. I just happen to think that JK Rowling is a terrible writer. I would pay hundreds of dollars for quality fan fiction, ideally licensed or legal. There’s really no mechanism for any human on the planet to tell a story in this universe and widely distribute it legally.

Arguably this is more of an issue with copyright and trademark, but I think there’s a lot of room for art to fluorish if there’s a market not beholden to IP law.

[cyphar]

Just a small nitpick, there is no such thing as "IP law". There are copyright laws, trademark laws, and patent laws. All of them have different rules and regulations, and the only thing some people think they have in common is that they (in some fashion) "regulate ideas" with small differences in their application. This is simply not an accurate view of such laws, and ends up muddying the waters by making the clear differences between such laws seem unclear (I'm not saying that you are guilty of doing this intentionally -- it is a very common misconception that is spread because the copyright lobby in the US intentionally tries to muddy the waters so that discussions of reform get squashed).

Always refer to copyright laws as "copyright laws", trademark laws as "trademark laws", and so on.

[emiliobumachar]

As a heads up, you're in luck. Ms. Rowling happens to allow a large fan fiction community to thrive royalty-free, as long as no money changes hands.

I have read and particularly recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

http://www.hpmor.com/

Many other works set in the HP universe exist.

[ZainRiz]

Harry Potter has more fanfiction about it than any other storiy. The most famous one is on hpmor.com, but you can find tons of others on fanfiction.net.