Anne Rice objected to fan fiction based on any of her characters (mostly those from her famous "Interview with the Vampire" and its sequels in "The Vampire Chronicles") or other elements in her books, and she formally requested that FanFiction.Net remove stories featuring her characters. However, in 2012, "Metro" reported that Rice has taken a milder stance on the issue: "I got upset about 20 years ago because I thought it would block me," she said. "However, it’s been very easy to avoid reading any, so live and let live. If I were a young writer, I’d want to own my own ideas. But maybe fan fiction is a transitional phase: whatever gets you there, gets you there." Similar efforts have also been taken by Annette Curtis Klause, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, and Robin McKinley among others. Many authors do this, they state, in order to protect their copyright and especially to prevent any dilution, saturation, or distortion of the universes and people portrayed in their works.