No opinion? Surely you jest! ;) I've posted about those and ACTA that just got passed in Japan a couple of times and the response here has been interested but no frenzy.
My opinion is, they're likely to leave us alone, at least at first, but if they do pass something and it is actually enforced on us, they would see a backlash the likes of which they couldn't have imagined.
Fan works, art, literature and video, are an underground phenom - sort of like women that liked LOTR *le gasp!* - that 'common wisdom' would say doesn't exist. I doubt we'd be first on the radar of any regulating agency; they'll go after digital piracy first, but because of the way most of these laws were written, there was no explicit protection built into them for derivative fan works. SOPA and PIPA would have targeted whole websites, unlike the current system, and would make the sites have to police their content themselves or risk being shut down. For sites that depend on user generated content, that's just not financially feasible so they'd most likely just down access. We'd no longer have any place to post anything. THAT'S where we'd get screwed.
If franchises, like studios and book publishers, noticed us at all they might see us fan artists and authors as taking potential revenue away from legitimate business interests. They might think that the customers reading our fic for free would potentially pay the copy-write holders money for an authorized product (doubtful). The truth is, if we didn't draw fan arts or write fanfics, much of the fervor surrounding these media products would be GONE. We whip each other up and share our interests with each other - giving advertising and endorsements to shows and movies many would never see. These franchises really ought to be paying US because we talk up their product in fanfic and introduce it to thousands of new viewers, but I doubt most of them see it that way.
The real question is one of cost effectiveness. Does the creation of fan works result in a net benefit or detriment to a particular product? I don't know. You could measure the actual dollars (or yen or rubles) spent on pirated video, but what we do is harder to quantify. And is the actual 'market' affected by derivative works big enough for the franchises to even bother with? Wouldn't the bad blood caused by the franchise's attempts to shut us down be even worse for business than what we 'take' from them with fanfiction? I mean, I don't have any numbers, but it'd be a pretty safe bet to make to say that the kinds of fans who write fanfic and draw fan art spend a WHOLE lot more money on 'official' merch than someone who's a casual fan.
I know that if they actually did try to regulate us or the websites we post on, that would be the LAST piece of 'official' merch I would ever buy again. And probably the last film I went to see in the theaters. Enforcement of something like SOPA or PIPA would create a WHOLE lot bigger problem than anything they had before trying to 'fix' it.
Thanks for the lovely, detailed reply. You've captured my feelings very well-- I think "fan" works actually generate revenue. I know if it weren't for tips from other fans, I wouldn't have become hooked on certain series and absolutely "need" to buy a book or DVD. To me, the Internet is today's radio or library. Yes, you can get the product for free. If you love it, you buy it and go nuts to find more.
My opinion is, they're likely to leave us alone, at least at first, but if they do pass something and it is actually enforced on us, they would see a backlash the likes of which they couldn't have imagined.
Fan works, art, literature and video, are an underground phenom - sort of like women that liked LOTR *le gasp!* - that 'common wisdom' would say doesn't exist. I doubt we'd be first on the radar of any regulating agency; they'll go after digital piracy first, but because of the way most of these laws were written, there was no explicit protection built into them for derivative fan works. SOPA and PIPA would have targeted whole websites, unlike the current system, and would make the sites have to police their content themselves or risk being shut down. For sites that depend on user generated content, that's just not financially feasible so they'd most likely just down access. We'd no longer have any place to post anything. THAT'S where we'd get screwed.
If franchises, like studios and book publishers, noticed us at all they might see us fan artists and authors as taking potential revenue away from legitimate business interests. They might think that the customers reading our fic for free would potentially pay the copy-write holders money for an authorized product (doubtful). The truth is, if we didn't draw fan arts or write fanfics, much of the fervor surrounding these media products would be GONE. We whip each other up and share our interests with each other - giving advertising and endorsements to shows and movies many would never see. These franchises really ought to be paying US because we talk up their product in fanfic and introduce it to thousands of new viewers, but I doubt most of them see it that way.
The real question is one of cost effectiveness. Does the creation of fan works result in a net benefit or detriment to a particular product? I don't know. You could measure the actual dollars (or yen or rubles) spent on pirated video, but what we do is harder to quantify. And is the actual 'market' affected by derivative works big enough for the franchises to even bother with? Wouldn't the bad blood caused by the franchise's attempts to shut us down be even worse for business than what we 'take' from them with fanfiction? I mean, I don't have any numbers, but it'd be a pretty safe bet to make to say that the kinds of fans who write fanfic and draw fan art spend a WHOLE lot more money on 'official' merch than someone who's a casual fan.
I know that if they actually did try to regulate us or the websites we post on, that would be the LAST piece of 'official' merch I would ever buy again. And probably the last film I went to see in the theaters. Enforcement of something like SOPA or PIPA would create a WHOLE lot bigger problem than anything they had before trying to 'fix' it.
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Thanks for weighing in.
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