Wank alert!
Grab a bowl of popcorn and get your latest AO3 wank here!
Short version: AO3 announced that it's rearchiving a whole siteful of stories (from an old archive considered "at risk") with the permission of the archivists but without the permission of the authors of said stories, who will then somehow be allowed to claim their stories (and opt out if ( Read more... )
Short version: AO3 announced that it's rearchiving a whole siteful of stories (from an old archive considered "at risk") with the permission of the archivists but without the permission of the authors of said stories, who will then somehow be allowed to claim their stories (and opt out if ( Read more... )
Now, I don't have some of the email addresses (*cough* hotmail *cough*) that I used back in the heydey, so no one could contact me through the old archival links to check whether or not I wanted them archived or no. And I did stupid shit like publishing under my real name. (It was the 1990s. Online fandom was new to all of us.)
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that once something is published on the internet, it's pretty much out there to stay. Maybe a locked archive that wasn't crawled and recorded, you'd have a good expectation of it not being available forever but even then. . . . But if it is up on a publicly available website somewhere? It's going to be available on the Wayback Machine and, thus, in search engines, for nigh onto forever. . .
I know that folks can be persecuted and afflicted for their fanfic (or even for profic when it comes to writing about things that just aren't G-rated, like that poor teacher the other year). So I know why people are leery. Then, again, at least AO3 is trying to make it very clear that they will orphan works and that might help to protect an author who wants distance from a fanwork that an anonymous story on AO3 could provide to counter a nymous story on the Wayback Machine.
Reply
This is really making my opinion of AO3 take a nosedive. If they make it opt-in rather than opt-out, despite the fact that it would be more work, then I'll reconsider.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Lucy Liu wank!
All white cock, all the time! For great social justice!
I had a moment of disappointment that she was cast as Watson rather than Holmes, but otherwise I'm thrilled.
Reply
So, in this case, the archivist is saying "Save our stories!" It's not just a random fanfic grab as some people are suggesting but OTW does want to get publicity out so if there are other archives in trouble, they know about the AO3 option.
Still, I don't think their proposal is perfect. People are very concerned about their work suddenly showing up on AO3 which is probably much more visible on search engines than their old archive. So a story that's languished in happy obscurity for years might seem more noticeable after the move.
Maybe if they made all the imported stories private at first (available in even title/listing form only for registered users, maybe, or visible in a listing to those who've confirmed their ID w/the original archive mods) so that the material is preserved, people have a chance to find their stuff and then orphan it if they don't want their ID associated with the work?
Like I said, I take the long view of history that once something is published in some form, it is out there. I expect that a lot of these archives are there in the Wayback Machine or on copycat archives already (many of mine are *winces*) and easily available to a web search. At least, unlike these other copycat archives, AO3 would offer me, as an author, a way to opt out or to control/claim my story. The German archive and Geocities scaper that have reposted my story offer me no such satisfaction.
*sigh*
Reply
I see no reason to exempt AO3 from the standards of behavior I expect from others in fandom, and they should expect to get called on this.
Reply
Another option might be to preserve the archived material in an AO3 import format but locked up as a zip file and then only releasing stories into the archive that have been authorized by authors. But what do we do if an author has died or entirely gafiated?
Waiting until you have permission from all the authors would likely be a non-starter. How long is long enough for someone to feel the archive worked hard enough to contact her? "I was in the Peace Corps and not online for six months. How could you delete my story!" and raises the difficulty level of filtering out some works with no ongoing attribution.
Like I said, from a certain perspective, I take it that published is published and it's really hard to put the genie back in the bottle so I live with it. Eldest, however, is on her second fanfiction dot net account because she hates everything she wrote before the past year and wanted to delete it all (as a historian, that horrified me and I suggested she walk away from the stories, instead).
As an author, if someone gives their copy of my book to a library or sells it in a used book store, I don't have any recourse or expectation that I retain control beyond initial publication. I don't get to say which commercial database has the right to republish my work, even - it's all signed away in rights management one way or the other. However, I have helped take down pirated academic books from a Neo-Nazi website (for that, at least, the DMCA worked in our favour.) So for me, the sense of ownership in fanworks isn't that I have any expectation of protection of my interests once the story is posted somewhere.
Reply
Leave a comment