More on FanLib

[phaballa]

turloughishere pointed me to this very good summary of WTF is up with FanLib. Frankly, this whole thing scares me. The idea that this site could be the thing that provides a test case in the courts re: fanfiction? Yes, it's very scary. I like our grey area. I like that we get ignored by the consumer culture and the general public and that (most) authors don

Comments

[ericaplease]

srsly. it scares me. =/

[phaballa]

I know, right? :(

[brynwulf]

We'd have to go back to the dark ages of fandom when we really were truly underground.

Cool! I love being in a revolutionary subculture anarchy.

[phaballa]

Yeah, but paper zines are SO annoying :P

...we could use telnet again! Let's start a MOO!!

[brynwulf]

*facepalm*

I still have bulletin board software around somewhere.

[phaballa]

AWESOME. At least we're technically savvy enough in old skool internets to do it :P

[glendaglamazon]

This is an excellent post on why fanfiction isn't illegal, and we as the consumers and progenitors of it should really educate ourselves about that.

[phaballa]

I don't think fanfiction IS illegal. However, I also don't understand how sites like FanLib, which are FOR-profit and made money off ad revenues, can host fanfiction. Their TOS doesn't protect the writers at ALL. I'll need to go read that, but I always thought the basic legality question was whether or not we're making money off it. And even then, writers like Anne Rice have put a gag on fanfic based off their work, so clearly, there's some question of legality...

[topaz119]

Henry Jenkins posted about it this morning, too, covering some of the same posts, but from an academic angle, here.

[phaballa]

I wonder why this didn't come up on my feed? Hmph. *kicks feed* Anyway, I'll have to take a look at it. I read his thing about it a few weeks ago and the feminist viewpoints, and so on. I'm interested to see what he has to say now that people are up in arms over it.

[lurkitty]

Wow. It makes me hope this guys crash and burn. I understand wanting to make a buck, but this is a real racket. When the law says you can't make money from an activity, and you use that excuse not to compensate the people who are doing the work that makes money for you, that's called "exploitation".

[phaballa]

WORD. It's so exploitative and just, ugh, it disgusts me in about a million different ways, from trying to co-opt what is essentially an underground grassroots culture, to the denigration of slash... it just shows a disturbing lack of understanding and care for the people who they're making money off of. And yes, is very exploitative. Fansploitation?