Important: Yet another Fandom Locust has landed

[joyful_molly]

I know that it's Saturday and therefore a bad day for posting, but please, do read this entry and follow the links inside; it's important for fans, whether they are in the LotR fandom or not.

"(...) LOTRFanFiction.com is a fan fiction archive, just like TwilightArchives.com (another site I snapped up a couple of months ago).

The thinking is that I

Comments

[anteros_lmc]

Wow! That sucks big time. I hope that Mr Mander will get what is coming to him in short order, if not from the fans then from the Tolkein estate. Preferably both.

I had no idea Glorfindel had tentacles!

[joyful_molly]

While I admit a major case of Schadenfreude on my part if that should happen, I'd rather not fandom attracting the attention of the Tolkien estate. I doubt they'd make a difference between "git trying to cash in on fanfic" and fans who try to cover the costs for their archive. It's the fans who'd have to shoulder the fall-out, not Keith Manders, who'd merrily move on to the next website.

I had to laugh when he said that he's moved servers to the UK, and runs the business as a UK-based corporation, so nobody could be sued for copyright infringment. Hah! Fun! From what I understand, the site was previously hosted in the USA - and now it moved right under the nose of the Tolkien estate! Shows how much the man knows about his "merchandise"...

*Headdesk*

[neotoma]

Wait, WHAT? The reason he's gone to the UK is to skate under copyright infringement laws?

... didn't he check the UK/EU laws before he did this? Because if I've read things write, the UK/EU laws are *stricter* than the US laws. And for pete's sake, the Tolkien estate is right there -- there wouldn't be any jurisdictional problem to give you a little extra time if the estate sues!

Re: *Headdesk*

[joyful_molly]

Here's his reply to the questions of users re: Tolkien estate, laws etc:

When the archive is sued, will you shoulder the legal costs for your users?
"The site is now owned by a limited liability corporation registered in the United Kingdom. Users of the site would never bear any responsibility for legal actions against the site." ( source )

He's a very funny man...

[jaiden_s]

I yanked all my stuff down from there yesterday. :/

[joyful_molly]

It's sad for the community; many have used the archive for years, and it's certainly not easy to pack up and leave. But it's very likely the best thing to do. If there's no content, there's noting to cash in on.

[helens_daughter]

Making sure they have nothing of mine.

[joyful_molly]

Good; starving him off content is probably the only way to get rid of him. It's just a pity that such a longstanding archive and community gets ruined. What a mess...

[esteven]

I hope fans who have stored their fics there will pull them out asap.

so glad my fandom is small... and less likely to attract attention of people like Mr Mander

[joyful_molly]

I hope so, too. Though it's not easy to leave a community you've been part of for so many years and lose all your comments etc. But what else could one do - as long as there is content, there's something he can exploit. >:(

so glad my fandom is small... and less likely to attract attention of people like Mr Mander

I wish, but... even a small fandom has very valuable assets: real users, content and, especially in a busy community or archive, many page hits. If you place ads there or promotions, you can guarantee your customers that they will be seen, which is not the case on those "ad farm" sites, which will eventually be weeded out by Google and where people know the content is not original. Keith Manders even says so in his interview that the surprise of getting an offer at all for a website is a good tool for him. Grrr.

[esteven]

Then I can only hope he will be unable to make money from that acquisition.

*grumbles*

A lot of us have stories on lj, some on their own sites, the 'archive' is on lj too, and mostly links to other lj journals.
*sighs*

Oh,that chocolate is delicious with fresh strawberries...

[joyful_molly]

About a million years ago, delaese and I had our fics hosted on a now defunct journalsite called Diary-X. It was great, easy to use, small, but dedicated community.

And then the harddrive of the server failed, the owner had never made any backups and boom! All our work gone! That's when I set up my own websites and I've never looked back (and I backup LJ whenever I can, crosspost etc.)

Yay! You still have some left? :-D Good! I only have strawberries, but they are very yummy as well. :)

[delaese]

Yeah I heard about this cockroach. I warned people over on DA. I have to do a post on my LJ too. Ah crap I'm just such a blithering idiot these days.