FanLib reason for creation of OTW?

[stewardess]

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Scholars have joined with pop-culture fans to form the Organization for Transformative Works, which will fight for the legal right to produce creative works that mash-up characters from a range of media.

Mr. Jenkins cited a situation this past summer in which a company called FanLib upset its customers by

Comments

[1trackmind]

Why did the male reporter only get quotes from a guy who isn't part of the predominantly female OTW?

Because he's one of the very few recognized academic authorities on the subject.

[stewardess]

Recognized because he's a guy. Any member of the OTW's (female) board is far more qualified to speak on the subject than he is (but I know the reporter is following the "get an outside quote" directive, so beloved of journalism teachers).

[kerravongenius]

Whereas you are dismissing him because he's a guy. Sexism goes both ways and we can't criticise it if we're guilty of it.

OTW has already lost the support of many fans, male and female, for the way it seeks to use us as pawns in its game of gender politics. Judging the value of someone's opinions on whether or not they have a penis is exactly the kind of attitude feminists complain about. This hypocrisy will do to OTW what greed did to Fanlib. At this point, I honestly think Fanlib may be the less harmful of the two.

[stewardess]

I am not dismissing him. I'm pointing out the male reporter sought out Jenkins as a recognized authority instead of the just-as-accredited (and more fandom experienced) female members of the OTW board. It's the reporter I'm criticizing, not Jenkins.

I recommend the entries in this community tagged fanlib: sexism. It may add to your perspective.

If you check the tag, you'll find Jenkins recently hosted a series titled "Gender and Fan Studies." I've seen estimates putting the percentage of fanfiction writers who are female as high as 95%. A poll at FanLib showed over 90% of their members are women. Jenkins recognizes the world of fanfiction cannot transcend gender; it must address it.

Fanfiction issues are necessarily women's issues, just as the poor pay and terrible treatment of nurses in 1860 were women's issues -- there were no male nurses.

If OTW ignored that the majority of fanfiction writers are women, they would be unable to defend and advance our interests.

This hypocrisy will do to OTW what greed did to Fanlib. At this

[nialla42]

As Jenkins states, FanLib was just one of a series of conflicts this past year, with another one being the LJ Strikethrough. I actually think Strikethrough was a bigger issue, since it dealt with fan-made materials being deleted without warning.

The reason Jenkins is quoted is because he's the "go to academic" for fandom related articles. He's co-director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies program and has written many books and articles on pop culture (of which fanfic is one part). The article is in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" so it makes sense they'd want a recognizable academic's name, and they'd also had recent contact with him, profiling him this past summer.

[tejas]

The Fanlib debacle got us all up in arms and started the initial discussions, I believe. The strikethrough just poured gasoline on the fire with the result being OTW.

[nialla42]

FanLib was a case of "Wait, you're going to make money off my fanfic? You can't do that! We've always been told we can't do that!" Add into that it was a mostly male company trying to capitalize on a mostly female hobby.

Then Strikethrough came along and poured lots and lots and lots of gasoline on the resulting fire. ;)

[tejas]

Oh. Yeah. Fire season in the real world had nothin' on the flames online.

[elliemurasaki]

Tried to see article. Got page that says nothing but "Database unavailable." Gripe.

[stewardess]

I've tried it a bunch of times, and it's working. But then my browser has cached it...

[elliemurasaki]

Works fine now. Huh.

[anarchicq]

...Ok, I am a moron, what exactly is OTW?

[stewardess]

I added a link to them in the post.

[megselv]

I may be wrong, but my impression is the process started because some people felt bad seeing fanfic disappearing, and the archive would save stuff that would otherwise be lost? Then fanlib and stirkethrough came along and created the atmosphere where fandom wanted to participate, and it grew from there.
A few months earlier I'm not sure most people would have seen a massive all-fandom archive as a good idea - I'm curious to see if /how it will work.

[stewardess]

Good question. I think most of us were just coasting. We knew livejournal was not ideal as an archive (it's a blogging service, so the structure is all wrong), but we had no pressing reason to do anything about it.