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

[zellieh]

Thanks for posting this; I hadn't seen that article. Most of his facts are almost accurate, but his phrasing... *headdesk*

"Scholars have joined with pop-culture fans" - no, they haven't - the scholars *are* fans.

"FanLib upset its customers" - no, it upset its potential contributors, most of whom were far too sensible to become customers of Fanlib. (But yay for the bad press for them - again! Hee!)

"He and other pop-culture fans pushed back" - makes it sound as if Henry was leading the protest, instead of just following it. Gah.

Also, I have never mashed-up a character in my life. Makes it sound like I'm making baby food with them or something. *g*

[stewardess]

The author of the article clearly knows nothing about fannish works. I cracked up that he wrote so-called fan fiction. Gee, after a term has been in use for forty years, you'd think it could be used without the qualifier (especially as it consists of two real words, not something made up like fanfic).

[lennoxmacbeth]

Just a general comment/question here in response to the post and all of the responses thus far:

Could someone here edit the FanLib page at Fan History http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/FanLib for the benefit of those of us who have mild at best interest but still want to have some idea of what's going on? I've tried exploring FanLib to see what there would be a "flap" over and I don't get it. :/ I guess the thing that confuses me the most about OTW is the reasoning behind it; I've been satisfied with the options that are currently available for fans. :/

[stewardess]

The FanLib entry definitely needs to be expanded there. It's just a question of quoting from everything that we've linked to from here, or discussed here. A few of us have done timelines of events already. Still, it will be hours of work!

[stewardess]

Forgot to mention: the plan to create "an archive of one's own," or OTW, was mentioned before the strikethrough, so it is definite FanLib was the critical event.

[screwthedaisies]

Yeah. The otw_news LJ comm predates strikethrough. (I had to check the dates because I started wondering myself if it was only the Archive Of Our Own idea that predated it.)