otw_news | update

update

I want to say generally that this project is going to be a marathon, not a sprint -- we want to keep moving forward so enthusiasm doesn't flag, but we also don't want to rush or lock ourselves into an early hasty decision.

What's happening right now:

We have a layout thanks to _workinprogress! The mods are working on the userinfo and posting policy for this comm, and we have people working on collecting volunteers and suggestions and a general summary from the original giant discussion.
General discussion is still continuing on that original thread. Once the summary is posted, I will close down that post (just freezing rather than making all comments vanish -- no worries!) so the continuing discussion can move over to here.
I'm putting together a small working group of volunteers with professional experience in the legal/nonprofit/corporate setup world to help figure out the right kind of corporate structure to do this with. (If you have such experience and I haven't emailed you yet, please drop me a line! astolat at livejournal reaches me if you don't want to comment.
I'm starting to hit people up to do some research for us on various things like software tools that have been mentioned in the discussion.

As a rule, we'll want discussions here to stay open for a while before any action is taken. Stuff on lj tends to fade from sight pretty quickly, so I would really like to encourage subscribing to email notifications for posts on this group, and thumbtacking any posts dealing with areas you are interested in.

Please do chime in even if you are coming to a discussion late -- ideally we'll make it a habit to recruit someone to collect up a summary after discussion has died down. Also -- please use the subject line in lj comments if you think of it, so that if discussion gets large, it's easy to see the main point of a particular collapsed thread while skimming.

Addressing a few specific concerns:

On ownership/organization: I'm running with the ball and doing a bunch of stuff unilaterally right now to get this off the ground, but I want to make clear from the start that my goal is to set up an organization to run and own this project that is not under the control of/dependent on any one person, with both a strong decisionmaking process and accountability to the community.
On the financial side: Fiscal responsibility is critical. We will not start out with idealistic guarantees that just ask the whatever high atop the thing to smite us. *g* However, we will absolutely be not-for-profit, and will do our level best to make the donation model work. The issue will clearly be the long-term. We will have to do some research and learn as we go both how much money we will need, and how much we can consistently raise under a donation model.
On the legal side: we will absolutely be getting professional legal advice right from the start.

Also, we are going to have fun. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know this might seem completely stupid as a suggestion, and I know or at least guess that the most expertise *available* is going to be American, but whereas you have the First Amendment, you guys also have newly restricted speed all the time, what with the sort of war on porn and such, and the way The Paedophile has become the boogeyman these recent years. I was wondering, does it make sense to also, while you're exploring, explore the possibility of setting this up as an entity that is not a US entity? The EU has an equivalent (and imo just as scary) DMCA, but still, there are countries it could be interesting to set it in - more porn friendly countries like Germany or Netherlands - and there's Sweden and its interesting copyright laws, etc etc.

I understand this might make it harder at first, but I think it is very worth exploring. Fandom is international and polyglott, and this could prove a strength in more ways than the cultural way it's been all about the fun for now. Territoriality could play in our favor in a big way.

um. newly-restricted speech, is what I meant.

Unfortunately, while there is a possibility that incorporating elsewhere might prove to be better in a lawsuit down the road, the value of that possibility is vastly outweighed by the value of the substantial professional experience with US regulations/institutions we already have among the current volunteers, and the potential for obtaining US nonprofit tax-exempt status (which will be critical for fundraising and maintaining the donation model).

We absolutely should do internationalization work to open up the archive to non-English-language speakers, and as time goes on and we build up a larger body of volunteers, we may one day be able to either put together a sister organization or possibly move the archive itself in a country with more favorable regulations and legislation, but I think we would never choose to move somewhere unless we can put together a committee of volunteers who are already extensively familiar with the law in the new location.

What I meant was more along the lines of asking about it - at large. Because you might have experts at your fingertips for incorporation in other countries (yes, even with tax-exemption status), but if everybody starts by taking for granted that everything will be american of course, no one might even think of coming forward with their knowledge? I just thought it was worth mentioning in the very early stages, but if all assumptions are made already, oh well. I certainly don't have the expertise required in any country, anyway. Only 2cents-worthing and that.

Kind of OT, but I wonder where this misconception that Germany was "porn friendly" comes from. Actually I don't think Germany is more porn friendly, it is just that softcore porn isn't seen as pornography, like nobody makes a fuss about visible nipples or even genitalia, so you get quite a lot of nudity and sex, but that does not translate into tolerance for all kinds of porn, which is kind of crucial for some of the non-vanilla areas of fanfic. The laws on distributing *actual* pornography here are quite restrictive, e.g. photo ID verification for making porn available is taken seriously like afaik mere credit card possession isn't enough to count as age verification, and I'm not a lawyer but I think a number of hardcore porn tropes are plain illegal (like bestiality, rape, or violent fantasy stuff) and distribution of porn like that even to adults and even if it is not for profit can be punished with fines or up to a year in prison. Also regularly things get put onto restricted lists for various offensive content, porn and otherwise, like for a random recent example the German dark metal band Eisregen isn't allowed to sell or perform any songs from at least two of their albums to anyone, over 18 or not, because the authorities think their texts are "cruel", "inhuman", "encouraging brutality" and "sozialethisch desorientierend" (I have no idea how to translate that exactly "socio-ethical disorienting"?). I mean, I've never listened to the band, and their texts may well be gross (I think there's cannibalism and necrophilia) and I think the band is still trying to fight the criminalization of their texts so that they could at least sell these albums to adults again, but publishing objectionable content here has the potential to be quite problematic. Especially since "artistic merit" isn't automatically granted so that something would be protected under the freedom of art and given exception to the laws restricting things like depiction of violence.

I didn't mean to muddy waters or misrepresent - the whole of the EU anyway, like I said, is under the same DMCA equivalent that could potentially be a problem. But despite all of what you describe (France probably has the same kind of mechanisms, we're really good at restricting speech :/), our countries don't seem to be possessed of the same hysteria when it comes to sex - and this is what I meant, mostly, because cultural puritanism or lack of such makes a difference in perception and potential problems.

Just, again, thank you.

I too want to second the above comment and thank you, for starting the discussion, for being inspired, for leading the way... hell for taking time away from writing to do this!

I've 'push-pinned' the entry on archiving older/lost fic in the other thread and was wondering (from the tone in some of the later comments) if this would still be something this archive would be striving for - long term. I've been reading fic since 96. It's terrible to see fic that was once loved and lauded fall through the cracks.

I'd like to volunteer space and bandwidth for the project. I can email with specific information if you like.

Hey -- if you can drop a note with this on the original discussion there so we make sure to have you on the volunteer list, that would be great. We are not quite ready to start looking at server issues yet, but having you on tap would be wonderful, thanks!

Hi... just your friendly lurker here....

I'm just wondering, since as a fandom we generally refer to ourselves as a community, wouldn't it be along the right lines to set ourselves up as what people see as a community along the way? I understand how making an archive as fans for fans is a really awesome idea, but isn't that how fanfiction.net got started? I think a lot of the problems that people have with the site stem from the fact that the communities generally unspoken rules weren't expressed at the beginning of the site. aff.net has also got some problems there. newbees and lurkers, like myself, don't always get all the jargon that author use when summarizing their stories so they just start using what they guestimate equates, and then things go downhill from there.

My point is that since we call ourselves a community, why don't we have the kind of structure most people assume a community has. Like spokespeople, or representatives. Someone who can innitiate newbees and lurkers into the real inner workings of fandom and can stand up and speak as a solid, single voice for the community.

The reason I'm posting this here and not on the FanLib discussion sites is that I don't think it's enough to just make an archive. As politician as it sounds, I think we should look into volunteer/elected representatives for the fandom. Someone who can ask and answer questions for the fandom, like moderators but more involved in the entire community, and in particulat fandom domains. I didn't know anything about FanLib until today because the fic sites I normally stay in haven't had anything on it. If I had been an author instead of reader and if I had received an invitation, stupid me, I probably would have jumped at it for the "cool free stuff".

I know most people don't like the whole idea of being moderated, but maybe it's time we did something along those lines along with the all inclusive archive in order to keep others like FanLib from grabbing up the uninformed.

Just a thought.... sorry I took so much space. I don't normally post so I usually get everything in at once when I do.

Hi. I'd like to link this to one of the Yahoo ficlists I'm on, to try and get participation from beyond LJ, but some of those people may not have LJ's. Are anonymous comments allowed here, if people want to come and talk about the project?

Zellieh again. I decided it would be quicker if I just tested it myself by making an anonymous comment, since it's easy enough to find out. *g*

As you've discovered by posting anonymously, yes! Anonymous postings are allowed.

The FAQ (version 1.0) will be up in the next day or two, and we've already added information about anonymous posts. We'd prefer that people sign their posts in some fashion, but all constructive comments will be more than welcome.

Hi--speaking of being late...anyway, I'm a retired lawyer. Which means I can't charge you for legal work even if I wanted to, but I'm allowed to donate it.

dshilling@verizon.net

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

update

Legal structuring issue

Re: Legal structuring issue

Re: Legal structuring issue

Re: Legal structuring issue

Re: Legal structuring issue

Re: Legal structuring issue

Re: Legal structuring issue

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

A little off topic yet not really....

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject