ext_27009 (
libgirl.livejournal.com) wrote in
otw_news2007-05-31 11:17 pm
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A Question....
Has there been any consideration about age restrictions at the suggested archive?
As a long-time, multi-fandom participant and talking with another one this week over the issue at LJ and with fanlib, two things came up:
1. As long as we're paying someone else to host our things, they can decide not to host specific things. Also, people will attempt to make a profit off of us in any way possible. The best solution is to host our own site with a dedicated server than can house us all.
2. We were talking and we both agreed that if there was a multi-fandom fanfiction hub, we wouldn't want it to be along the lines of ff.net. Everyone I know cringes when a news source goes to ff.net to talk about the "fandom phenomenon". That said, admitting fic.'s based on quality is tricky and subjective. If we create something, for ourselves, then I hope that we would both cover ourselves legally and present ourselves professionally. There is a legal issue involving minors and NC-17 material than can only really be remedied by not allowing minors. The easiest solution seems to be creating a panfandom archive for underage readers either in association with or as part of the larger archive, requiring a age statement to sign up and logged-in-only access to adult material. Also, if there are no underage readers allowed, then there is less likelihood of creating another ff.net.
I know that this will probably not be a popular opinion. I know that many people in fandom, particularly on LJ are underage and "passing" or "socking" in order to read adult material. I'm not saying that some underage readers cannot handle adult material or aren't already participating in adult activities; however, from a legal standpoint, it seems more responsible to take precautions.
Additionally, in light of the recent LJ events, it's obvious that much of what gets archives, websites, journals and fic.'s shut down is a perceived danger to the "childrenz". If this is a site by adults, for adults it's less likely to come under that sort of negative fire. After all, we're going to have to deal with the legal ramifications of intellectual property and copyright laws already.
I'm truly not trying to rock the boat or ignore the many and important contributions of underage fans to fandom. I'm just trying to ascertain how the issues of liability will be dealt with.
As a long-time, multi-fandom participant and talking with another one this week over the issue at LJ and with fanlib, two things came up:
1. As long as we're paying someone else to host our things, they can decide not to host specific things. Also, people will attempt to make a profit off of us in any way possible. The best solution is to host our own site with a dedicated server than can house us all.
2. We were talking and we both agreed that if there was a multi-fandom fanfiction hub, we wouldn't want it to be along the lines of ff.net. Everyone I know cringes when a news source goes to ff.net to talk about the "fandom phenomenon". That said, admitting fic.'s based on quality is tricky and subjective. If we create something, for ourselves, then I hope that we would both cover ourselves legally and present ourselves professionally. There is a legal issue involving minors and NC-17 material than can only really be remedied by not allowing minors. The easiest solution seems to be creating a panfandom archive for underage readers either in association with or as part of the larger archive, requiring a age statement to sign up and logged-in-only access to adult material. Also, if there are no underage readers allowed, then there is less likelihood of creating another ff.net.
I know that this will probably not be a popular opinion. I know that many people in fandom, particularly on LJ are underage and "passing" or "socking" in order to read adult material. I'm not saying that some underage readers cannot handle adult material or aren't already participating in adult activities; however, from a legal standpoint, it seems more responsible to take precautions.
Additionally, in light of the recent LJ events, it's obvious that much of what gets archives, websites, journals and fic.'s shut down is a perceived danger to the "childrenz". If this is a site by adults, for adults it's less likely to come under that sort of negative fire. After all, we're going to have to deal with the legal ramifications of intellectual property and copyright laws already.
I'm truly not trying to rock the boat or ignore the many and important contributions of underage fans to fandom. I'm just trying to ascertain how the issues of liability will be dealt with.
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Which is kind of tragic considering that, barring requiring a credit card number to join an archive/site/whatever, websites are actually completely unable to truly restrict content. Anyone can lie in a profile, administrators don't know. Parents are the ones who have to check. (Of course you need smart parents... my father checked my history one time. I started clearing the cache after that.) I mean, smart parents just should not rely on that.
I do think that a group of "concerned parentz" could hit an archive based on the "providing pornography to minors" principle.
Yeah. That's a concern. I mean, IANAL so I don't know much about the technical defintions of pornography - I know that academically the difference between pornography and erotic fiction is generally about to what extent the work is demeaning. Unfortunately that's a degree of sensitivity I don't think anyone really applies in these situations. So.
I'm really not truly to be a big bad bully, I'm just trying to see what the consensus is and what we're considering.
Yeah, I got that from your post :) don't worry. It's a valid concern.
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I agree. It seems to me that responsible web parenting is very different from responsible RL parenting and some people that are good at the latter are not good at the former. I don't know the solution for them is, but the common response seems to be to shift the blame onto the site itself. (And sadly IP's seem to react by shutting down the site--which none of us want.)
I mean, IANAL so I don't know much about the technical defintions of pornography - I know that academically the difference between pornography and erotic fiction is generally about to what extent the work is demeaning. Unfortunately that's a degree of sensitivity I don't think anyone really applies in these situations.
I agree with you here for the most part. I don't know what standards would/could be used, but I think it would be best not to have to find out. :/
Yeah, I got that from your post :) don't worry. It's a valid concern.
Thanks.
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Yeah. I mean there's an extent to which, no matter personal feelings on the matter, protection from being shut down by Higher Powers is kind of vital.
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(Anonymous) 2007-06-13 01:23 am (UTC)(link)no subject
Very bad idea, since in most of the world (except the US) the majority of people don't even use credit cards! That is, here in Europe they don't - only businessmen usually have them.
That's one of those things that keeps annoying me - I can hardly buy anything online because everything's based on the credit card system, which is normal for Americans, but weird and uncomfortable for us here.
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I'm kind of worried about how I'm going to support the Archive, because I doubt they'll let me send the money cash.
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Probably because identify theft is rampant and people are hesitant to share important personal documents--even copies--that casually.
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But frankly, I think it's offputting to require credit cards for verification; it's primarily done by sleazy porn sites, which is probably not a good association to have. And I, for one, wouldn't use any site that wanted my credit card # for "verification," and I suspect I'm not alone.
Using debit/check cards would be worse.
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Exactly what I was going to say.
But frankly, I think it's offputting to require credit cards for verification; it's primarily done by sleazy porn sites, which is probably not a good association to have. And I, for one, wouldn't use any site that wanted my credit card # for "verification," and I suspect I'm not alone
Ditto there too.