OTW mentioned on Zuckerman's blog and Boing Boing

[femmequixotic]

OTW has been mentioned on Ethan Zuckerman's blog.

By using the word "transformative" in the organization name, the organizers of the group are advocating a legal argument - writing fan fiction based on the characters and universes of copyright-protected media is a transformative use, protected by fair use clauses in US copyright law. In other words, this is an attempt to stand up and fight for this interpretation, rather than hiding from copyright holders, which is a huge step forward to this subculture....

OTW has taken a very interesting step in declaring that fan culture has a dominant gender. In their statement of values, they note, "We value our identity as a predominantly female community with a rich history of creativity and commentary." Here, again, it's important to understand the definition of "fan culture" - media fandom, fanfic and vidding, a culture that's predominantly female, though not exclusively so.

Zuckerman's blog post has also been noted on Boing Boing.

ETA: OTW has also been mentioned on Netribution, and on the blogs of Tobias Buckell and John Scalzi. (Thanks to droneish for the links to the last two.)

--femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

Comments

[llaras.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. I just spent over an hour reading all the *cough* discussion *cough*. Heh. Well.

Some of it made me angry and some of it made me sad, but all in all? I'm glad people are talking about it.

Maybe I'm just so completely invested in fandom, but the arguments against fanfiction are so weird to me. Have I been brainwashed? I guess I don't mind too much. I like hanging out with my friends and fandom has given me so many gifts.

[elf]

The arguments against fanfic have several roots:

1) Fanfiction is "just practice"--it's writing exercises by people who don't have the full set of literary skills to be pros. Therefore, like any rough draft, it shouldn't be public; the public has a right not to have eyesores inflicted on them.

This concept acknowledges fanfic as a literary process, but insists that its only legitimate purpose is as a learning exercise; anyone who wants to stick with it long-term (as a writer or reader) is showing a lack of taste that decent people need not support.

2) Fanfiction is "immoral"--writers made their creations; they get to decide how they are used. Arguments of this sort crash hard against modern re-tellings of Shakespeare and bible stories. A common followup is "writers who are still living get to decide...", as if the lack of a writer's direct voice changes the morality of the fanfic.

3) Fanfiction is "theft"--fanfic takes away money the author could be making. This argument has several variations, all of which collapse when faced with economic realities. There may be authors who've lost money because of fanfic, but that'd be hard to prove... while the number of books & tv shows with better sales numbers *and* incredibly high fanfic numbers is easy to prove.

----
Most of the anti-fanfic arguments seem to have a foundation in the idea that "copyright protection" is intended to allow authors' control over their works, rather than intended to foster creativity in society at large by way of allowing some autorial control.

But saying it that way squicks a lot of people. Even fans. It's hard to take a public stance for "Anyone can play with my ideas, even in ways I find deeply disturbing."

[llaras.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do understand where the arguments come from, but they seem so silly and narrow to me. I think I'm so far on the other side (fandom in general) now that I can't make sense of what they are saying.

I'll never forget when I first discovered fandom and fanfic. It was like a revelation. There were all these people out there who liked what I liked and took the time to discuss it and write about it and it just blew my mind. I jumped in with both feet and haven't looked back. I've made some wonderful friends and had some really happy times here, I wouldn't give it up for anything.