okay, question about the paid fanfic thing with amazon

Okay, this is because a.) exhaustion and b.) lack of sleep, so paranoia is probably rampant at the moment.

Amazon Worlds, earlier post about it here.

Again, my defense is paranoia:

I figured out what was bothering me as a writer about this.

Okay, assuming this takes off and paid fanfiction is a thing; would that be grounds to start C&Ding free fanfiction on the net? The thing is, right now, the original media is not in competition with free fanfic, and they also aren't losing money because there is no paid equivalent. However, with the advent of paid fanfiction--that they get money from as well--free fanfiction would be considered competition.

Anyone legal or economic or philosophically inclined have any kind of odds on it becoming worth the effort to C&D free fanfiction since it would actually be direction competition and because money theoretically is being lost for every fic that is downloaded for free from AO3?

The thing is, while the original media doesn't make money off this, neither do fanfic writers. Now they have a way to make money off fanfic, will AO3 be the textual equivalent of Pirate's Bay in the future?

Yes, paranoia. It's been a hell of a week.

Comments

[ithiliana]

I think that is something people are raising--it's not paranoia if they're after you!

Tobias Buckell had a good post on how he sees it aimed more at media tie-in writers --i.e. it's not really about fanfic.

I'm assembling links of all the stuff I can find in an entry.

May I link to your post?

[seperis]

Link - of course! Consider this blanket permission on anything I post.

Tobias - I need to go read it and get a better feel for it. What worries me now that I'm thinking about it is--in general, fanfic has a bad rep as shitty and therefor I think most media would approach it with very low expectations. In general, but in specific, we both know fics that are in the top ten percent of the written word. At 99 cents to 3.99 a pop, I wouldn't have any problem paying my favorite fanfic writer for a great story. And this time be able to rec it at work to my coworkers and friends that it's on amazon. How many fanfic writers are like me and would be willing to do that? The restrictions right now on amazon aren't actually that restrictive, and you know, I could see them being overlooked for the purposes of money if a fic was that popular with the non-regular audience.

Or better example; what if someone in media looking to the future has a blockbusters a la Avengers and opens it to paid fanfic?

[leonie_alastair]

This to me is the big problem with Amazon Worlds. As an avid reader with a limited budget for purchasing books, I'm almost always going to default to free stories before paid stories - unless I can't get free stories. So if Amazon wants my dollar they're going to have to cut off the supply of free stories. And unlike the individual authors (who don't have the money) or the major studios (who have an investment in keeping the fans mostly happy), Amazon has no stake in fandom. So yeah, once they monetize it, I'd bet they'll finance a C&D campaign against free fic in their 'worlds.'

[seperis]

That's what I'm really worried about.

[lilacsigil]

There's already paid fanfiction in the form of tie-in novels, a good chunk of which are written by people who and (unless you're L** G*ldberg) the two don't cause friction. I wonder if they're going to go after people who write both, requiring that if you're getting paid for it, that's all you post (under a googleable identity). But I can't really see the point of them doing that - Marvel, for example, doesn't crack down on fan art. Indeed, they use it for talent searches.

[glittertine]

That was my first thought, actually, eclispsing all else. heidi assures me that from a legal pov, the argument that fanfic is transformative has not been diminished and will still mean we can boldly fic whatever we want.

I'm still worried. But also grateful that AO3 Legal will probably fight this one for us, should it come up.

[parhelion]

Huh. *Looks worried* I came out of the traditional book industry and learned back there that being paranoid about Amazon is really not being all that paranoid.

I wonder if I should be out beating the fandom drums for the free EduX class at Harvard Law I just finished in copyright? It was very useful for the layperson in learning how to deal with these sorts of questions, and they're planning on offering it again this coming spring.

[akacat]

I've been waiting for OTW to speak up on this. They have, and with their sensors set to "paranoid"*:

http://transformativeworks.org/news/what-fans-should-know-about-amazons-kindle-worlds-program

* That's not a dig; I think it's best to assume amazon is up to something until proven otherwise.