entitlement in fandom

And lo, there's controversy. Of a non-fun kind.

Here, bonibaru posts about the misappropriation of her vids in the Firefly fandom, in which vids are taken, without permission from the creators, burned to CD, and GIVEN TO THE ACTOR.

debchan suffered the same thing and talks about it here.

popfantastic had her vids TAKEN and REPOSTED ON ANOTHER DOMAIN, and discusses it here.

goss recently had a piece of art used without permission by another LJ user as an icon. After explaining politely that she hadn't given permission for that and that the person in question perhaps should have asked permission first to take the original out of common courtesey, much less alter it, the person in question made accusations that Goss was bitchy, selfish, and greedy for not wanting to 'share'.

celli, months ago, wrote a very intresting entry on reader demands in pairings.

jacquez recently remarked in an entry on feeling like a vending machine and removing her fic from ff.net due to readers who DEMANDED instant gratification.

TWoP has the vid thread under Firefly. You'll have to skip back a few days to get the vid-related details.

Anyone seeing a pattern here?

Right, LJ land has had the coverage on it, but you know, repeition can't hurt. And at this point, neither can flaming. Lots of it.
( fannish entitlement )

the great link directory, take two

Because I need The Cheering, The Interesting, and The Fun.

We Invented the Remix...Redux, created and hosted by musesfool, who rocks, btw. Lots of fandoms, some of the best authors on the net, and everything is up for grabs.

Oh damn, some good reading going on here. Yay!

And someone remixed my Every Second Wednesday. I'm going to sit here and contemplate the ooohness of it. Because, seriously, the creep in this one is ten times better than anything I could manage.

Whoa.

A welcome to tightropegirl, new and thoughtful denizen of LJland, with some fascinating posts regarding fanfic and original fic, serial numbers, and the art of writing. This journal is a must-read for all of us, be you fan-only, fan-and-pro, or just pro. She gives us perspective. And is also way cool. *g*

I'm easy to make happy here, kay?

keelywolfe links up to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Wow. That is--so cool. Thanks for posting that link!

And (thinking) I'll try and finish answering comments tonight, though I'm--cheered? relieved--by the number of people who are speaking out all over LJland, especially those who usually don't. Policing our own borders, public reaction to utter blatant malice, and well--I never thought I'd say this, but if hostile group social pressure is going to be what has to happen to keep people from acting out in ways destructive to fandom--count me in.

I've griped about pack mentality before and probably will again, but the group enforcement of simple rules by the community is something we can no longer treat as a luxury, and I can't put it in the same category. In our fandoms, with our actions, we not only should be examples of good fannish behavior, we should also require at least minimal standards of behavior from others and we SHOULD react when something like this happens. By silence we may not exactly encourage, but nor do we discourage.

From what I've read today in LJland, fandom in general, and the Firefly fandom in specific, is a great deal poorer by the loss of some of the greatest vidders on the net. These people entertained and fascinated many in that fandom and had the potential to entertain in many others. And we've lost that. We've also lost potentials, people who might have chosen to do it themselves, but seeing what's happened, may no longer want to. And they've lost security on the net, which is the most frightening thing of all.

Simple rule breakdown.

Artists on the web should be asked permission before the appropriation and/or alteration of any of their work. And if they say no? Don't do it. Wow, and here I thought this would be hard.

By artists, I define vidders, website creators and maintainers, archivists, graphic manipulators, meta-writers, authors, recappers, critiquers, list and board administrators, and feedbackers, and any and all creators/maintainers of fannish endeavors, should the terms above not cover the particular niche. Those who create and entertain us in any form should not be excluded from basic courtesy and protection. And if we don't want someone outside to do it for us, we'd better damn well do it ourselves.

We're not entitled to their work, we never have been, we never will be. And I don't think any of us want for this to happen again, *keep* happening, or we're right back to the password-protection, hidden lists, and hidden webpages of early fandom--or option two, we're going to have almost nothing at all.