If you kindle Worlds, will they burn up?
May. 23rd, 2013 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielSweet Eru, we've known about Kindle Worlds (I'm linking to Dawn's summary because it's critical but reasonable; I haven't read everything on the matter yet, and doubt I want to) for ONE DAY, and I'm already sick of the matter - to be precise, of the fannish reactions of the alarmist and rabble-rousing sort.
It has been mentioned that this might open an entire legal can of worms. I question the validity of that concern. People asking that question seem to have missed the point where Amazon acquired licenses from the authors or other copyright-holders. I repeat: They bought licenses. The authors agreed, for whatever reason, to make it legal for Amazon to publish other people's fanfiction of their works. They may not like the results of that agreement (but then, the Kindle Worlds rules and terms limit the field of what they might not like, so the only thorny matter that remains is that of quality and taste), but they've given it. Maybe they needed the money. Or they wanted to endear themselves to their fanbases. Or they're really just altruistic and think "Hey, isn't it awesome that people love our story so much that they spend time writing stories based on it? Let's reward that!" (Hey, a girl can dream.)
At any rate, unlike the silly dude who thought he could cash in on LotrFanFiction.net last year (two years ago? Whenever. Time flies!), I am pretty sure that Amazon is covering their bases as far as legal issues are concerned. No need to lose any sleep over that, I'd say. (And if you're worrying instead that Amazon might sue non-profit fanpages, I think the OTW is the right place to take your concerns to?) As Dawn says, since the original rights holders are on-board, the idea that the project will draw negative scrutiny to fandom in general is not a concern. So please, Don't Panic.
Dawn also mentions the question of "morality" that some fans have apparently raised, concerning "making money with fanfic". Dawn says Would that all artists with talent could make a living–or even part of a living–on their work. Word. Besides, making money with derivative works isn't new anyway. Series like Star Wars and Star Trek have sparked a shitload of bestselling (licensed) derivative novels. Scarlett or Rhett Butler's People are basically Gone with the Wind fanfiction - with a license. Jasper Fforde has made a lot of money with what is ultimately the crackiest crossover AU fanfic that ever cracked*, the Thursday Next series, without even asking the original rights holders (granted, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë et alia probably wouldn't have said much anyway). Speaking of Jane Austen, what about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?
In conclusion, if there be anything ammoral about making money with derivative fiction, you're coming a couple of decades - wait, no, centuries in fact - too late. It is already happening. Authors have been agreeing to this for years, unless they're dead and didn't even have a chance to say no. The only new idea seems to be that these licenses are no longer just given to established authors for a specific work, but to anyone willing to write canon-compliant, G- or PG- rated, straightforward fanfiction in the relevant fandoms.
Do the terms suck?
Sure. But then, you don't have to agree to them. You can continue to publish your fanfic on one of the many established (or even new) fanfic sites. You won't get any money for them, but then, that may not be your priority. Or you might (probably rightly) assume that nobody wants to make a movie out of your fanfic, anyway, so it doesn't matter whether you have the rights or Amazon has them... Finally, there's the old-fashioned and very rocky road of trying to obtain a license directly. (Depending on your fandom, that may be impossible or surprisingly easy?) Or you could file off the serial numbers so your fanfic passes as original -- see The Sword of Shannara or, more recently, 50 Shades of Grey to see how to do it. (I can't believe I just recommended people to look at 50 Shades of Grey. See what you made me do!)
What does that mean for me?
Virtually nothing, at the moment. I'm not in the fandoms for which Amazon has acquired licenses, nor likely to be. This is, of course, pure speculation on my part, but I suspect that Christopher Tolkien won't sell Amazon or any platform such a license. (If he did, I'd actually be delighted - whether or not I'd ever make use of it.) Other popular authors might be smart enough to realise that they don't need a middleman, and might instead create licensed platforms where authors can upload pay-per-click fanfic for their works, with or without an editorial/censorship board. (That's what I'd see J.K.Rowling doing - again, purely speculatively.)
Meanwhile, for AU, crack, crossover, adult het, slash, BDSM or other "difficult" genres, as well as for fanfic authors who don't want to sell
And who knows, Dawn might be right (yet again ;)): Maybe fanfic will become more widely accepted/acceptable with this new development.
Or then, it might not.
At any rate, I'm pretty unworried - but sort of frustrated by the kneejerk reactions I've been reading all of yesterday and some of today. (If you feel the same, I'm sorry to have added to your frustration.)
I'm not deactivating comments on this, so you can tell me your opinion on this matter; but I may not respond. That won't mean that I'm ignoring you, or that I'm not taking your (possibly deviating ;)) opinion seriously, or whatever -- it just means that I'm already tired of the discussion, so while I felt the need to state that here, I just can't be bothered to take it any further.
You may now go on with your lives. ;)
- - -
*Which sort of makes it hysterically absurd that he initially was opposed to people writing fanfic. DUDE. DUDE!
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Date: 2013-05-23 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 11:16 am (UTC)I cannot express emphatically enough how much I agree with you.
(Also, did you get my mail? *pleading look*)
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Date: 2013-05-23 11:35 am (UTC)So my reaction was: meh...? I think
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Date: 2013-05-23 12:03 pm (UTC)I do agree, though, that it likely won't change anything in any major way.
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Date: 2013-05-23 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 12:24 pm (UTC)IDK about GRRM's stance on fanfic but he can't be that strict because he licensed a whole roleplaygame system in his world.
With overestimation I mean that fandom tends to think people outside of fandom/internet give a toss. Most everyday people don't even know the word "fanfiction". Shades of Grey became popular because of the sex, not because it's a fanfic. Go ask the housewives that buy the book in the Hürth Thalia branch about fanfiction. You'll only get puzzled looks.
The great majority of people doesn't give a damn about fanfic and so this will have no big consequences out there. One or two fanfic authors of the myriads that are out there might get lucky, Amazon might get a little bit of pocket money. And that's all. Everything else stays just as it was.
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Date: 2013-05-23 12:25 pm (UTC)Maybe fanfic will become more widely accepted/acceptable with this new development. Yes! That was my initial idea (and hope) as well. To be quite honest I'm still boggling that there still are people who insist that fanfic is immoral (though this may give more ammunition to the "you can't write fic unless it's licensed" position).
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Date: 2013-05-23 12:50 pm (UTC)That would have been hard, too, as it originally was Twilight fanfic, until the publishing world (TM) came upon it and decided that money could be made with it. Only then were the serial numbers filed off and the whole thing published. Or that's the story I've heard.
(Stephenie Meyer, btw, is among the authors who encourage fanfiction; and I would assume that the BDSM and sex bother her a lot more than the "intellectual theft"...)
Thing is, saying OMG NO I WANT NO FANFICTION AT ALL doesn't stop that kind of thing. Because either way, people can still write fanfiction and then change it just enough to pass a basic plagiarism check if they want to publish it a) for free if the author hates even non-commercial fanfic, b) for money with any author. As most fanfiction doesn't simply retell the original (for a given value of...) story, but takes some detail, scene or event and expands on it, this is not actually hard once you've changed the names. I haven't read Shades of Grey so I cannot say how much of the original Twilight plot is in there, but from what I've gathered, it seems to be very little. But maybe you know more?
GRRM's stance on fanfic is pretty strict (http://grrm.livejournal.com/151914.html). The fact that he licensed something (and erm, an RPG system isn't quite the same thing as a book?) doesn't mean that he encourages unlicensed fanfic. Even if he licensed a whole series of spin-off books on, I don't know, the Tully sisters' childhood adventures?, that wouldn't mean his stance on fanfic were any less strict. George Lucas has licensed the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe, but don't even dream about selling an unlicensed Star Wars story...
Yes, I got that. I don't get what it has to do with the discussion at hand, though, which is explicitly about Amazon realising that fanfic may be a market worth cashing in on? It is completely irrelevant whether the people who buy 50 Shades of Grey (or Scarlett, or Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, for that matter) are aware that they're basically buying fanfiction (I agree that they likely won't be). With this move, Amazon is actively "hiring" fanfic writers to write fanfic. Everything else is just word bubbles.
I think it's the fanfic authors who'll get the pocket money, and Amazon who gets lucky. Which is ok, as long as everyone involved is consenting! And yes, everything else will go on as usual - that was basically my point, no?
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Date: 2013-05-23 12:51 pm (UTC)(Da war noch was... *schäm* Hab geantwortet!)
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Date: 2013-05-23 12:57 pm (UTC)I agree that this scenario is a lot less likely than rejection, though. ^^
Well, that position exists and is popular anyway. So I really can't be bothered to worry about more or less ammunition!
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Date: 2013-05-23 01:13 pm (UTC)Yes - but I'm sure she never said "Yes, go ahead and make cashloads of money with one of them!" And preventing Twilight fanfic would then indeed have prevented SoG in it's current form.
Of course they might have found something different then as simply forbidding fanfic can't prevent everything in that stance, just like you said, but now that SoG has been so sucessful I'm pretty sure that there are suddenly more people who think "well, I can do that, too!". (See the sudden X and [monsters] rush after "Pride and Prejudice with Zombies"). And this is where Amazon tries to get its share.
and erm, an RPG system isn't quite the same thing as a book?)
Now, really. I did not know that at all :P
As I said, I didn't know (not care) about GRRM's stance on fanfic, my point is, a lot of authors don't allow it because they don't want their characters to be used in any other way than theirs (which is the stance of Anne Rice). And that's clearly not GRRMs problem. He just wants to control in which way it happens. And again, why shouldn't he. I don't understand why people are so appalled by authors not wanting this.
...I never said anything against your point?
I'm agreeing to you that the kneejerk reactions are overblown. I just have slightly different reasons to think so so. There is a market to cash in and Amazon found it but it is still a relatively small and in the great scope of things unimportant market and therefore neither The World Of Fanfic As We Know It will end, nor will suddenly fanfic authors finally rise to the fame by the dozen. In conclusion: Meh!
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Date: 2013-05-23 01:53 pm (UTC)Or 50 Shades of Grey might exist nonetheless, just without the author ever acknowledging that the protagonists were ever called Bella and Edward in the first place. Again, I'm not certain how much copyrighted content is in there, aside from the fact that the characters were originally based on Twilight. They key is that someone with a say in "proper" publishing read the manuscript and decided that it just might be a gold mine. Where they read the manuscript - fanfic archive or old-fashioned "for your consideration" letter - is ultimately irrelevant.
I don't understand why people are so appalled by authors not wanting this.
I for my part am not appalled, but shall we say, unimpressed, for two reasons:
a) These authors do not seem to realise that people using their characters (not for profit) is a high form of praise, as in "I love your work so much that I invest time, emotions and effort in making it live on". Pretending that all fanficcers are just out to a)infringe on their copyright, b) abuse their precious brainchildren and c) waste their time... I dunno, to me that's like telling someone who spent a lot of time, thought and effort on crafting a birthday gift for you that you have neither space nor use for that sort of crap.
b) These authors do not seem to realise that it is going to happen anyway, because you cannot ultimately control the entire internet, and if you could, people would probably just drop offline as in the good old days of Star Trek fanzines. Raging against it just makes them look graceless and may (should!) alienate their fanbase (i.e. the people who also happen to buy more books, movie tickets and DVDs than most "casual" readers).
I fully understand and support authors who say "Please don't tell me about it, I don't want to know". But I don't get or support the "All Fanfiction Is Wrong" attitude. *shrugs*
In the case of Jasper Fforde, though, I was appalled before he changed his mind, for the simple reason that I found his attitude hypocritical. You can't well write a hugely succesful series by mashing various (albeit dead) authors' works and characters together in a reasonably new setting but also quoting other authors' settings, and then get on a pulpit and say "it seems strange to want to copy or 'augment' someone else's work when you could expend just as much energy and have a lot more fun making up your own." (http://www.jasperfforde.com/faq.html#u)... the irony!
Oh well. We can agree on "Meh!", at least.
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Date: 2013-05-23 02:07 pm (UTC)Well, as one of my teachers said: some praise you just don't want. There is so many cringeworthy shit out of there that I absolutely understand when any author says: I don't want such things out there happening with my characters. Not every author who is against fanfic thinks that people infringe copyright or that such a thing is a timewaste. The reasons are varied and TBH, most of them I understand.
b) The fact that you can't really prevent something you don't want, should not be a reason to not at least speak out against it or take precautions. Or you could just remove all your doors because at some point someone will break in anyway (and before people get out their battle axes no, I don't think FF is theft, I just could not think of a better example right now). I also do not see rage in all authors reactions - Anne Rice was pretty ridiculous of course but GRRM and Diana Gabbaldon's reactions read quite well thought out and calm to me and they even allowed (civil) discussions about the topic. GRRM's main argument is "once you open that door, you can't control who might come in" way and I think it's sensible.
With Jasper Fforde I'm absolutely of your opinion. That was a shot in the kneecap if I have ever seen one!
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Date: 2013-05-23 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 03:39 pm (UTC)I am just wildly curious how many people will sign up with their fandom name or cast aside that name and sign up for that deal with their real name. Because don't forget, writing under a fandom name means that you can write about darker and deeper desires without having your boss/spouse/family to know.
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Date: 2013-05-23 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 04:49 pm (UTC)But... back to nom-de-plume used: there is a good reason why you use it and I do wonder how many will cast it aside to be 'published'. I also know some authors who I adore who use a different nom-de-plume besides their usual name for their dark fics.
But maybe if they sign up under such rotten terms, maybe they don't have much sense to begin with? *ducks*
Based on my mod experience... folks hardly read terms of service, or contracts online. Many have the mentality of clickety click, this looks cool, just give me access. But smart writers, I expect they won't sign up, and I know many many smart cookies with talent in our fandom. :)
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Date: 2013-05-23 06:19 pm (UTC)First, the disclaimer: none of this will affect me in any kind of significant manner.
I am less sanguine about the legalities issue around copyright and remain unconvinced that Amazon's is watertight. Having witnessed some really bloody battles in patent space, both near and far, I never underestimate the tiny pebbles determined litagators can overturn to reveal all sorts of wriggling nastiness.
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Date: 2013-05-23 09:39 pm (UTC)I do want to say that I understand fans feeling hand-shy about for-profit fandom, since every instance to this date has been skeevy and turned out Not Well for us (although, in the long run, we've booted them out of the picture like the epic heroes that we are! ;) However, it was terribly, terribly obvious yesterday that people either hadn't read* the press release and preliminary guidelines, or they had done so while latching on only to the words they wanted to see/hear.
* Which I can believe. When, one B2MeM, I was asked with a straight face what playing bingo had to do with a fanfic project, I lost all hope that people read guidelines before reacting to them.
The "legal concerns" having been thoroughly debunked, now the trope is that authorized fanfic will result in C&D letters to authors and archives of the unauthorized stuff. I'm actually thinking of writing another post to debunk that one.
The other trope is the rights issue, which you bring up here.
I suppose my feeling always comes down to: there are plenty of awful things going on in any corner of the world at any given time--including fandom, including probably Kindle Worlds--so why invent more out of ignorance or simply to stir the pot? If there are concerns with Kindle Worlds--like the rights issues that many besides me have addressed--then bring them forward, but I don't get the desire to clutter that discussion with so much white noise.
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Date: 2013-05-23 09:54 pm (UTC)If your story turns out to be the most popular thing I ever publish, and I want to try to make a short film out of it, those rights are not included; I have to renegotiate with you and you have to sign another contract, and most importantly, I have to pay you again.
All rights negates all of that. It is exactly what it says. If you write the most popular (I just typed poopular! I wouldn't be proud of that! XD) novel on KW, and the rights holder decides they want to make a film or a new show episode out of your ideas, they don't owe you anything.
However, this is apparently the arrangement for many authorized tie-ins, so while it's not necessarily the big scary "Amazon trying to take take take from the innocent writers!" scenario some people are making it out to be, it also needs to be made very clear, imho, exactly what they are purchasing and what they can do with your work.
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Date: 2013-05-23 09:57 pm (UTC)I have had the 'pleasure' of reading bits and pieces of Masters of the Universe, and I would say it barely qualifies as a Twilight fanfic. It used the names and faces of Meyers' characters for inspiration, plus a few of their personal details (Seattle businessman Edward is a vampire in addition to being a Dom, young employee Bella drives a truck . . .) but it diverges so much that one would have to call it AU. Basically it was just an excuse for a BDSM fantasy which gains little from the Twilight tie-in and loses little with the Twilight elements removed.
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Date: 2013-05-23 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 10:37 pm (UTC)