Fan Fiction Writers Balk at FanLib.com 178
bill jackson writes "A couple of former Yahoo execs are trying to create the next MySpace by aggregating fanfiction on a website called FanLib. But the fanfic writers recognized that exploitation was written all over the idea and they've refused to participate. 'Instead of creating the Myspace of fanfic since the launch two weeks ago, FanLib.com sparked a white-hot Internet firestorm.The meltdown is a hard lesson in how not to conduct business on the Internet.But it's a firestorm of FanLib's own making because, in spite of the Yahoo pedigree (or maybe because of it), they plowed in like china shop bulls.'"
Oh fuck (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh fuck (Score:5, Funny)
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Why did you have to get my hopes up?
Before you flame me, be honest, who here wouldn't even PAY to see some execs being maimed and mauled?
Re:Oh fuck (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.my2centences.com/my2c_new/FanLib_info.
That is what we fanfic writers are upset about. The PDF is evidence and proof of their corporate ulterior motives and the first link explains a lot of this better than the given link and the connection between my2centences and fanlib.
Re:Oh fuck (Score:5, Informative)
Trust me, stories written collaboratively by a bunch of novices are *not* getting on the air, anywhere. A story written by one novice is bad enough. Many different novices? Don't be silly.
This concept is really a bit of daydream fantasy on the part of Kites Are Evil and other commenters that belies a complete misunderstanding of the publishing and screenwriting industries. These are ridiculously demand-driven industries. Supply is way, way, way too common. The vast majority of writers -- *good*, *established* writers -- make very little. Some book that you like, if it's not written by one of the "really big names", probably is written by an author who has second job that pays part of the bills. To find new writers, agents go through literally *thousands* of queries before they pick up a client, and even then, there's no guarantee that the agent will be able to sell the work.
Nobody wants to publish garbage. Sadly, they have to turn down a darned lot of stuff that isn't garbage at all, simply because there's too much supply.
When a famous/popular writer is overloaded, or wants to go on to other work, indeed, other writers will fill in for them. However, these are generally established writers. Oftentimes, they're written on contract. The publisher *approached them* with the idea.
The whole notion that publishers want a bunch of garbage written by amateurs -- even worse, by a bunch of amateurs working together -- when the market is already flooded, and there are plenty of writers who would gladly sell out for extra cash... it's just silly.
Anyways, keep writing your fanfic.
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And yet, with all of what you state being true, the publishers still manage to only produce garbage. Well, OK, giving them the benefit of the doubt, judging by the last 10 fiction novels I've picked up as "New York Times' Best Sellers" at the airport, only 90% of what they are producing is utterly and completely irredeemable garbage.
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If you define garbage as "what doesn't sell", no.
Publishers stay in business by spotting a sales winner a mile away. That's not to say that the process is perfectly fair. For example, a house will often try to create an artificial blockbuster -- they decide what novel in a certain genre they feel has the best broad appeal, they bid it up (so the author gets a big advance), then promote the heck out of it. Meanwhile, another author with a great book tha
"Should Star Trek be more about Ghosts?" (Score:2)
The whole notion that publishers want a bunch of garbage written by amateurs -- even worse, by a bunch of amateurs working together -- when the market is already flooded, and there are plenty of writers who would gladly sell out for extra cash... it's just silly.
Yeah, that's what they want you to believe. Just because they wouldn't be smart enough by themselves to come up with ideas like "Should Star Trek be more about Ghosts?"
In a million years, they'd never come up with ideas like this for the franchise (source here [slashdot.org] and here [thedvdforums.com]):
Starfleet Command is haunted by the wraith of a ship designer who is about to die but has projected his soul into the ship to make starships alive - Starfleet loves the new ships and the designer has to kill murderers and psycopaths to put their souls into battleships so he goes around murdering new people.
Brilliant!
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And if they write with grammar like that, they'll never make it past the query stage
There are many things that can get you culled. Having an unoriginal plot is but one. Poor dialogue, poor descriptio
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Really, though, most people never move beyond "novice".
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* Yes, it is as bad as it sounds and that's on purpose; I like trash. That and it was about damn time someone introduced a character called "Sailor Tuxedo Marsk".
LJ (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:LJ (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know why slashdot hasn't picked it up. This place is so slow. Digg and Reddit already have stories about it which are getting voted up and should be on the front page by this evening
Re:LJ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Though slashdot is well known for breaking sites that happen to have breaking news.
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We won't have it first, but we'll re-post this 'news' more times than anybody! Let's see Digg beat that!
Re:LinuxJournal? (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:LJ (Score:5, Interesting)
And not just fanfic communities, I've seen adult/fetish communities also suspended, and support sites for survivors of abuse may be at risk (since they list keywords such as "incest" or "rape"...).
LiveJournal has yet to make a statement, but I find the quote from Six Apart's CEO given in the article rather worrying:
"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not."
Righto, so Six Apart are saying it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal, they're going to start banning journals based on what they think is "appropriate".
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"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not."
Righto, so Six Apart are saying it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal, they're going to start banning journals based on what they think is "appropriate".
No, they aren't saying "it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal". They're saying the decision was not based on legal issues, i.e., it wasn't just because they were afraid of being legally sued. In fact, they can legally ban journals based on what content they deem is "appropriate", as long as such a ban doesn't violate their stated Terms of Service.
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again, its worse you think this company is arbitrarily controling what people write. just because the NYtimes rejects a story doesn't mean you have become limited as a writer. It simply means you have a single place where you can publish your work saying they do not feel confortable with it.
maybe live journal doesn't want certain difficult topics on its site. I don't agree that its the righ
This is why I don't have a journal... (Score:5, Insightful)
Invariably, when a site gets popular, it attracts the attention of people who would like to ruin your shit. Things like this happen.
Don't rely on third parties if you have speech you want to protect.
Bad fanfiction (Score:2, Funny)
It never ends.
It was a dark and stormy afternoon (Score:5, Funny)
I hope they write their fanfic... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:I hope they write their fanfic... (meaning) (Score:3, Funny)
Why, Furries, of course. That plus Naruto.
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According to my fiance, it's for hosting semi-obscene Duran Duran [duranduranfans.com] fanfic.
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Its damn shame... maybe Ill google around to see if any of the good stuff is still around.
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I still have it printed out somewhere. Nebula of the Living Dead (name?) was really good too!
You can still find Cavalier (packed in an ancient
Another favorite of mine was the one where Picard and Crusher's daughter (ok, that one was a bit of a stretch) commanded a later Enterprise. And Moriarty became the computer! (It was written before they resolved the Moriarty storyline on the show.
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If that 95% of crapola is slash fiction, I'd rather not wade through it if it's all the same to you. One of the advantages of the original alt.startrek.creative archive was that they didn't bother archiving any of the slash and adult-themed garbage.
Re:I hope they write their fanfic... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I hope they write their fanfic... (Score:4, Interesting)
I had no idea that most of that stuff was by women (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I had no idea that most of that stuff was by wo (Score:2)
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That's why I thought it was written by males. It turns out people who write fanfic can't write for shit, either.
They tried to herd cats (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect an awful lot of the negative reaction comes from three factors:
1. Membership in the site would certainly have a "We own your postings." clause in the Terms of Service.
2. *And* a "We reserve the right to censor anything you post we don't like." clause.
and the cherry on top:
3. An unwritten consequence of (1) would be: "If it's really good, we'll use it to make money. Thanks suckers." clause.
And just remember, in Hollywood, "Trust us." translates to "F**k you."
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Re:They tried to herd cats (Score:4, Insightful)
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They're not planning to put you on TV or in print. They want to use you to market FanLib.
There's only several thousand times too many people already submitting novels in comparison to how many get published. You think they want
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Correction (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, correction not possible (Score:2)
Re:They tried to herd cats (Score:5, Informative)
"At FanLib, we expect you to post the content you create ("Your Content") on the website. You keep any and all rights to Your Content. FanLib does not own any rights to Your Content."
2. *And* a "We reserve the right to censor anything you post we don't like." clause.
"FanLib encourages and supports active and open publication of fan fiction in a lawful and civil manner. We do not monitor the FanLib Website for inappropriate content or conduct"
(The only "we reserve the right to remove..." they give as part of that applies to outright illegal content).
3. An unwritten consequence of (1) would be: "If it's really good, we'll use it to make money. Thanks suckers." clause.
"You authorize FanLib to make, reproduce, distribute, and display these summaries or descriptions on FanLib.com or through its services but not for any other purpose unrelated to FanLib.com. If you mark any of Your Content private, we will not promote and/or showcase Your Content."
I consider myself about as anti-corporate as they come, but I really can't see the fuss over FanLib's TOS. It pretty much addresses every concern you raised.
Re:They tried to herd cats (Score:5, Informative)
Check out the face they present to the publishers: http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/005131.html [scalzi.com]
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which contains this text:
"If you're looking for the FanLib brochure, it has been removed.
Published in 2004, the brochure contained outdated information for special collaborative events."
so saying that this is the face they present to publishers may not be w/o controversy.
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I agree, that sounds totally different than what they say in their TOS - But I mean totally different. Like it doesn't even seem to apply to the same site.
It sounds more like they intended the site as some sort of massively collaborative text-based "game", with the game flow controlled by people falling somewhere between "moderator" and "dungeon master" in their role.
As for what they hoped to actually sell with that brochure, and to whom, ya got me th
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I Don't Doubt the Story... (Score:3, Interesting)
The second quote links to someone's LiveJournal, and it's not the only one. This seems like a Cyber Sister storm to me.
Re:I Don't Doubt the Story... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that is quite a problem with bloggers in general. Most of them are stupid enough to think that you will give one tenth of one shit about a link to a blog that no one outside of their social circle cares about.
If I'm providing a link about tech, I don't send people to a fucking slashdot comment - unless it's full of good links.
Linking to some fanfic author's blog is roughly the precise antithesis of reputability. And I don't want to unduly hurt anyone's feelings here, but I have two major problems with fanfic in general. The first one is that most of it is shit. Most of the people writing that stuff clearly weren't paying attention in their English classes in grammar school. The second one is that these people should grow a fucking imagination. It's pathetic enough when you have a show that is so endlessly officially rehashed. Fanfic is way beyond the pale there. The primary example is Star Trek - that show ran out of ideas before the first series was even over, and you could detect ToS stories recycled in ToS!
But what the hell, I don't have a problem with the stuff existing - only with its self-importance. It's not important to anyone outside that particular social scene, except for various studios wishing they could leave a smoking hole in the ground where authors of slash fanfic once stood.
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All of fanfic is shit. Not most. Other than that, I agree whole-heartedly.
Consider this, none of those authors are now or will ever be published by a reputable publishing house (note, I say reputable, vanity presses will press any piece of shit).
Fan fiction is the realm of the third or fourth rate writer. They are neither well-versed in their native language to make it interesting nor imaginative enough to create original stories. That is why most fan fiction descends into softcore pornogra
Oh come now. It's not that bad. Though... (Score:2)
Writers scratching an itch.
And if the fics are good, then the authors are already writers of original work that is popular on their own merits. This is just a w
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Yes, spinoffs of trends do happen. They're often done on contract by established authors with a rushed timel
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Come to think about it, I never saw them camping out for the Star Wars movies either. Where are they?? A million nerds want to know.
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Hiding, because...
A million nerds want to know.
Seriously, I remember my high school GF and some of her friends wrote fanfic, very early 70s. I don't recall much Trek, there was also "Department S", "The Champions", and some other Brit shows that hit Canadian TV around then.
Don't know about quality (Score:5, Interesting)
2500+ odd stories in 2 weeks certainly makes one wonder if some of the fanfictioners didn't get the memo that they were supposed to be ticked.
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2500+ odd stories in 2 weeks certainly makes one wonder if some of the fanfictioners didn't get the memo that they were supposed to be ticked.
That doesn't totally suck, I guess, but it's worth nothing that fanfiction.net has almost 300,000 stories -- in the Harry Potter category alone (granted, that's over many years).
I wonder how much advertising money they spent for that 2,500.
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NB: I'm not saying fanfic is all a copyright violation. There's plenty of well-known fanfic about characters whose copyrig
How is this "exploiting" exactly? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:How is this "exploiting" exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, fans take something they love, write extensions to it for their own not-for-profit amusement, hand it to FanLib, and proceed to get completely exploited. Oh, but in return they'll maybe get a free t-shirt or something. No thanks. Clearly, they have no concept of what fanfic is and are completely out of touch with writers in general.
Where's that troll when you need it? (Score:2)
You used to get bizarre trolls around here that took our learned editor-folk and made them characters in short, absurdly pornographic fictitious literary scenes.
Guess that too counts as fan-fiction, right?
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And I revoke the geek license of anyone who doesn't get that joke.
fanfic txt kiddies? (Score:2)
But...I doubt this site will go away anytime soon. I'd actually be more concerned with the scenario of publishers/content providers declaring this aggregator
We haven't heard from everyone... (Score:5, Funny)
Furries.
Without their unique insight into subjects like "Kirk romances a full sized Gadget from Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers" or "What would happen if the crew of the NX-01 were anthropomorphic animals and there's maybe a crossover with the X-Men why not?", we would have no way of knowing what we did and didn't like about the various trek series, and, by extension, an online repository of stories.
So count me out until the "Commander Troi as a sexy lemur" crowd weighs in, THEN I'll know what to think.
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I've never heard of anything of the sort, but that sounds amusing. Got a link to any of that?
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Well, not furry (except for some of the X-Men, but that's expected); not the NX-01, but the NCC-1701; and not a fanfic, but an official crossover (!); but here you go [tripod.com].
There were two also official kind of sequels with the NCC-1701-D crew [wikipedia.org].
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Troi attained the rank of Commander. Anyhoo, I'd like... no, I'm just curious to know what a "sexy lemur" is.
You see, I've seen a whole bunch of lemurs.
Mostly in captivity.
Not one of them turned me on.
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In the words of Cringely (Score:2)
I don't know what they're worried about... (Score:3, Funny)
Star Trek
The Search for Spock's Nipple
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I'm sending you the bill for the three gallons of brain detergent it will take to get that image out of my head.
MySpace? (Score:2)
Getting One's Dose of Internet Fiction (Score:5, Informative)
Stories OnLine [storiesonline.net]
The Pendorwright Projects [pendorwright.com]
usenet:assm
And none of this is lining any corporation's pockets off the sweat of the authors.
Jaw droppingly bad marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
Other choice lines include:
I'm currently majoring in business marketing , and I can't believe the misanthropical tone and language of their marketing plan. It's as cynical and exploitive as I've ever read.
Fanfiction.net? (Score:2, Insightful)
new website significantly different?
Hobson's Choice (Score:2)
I hope this works. (Score:2)
Good luck with advertisers (Score:2)
yiff!
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you're right. We didn't consider that and will immediately pull out of that website, as we do not want our name associated with Tom Cruise. Future ad partnerships will be with more wholesome sites like Yiffnet, Anthro Incest Paradise and goatse.cx.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Sincerely,
Proctor McGambleson,
VP of Marketing, Proctor and Gamble
Dammit (Score:2)
Hate to break it to you... (Score:2)
Copyright only extends to cover the material in question, not the underlying ideas nor scenarios. And I'll change some things superficially, rewrite the dialog to better fit my cast, and so forth.
Gathering it in one place doesn't change what I could do with the material. That hasn't changed.
Anyway, I'm sure your fanf
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Not to mention most of the bigger icons are usually trademarked. (i.e. Spider-man is a trademark of Marvel)
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Owning copyright on Mickey Mouse gives me copyright on all derivatives of Mickey Mouse as they are based on my original idea. Actually, I'm the only one who can make derivatives since I own the copyright to the original.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html [copyright.gov]
Looks like I'm not the one who needs to study.
I brought up trademarks because they represent a separate threat in addition to copyright violation.
To reiterate my Spider-man example, here is the trademark registration for Spider-man:
http:// [uspto.gov]
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And are you saying that the U.S. government has gotten its own copyright law wrong?
Wow, I really should read your books.
And what if I said I was a copyright lawyer. Would my appeal to authority trump yours?
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Fair use, man