All I know is, I mourn when a good story goes down and have been known to plead with someone to leave their stuff up for people to enjoy or download one Just In Case it ever disappeared. I have been known to share a good piece of fanart or fanfic with friends, the way one might xerox a great cartoon and hang it up on the office bulletin board. However, I guess I draw the line at hosting something that a writer has taken down, unless I have permission. I have scoured the web looking for some great Aulu fanart that vanished when an Aulu fansite died, found alternate sites hosting SOME of the missing pieces and linked to those, but have never uploaded the ones I had saved to my own Aulu fansite, much as I wish I could showcase the great work of a few artists.

EVERYONE must also realize that when they post something on the internet, it's going to get archived, unless they put it under a private lock. Even then, it may be. That's the nature of the web. You can no sooner demand it be otherwise than you can demand that whatever trees got chopped down to make a published book spring back to life again after you throw the book away.

As for fanfic of our fanfic, sure. If we write fanfic at all, we really MUST allow that and be flattered by it. (I say this with full humility, remembering all too well the horror I felt the one time someone ffed an original story of mine and totally perverted the meaning of it. I'm sure Tolkien would not approve of that Elrond/Gilraen smutlet lying around on my hard drive somewhere.)