Oddly, while I'm disturbed by the possibility of Amazon setting a precedent here, it doesn't rattle me in the same way as Tumblr's recent kerfluffle.
I guess the Amazon situation seems wrong to me at a more intellectual level. I don't have a problem with the essential idea that copyright holders and fans could set up some kind of licensing mechansim so that fans could earn money for fanfictiom. and authors, also, get paid in the process. (If a fan makes money on fanfiction, I like the idea that the author benefits, too. And I disagree with the "fanfiction OUGHT to be profitless" argument, because it can be good work. Where's that article about how fanfic is like folk art, both of them largely done by women and therefore often anonymous and usually unpaid?) I just don't like how Amazon's setting this up for maximum exploitation of fanfic writers. Also, I understand the OTW argument that fanfic,as a transformative work, is already legal, so this is voluntarily putting fanfic into legal bondage.
But that's all legal stuff. Whereas the Tumblr thing hits a fandom space I was just getting to call home, and it makes me remember losing other fandom homes. It's more a visceral than a rational response, a sense of "oh, no, here we go again." Ironic that I feel any concern for Tumblr, since I resisted Tumblr for so long hoping and wishing that more people would use DW.
no subject
I guess the Amazon situation seems wrong to me at a more intellectual level. I don't have a problem with the essential idea that copyright holders and fans could set up some kind of licensing mechansim so that fans could earn money for fanfictiom. and authors, also, get paid in the process. (If a fan makes money on fanfiction, I like the idea that the author benefits, too. And I disagree with the "fanfiction OUGHT to be profitless" argument, because it can be good work. Where's that article about how fanfic is like folk art, both of them largely done by women and therefore often anonymous and usually unpaid?) I just don't like how Amazon's setting this up for maximum exploitation of fanfic writers. Also, I understand the OTW argument that fanfic,as a transformative work, is already legal, so this is voluntarily putting fanfic into legal bondage.
But that's all legal stuff. Whereas the Tumblr thing hits a fandom space I was just getting to call home, and it makes me remember losing other fandom homes. It's more a visceral than a rational response, a sense of "oh, no, here we go again." Ironic that I feel any concern for Tumblr, since I resisted Tumblr for so long hoping and wishing that more people would use DW.