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Fan Fiction Writers Balk at FanLib.com
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.'"
The fanfic crowd is riled up. Everyone take cover!
and got themselves clawed.
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."
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.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
ScuttleMonkey was manning the Slashdot queue. "Fan Fiction Writers Balk at FanLib.com" suddenly appeared amid a sea of more interesting stories, but ScuttleMonkey knew this was his next frontpager. He always knew, even before he was an editor. Minutes before the story was set to go live, CmdrTaco saw it and ran, if you can call it that, down the hallway. "STOP!" he screamed. "This is a terrible story! You must remove it." ScuttleMonkey pulled out a knife, stabbing Taco in the heart before he had a chance to react. "Remove that, Taco!" cried ScuttleMonkey as he watched the story go live.
This is the most comprehensive and informative link I've seen on that. And Boingboing picked the story up this morning. I heard from a friend in a fanfic community there that they were deleting journals just because the keywords "rape" or "incest" were used in the interests field. So the journals of some rape victims and incest survivors were suddenly terminated.
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
Quite frankly, I won't form an opinion until we've heard an official response from the most influential contingent in fan-fiction:
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.
Because slashdot isn't well known for "breaking" news. It's an aggregator of news that has already been published and sourced. Moreso the better, if you ask me, since we don't have to deal with Digg/Reddit's "get it first and vote for me!" culture.
Stories OnLine
The Pendorwright Projects
usenet:assm
And none of this is lining any corporation's pockets off the sweat of the authors.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You apparently missed the part of the brochure they sent as marketing. The part that says "Managed and Moderated to the Max" or the part that says "Full monitoring and management of submissions" or perhaps even that part that says "Completed work is just 1st draft to be polished by the pros".
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.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
See here.
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".
...on a website I don't control.
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.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON