Fanlib

Scalzi makes good points about Fanlib:

This is interesting, with the notation at “interesting” is not necessarily the same thing as “good” or even “advisible”: FanLib.com, a site which apparently is a place for people to post “fan fiction” (i.e., stories they write about characters from movies, TV and books) without all that nasty “you might get sued by the copyright holders” aftertaste – the site has partners in HarperCollins, Penguin Books, Showtime Networks, Simon & Schuster, and Starz Entertainment, all of whom seem to have agreed to keep their lawyers in check while fans make up breathless adventures for their favorite media characters (here’s the press release, so you can see for yourself what they’re up to).

And the salient point, to me anyway, is:

Now, if FanLib wants to license the universe from me for fanfic purposes and thus we create a hassle-free zone for them to play, that would be one thing. But I don’t really see them going out of their way; at the very least, I would be surprised if they’ve licensed the universes for all the fanfic the site points to and houses. I’d be curious to know what other creators and fans think about this.

This would be about my take. Fanfic, although I’ve never done it or particularly want to, doesn’t particularly bother me with a couple exceptions. Those exceptions are where the fan writing might endanger my ability make money off my work.

I don’t search for nor try to read any fanfic of my universe, so I have no idea if its done nor do I want to, as admitting you read/heard about a fanfic plot opens you up to being sued if you go on to write something similar and I’m rather disinterested in that. This has happened to some writers and has had the effect of making some writers extraordinarily anti-fanfic. And I can understand why, even if I don’t feel the same.

But even if you are fanfic friendly, the idea of a company seeking to make money off of both fan and creators work without compensation just strikes me as… exploitative.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this goes on before blowing up.

Filed under the topic On Writing on May 22nd 2007 at 2:28 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.