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Archive repairs & recode are sitting at around 50% done. Archives are next followed by the story manager. If you like what you see so far please donate to the site and if you feel generous say it’s a bribe for me to work faster .

Hi! As we’ve been telling other members, there was an issue with an attack on the site. In order to thwart the attack until we can finish securing the site, the archive is in read-only mode, which means no one can open a new account, post a new story, or update an existing story until the archive is back online again.

That was the distinction I was missing. Fanfic, by its nature, is taking elements of canon and the contributions of the fanfic writer (at least in plot & the actual word arrangements) – I know, that’s being generous for some of the fanfic out there. An exact determination of derivative vs transformative can require a court case, to determine if fair use would apply (thereby allowing the fanfic writer to ignore a demand of the canon author to not post a fanfic). However, I’m not willing to spend $100k to defend a fanfic in court, and there’s that ever present chance to LOSE the case making the fanfic situation worse. Luckily for my Harry Potter fanfic, JK Rowling did famously allow fanfic on a not-for-money basis; thus rendering the debate closer to academic as I doubt I’d ever feel comfortable charging readers for my writings. (p.s. why is my auto-correct wanting to change “fanfic” to “fanatic”?)

There’s a vast difference between a derivative work and a transformative work. In the case of this Seuss/Star Trek mash-up, the court held that it was not a parody, but instead did constitute a transformative work. Derivative work requires a license from the original copyright owner because it builds up and expands the original work, whereas a transformative work uses the original work in a new and new and creative manner. It’s rather like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters in that sense. The original work is transformed, and not merely used as a starting point to boldly go where the original copyright holder never intended to go. In the mash-up referenced in the YouTube video, it was the current copyright holder of the Dr Seuss franchise who sued, and not the Star Trek franchise. Obviously, the Star Trek copyright holders are better versed in copyright law and fair use than the Seuss crowd. AO3 calls everything on its site transformative, whether it truly is transformative or derivative in nature. However, you can’t merely label something transformative to make it so. As an example, if someone writes a fan fiction based on the Harry Potter fandom, and creates a new work detailing everything that happened after Book 7, that is derivative. They would be using the canon work to serve as the launching point for their story, as they go on to tell us what happened to Harry and Hermione's children at Hogwarts. If JK Rowling were to object, I rather suspect she would prevail, because this work would, if published, infringe on any future novels JK Rowling might care to write about the next generation of Potters and Weasleys. If someone wrote a fan fiction based on the Harry Potter fandom, and simply created a parallel adventure, or introduced a new character to interact with canon characters in familiar settings and events, that would be considered transformative, in that the new character might reveal feelings and motivations that would illuminate the author’s impressions of the canonical setting or event. It would not materially affect any earnings by JK Rowling from the canonical works or even future works, but it is still highly unlikely that any publisher would take the chance, without clear licensing, of publishing such a work. Legal defenses eat into the already thin profit margins of a publisher, after all. And, in both scenarios, there is a limited portion of the work that could be labeled as original writing. That’s why we call it fan fiction, after all.

Fan fiction works are not original works, even if the original work in question is a title in the public domain, on which copyright has expired. The staff of AO3 either drinks heavily or studied law under a very small rock in the middle of the Utopia Planitia if they truly believe that a work of fan fiction is an original work. I’d suggest trying to get it published (and not self-published) to cure oneself of that particular delusion. However, IF a fan fiction is properly disclaimed (attributes copyright of fandom to the actual copyright holder, states that no profit is being made), the portions of the fan fiction that were written by the author of the fan fiction may not be reproduced or used without permission, and yes, if your fan fiction has been posted elsewhere without your permission, you can certainly avail yourself of a DMCA takedown request. If your fan fiction has been posted elsewhere without your permission AND without attribution, under the name of a person who did not in fact write anything at all, that is plagiarism, which is the theft of your intellectual property. That is illegal and has cost people their employment when they’ve been discovered to be a plagiarist. I will delete a story posted by someone who is not the actual author of the story pursuant to the DMCA without question. I will delete a plagiarized story, along with the account of the plagiarist and all its content, whether stolen or not, and that plagiarist will be banned from the site permanently. Enthusiasm for a story is one thing; theft is entirely another thing.

Nearly any line is jagged and a wide swath of area if you look at it closely enough. Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I do watch some on youtube… that makes me qualified, right? I’ll ignore the outright plagiarism you’re noting above and assume US copyright law based on what I’ve seen for my youtube law degree. Fanfiction is part source material and part new material. Author(s) of the source have copyright interests in their own works *AND* that part of your fanfiction that leverages their material. However, the fanfic writer does have copyright interest in the material they added in crafting their fanfic. Fanfic writers usually slap on a disclaimer, disavow profit, seek fair use as grounds for posting, and call it a wrap, easy done, easy go. BUT unless that fanfic writer has signed it away, they’ve got copyright in what they contributed, and therefore, they can use the DMCA against the offending website. That’s my $0.02 on how a fanfic writer can deal with a website that pirates their stories. If they want to go further, if there’s a legal tassle, then I’d seriously recommend consulting a copyright lawyer who can evaluate the situation.

Hi, all. That sounds like it would be really rough for Transformers fanfiction. “But my character is a canon when they transform….” Thanks.