Amazon licenses fan fiction...

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Chuck Wendig presents an interesting take in this odd revelation. Links to the Amazon release in the article.

 

[Jack Parker]

I'm getting a 404.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

click on blog
Chuck Wendig

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

The filter is blocking it because of a "dirty" word in the title.

http://tinyurl.com/pyat67z

 

[Brian G Turner]

John Scalzi summarises on what he's read so far:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/22/amazons-kindle-worlds-instant-thoughts/

 

[Vertigo]

Slightly off topic but: I've not read any Chuck Wendig and having read his blog I think I'm rather glad. That is the most appallingly badly written piece of prose I think I've seen coming from the pen of a professional writer. Surely a professional writer ought to take the the time to read and edit their posts?

As to the fan fiction thing, I guess at least this way the author gets at least a little something out of it, which is only fair if they are the ones who have created the world and characters being used in the fan fic. I confess, for myself, I've never been so hooked on a particular series that I have been the slightest bit interested in seeing it probably get destroyed by bad writing. I have trouble enough with, for example, Weber getting other professional authors to contribute stories to his Honorverse. Now I know that some fan fic writers are possibly very good but, unless I have very strong reliable recommendations, I'm just not going to invest my time in finding out.

 

[allmywires]

Um...OK.

So why would you pay to read fanfiction where there are so many places you can get it for FREE? And how exactly does the copyright work? How can you be allowed to make profit from other people's characters? Better yet, what about RPF? How can you justify making a profit from fictionalising a REAL LIFE PERSON? I'm super pro fanfiction, I love it, I just see it as a bit of harmless fun. Turning it into a business... yikes. Good luck Amazon.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I can't seem to link to the Chuck Wendig piece.

 

[Parson]

I can't seem to link to the Chuck Wendig piece.

Click on Fishbowls tinyurl, that worked for me. Not that I'm particularly happy for reading it. Anytime you use profanity in the title all that says to me is that you have strong feelings, but are not willing to articulate them clearly.

 

[Ogma]

Scalzi makes a lot of good points. Will Amazon differentiate the 'fanfic' books from the 'canon' books, or will they ultimately be lumped together?

The original writer of the Vampire Diaries was dropped by the publisher a couple of years ago. It would be bizarre if she ended up writing 'fanfic' novels for the series.

The rights holders of the series in question must view this new development as financially beneficial for them. Otherwise, they would not have agreed to it. I suspect that other 'franchises' may be slow to join it at least until the outcome for the initial pioneers proves to be positive.

 

[Connavar]

It seems they are getting desperate the big booksellers like amazon in finding new ways to make money on stories that even fan fiction is treated like published works. Like there is no need for pro writers. The readers buying fan fiction or not will decide this.

Fan fic books where will this end, interesting and creepy future in this. Scalzi said it well what does this mean for pro writers working for these companies when they have the choice of fan fiction writers who are prolly cheaper and the companies will still have complete control of the stories those authors write.

 

[Glitch]

It seems like an interesting idea. Albeit the terms and conditions are not in the author's favour. I'm guessing it will have a good up take. If perhaps from authors who only write fan-fiction.

If the Twilight series was a part of this, I guess we could have been spared 50 shades

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

There's also an io9 article on the matter. Nice shout out to Scanners.

 

[Jack Parker]

Very interesting. I'm not surprised it happened. I mean, people read the stuff, so why not try to make a buck? People will monetize anything.

 

[Overread]

This reads like a lot of things from big companies in that the only thought they've had is for themselves; they've presented an idea that is perfectly beneficial to themselves and which has almost no real attraction to others if they think about it. Even the fan-fiction writers will only see a pittance of what they should get were they to go through normal channels.

It's an idea that can, however, work because things like copyright law and rights and actually how to read a contact (As well as the fact that contracts can be and should be negotiated) are things not taught at school. It's one of those "you pick it up as you go along" things; however many people don't pick up all that much.

The best hope we have is that it gets challenged by enough authors that it can be changed or scrapped - and personally I think its a very bold move for a publishing house to make considering that with digital distribution authors can suddenly turn around and say "Actually I'll do this myself, bye". Authors have never had more power than they do now, if they realise it - the tick, however, is organising a large enough counter to this to get anything changed.


Personally I don't like it - I think it should be fully an authors choice if they wish to release their works to the public domain; if they do that's great, if not then they shouldn't. It shouldn't be a setup where instead its released into the publishing-houses domain where ideas can then be captured and "protected" by the companies longer term copyright setup (which can be a nightmare if the company crashes and assets get sold to other groups - suddenly you could have many works owned by a legal agency or such which has no direct use or ability to make use of them, but also no desire to release their assets for no gain)

 

[DrMclony]

My immediate thought is Scalzi needs to look at the various laws regarding derivative works. The general rule is, if it is fan fiction, it is a "derivative work" and all rights for any derivative work belong to the original creator of the work from which the fan fiction is derived.

Even if the derivative work contains new, original ideas, characters or settings, all those new features are entirely the property of the original rights holder who the derivative works belong to. Therefore, all the stuff Scalzi talks about regarding the world license owners being allowed to "mine" your ideas from your fan fiction is a moot point - this is their moral, legal and deserved right. If you write fan fiction, and you don't like this aspect, then stop writing fan fiction.

IP holders have always had this right, and have not been given anything unusual or new by Amazon. The difference? Amazon will pay a royalty to the fan fic writers as well as the IP holders, where previously the fan fic writer had precisely zero rights to anything from their derivative works. So in other words, fan fiction writers can claim an undeserved (in a legal sense - I do not wish to enter an argument about the morals of it) royalty for works in which they have no legally defined moral rights of any kind. Even with all the other rights grabbiness of the scheme, the fan fiction writers are getting a better deal than they could legitimately have hoped for.

I am glad I do not write fan fiction, have never written fan fiction, and do not intend to start writing fan fiction. However, I know of some fan fiction writers who would be excited by this deal, because they know full well it is the best deal they were ever going to get. As somebody once said on a site I was reading years ago which had a fanfic section, it is a good deal if you don't get sued.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Looking at the arguments on various sides, and thinking about it from as wide a perspective as possible, this seems 100% to be a way for amazon to make more money.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't understand all the excitement and anxiety over this. It's just a new twist on media tie-in work-for-hire, which has been around for a long time and has typically been a bad deal for the writer (unless they get someone with a name to do it, then I imagine the contract would be more favorable) -- except that it can be a super quick way to make money, since media tie-in books are often written in a matter of weeks and the author doesn't have to take the time to invent new characters, etc.

I was once on a panel with a woman who was doing work-for-hire for a franchise and she made it exceedingly clear that she thought anyone who couldn't churn out a book in three weeks wasn't a professional. (She was quite nasty and contemptuous about it, so my heart wasn't bleeding for her if she wasn't getting paid very much.) She had this idea because that is what her publisher expected of her, and what she had been doing, and probably because she knew other writers who worked for the same company who were doing the same. I know writers who have done work-for-hire, who didn't and don't have that attitude, but they weren't doing it as their ultimate career goal. It was to keep writing, pay the rent, make contacts in the publishing world, and all of this so that they could finally make a career writing their own original fiction. And they did.

The rights grab will be a bad deal for anyone who takes their time over the book and comes up with new ideas, but I believe that's always been the case when an author is writing for a franchise, and at least they will be getting a royalty here, rather than a lump sum.

So it's not fan-fic (because it has to be approved and there will be licensing and a contract involved, and no change to copyright law -- and the original rights owner is not a person but a corporate entity), and it's not anything terribly new, and it's good or bad depending on the quality of the work the writers will be doing and how much time they spend doing it.

The world will be unchanged by this.



.
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[ratsy]

I really have no interest in reading fan fic or writing it for that matter. I guess this is a step towards something bigger I suppose.

If you ask me, what the world is beginning to lack is creativity and originality. How many sequels to films and how many remakes do we need to see. I am always way more excited to see a NEW idea and a NEW story than rehashing what has already been done. I know that they make studios money and publishers in the case of books but come on.

I am sure a lot of writers dabble in fanfic since they don't have to create characters and can work on story telling I suppose. But are people really going to read someones 200 page books about Vampire Diaries ( and I bet the answer is yes so I must just be in the minority and now I need a glass of wine to decompress)