WTF: Amazon is going to see legal fan fiction

[bullethead]

Hmm... on the one hand, if used like the Strange New Worlds contest, I think this could be a great way to find potential authors for a franchise's tie-in literature (and something I would wholeheartedly participate in). But as it's implemented now, it's just a way to exploit fans' passion towards IPs they love. If you're gonna sell the stuff, at least compensate the author as an incentive for them to make more, because the only incentive for anyone to do this is to hope their fic sells well and gets them some notoriety that they can leverage into an actual career.

 

[Relayer1]

If they didn't chose to stay with the trusted pro authors, those authors could always branch off on their own continuity. Even without advances and contracts, I'd say a shared Trekverse with familiar writers contributing to it would drag a sizeable number of readers with them...probably enough to make it viable if the author gets a reasonable percentage.

 

[E-DUB]

So either Chrisopher is right and the cream will rise to the top or some variant on "Gresham's Law" will prevail. My guess is a little of both.

 

[JarodRussell]

Quality of work aside, why pay a higher amount to a professional when you can pay zero to a fanficcer and make pure profit?

Any fanficcer would be stupid to accept that. If it's contract work, in other words the publisher WANTS something from you, then he's gotta pay you for that.


Most of you know my opinion about fan fiction, copyright and payment, and this is one tiny little wee step towards that vision.

 

[SeerSGB]

I wonder if the license extends to all products in the franchise? Could, hypothetically, someone use David Mack's OCs and original races from his books in a Star Trek fanfic?

Quality of work aside, why pay a higher amount to a professional when you can pay zero to a fanficcer and make pure profit?

Any fanficcer would be stupid to accept that. If it's contract work, in other words the publisher WANTS something from you, then he's gotta pay you for that.


Most of you know my opinion about fan fiction, copyright and payment, and this is one tiny little wee step towards that vision.

That's the contract under Kindle and Kindle worlds: You write it, you post it on Amazon.com, you get a percentage; after Amazon takes their cut on top of "bandwidth/download" expenses". Only difference here is: You write, you post on Amazon, you get paid after the IP holder, Amazon, and expenses. So yes the publisher/IP holder pays you nothing. You do the work for free, hope it sells, and if it does they get paid out of your sells--effectively you paying them, like a vanity press set up, which is what Kindle publishing really is.

 

[JarodRussell]

I wonder if the license extends to all products in the franchise? Could, hypothetically, someone use David Mack's OCs and original races from his books in a Star Trek fanfic?

Quality of work aside, why pay a higher amount to a professional when you can pay zero to a fanficcer and make pure profit?

Any fanficcer would be stupid to accept that. If it's contract work, in other words the publisher WANTS something from you, then he's gotta pay you for that.


Most of you know my opinion about fan fiction, copyright and payment, and this is one tiny little wee step towards that vision.

That's the contract under Kindle and Kindle worlds: You write it, you post it on Amazon.com, you get a percentage; after Amazon takes their cut on top of "bandwidth/download" expenses". Only difference here is: You write, you post on Amazon, you get paid after the IP holder, Amazon, and expenses. So yes the publisher/IP holder pays you nothing. You do the work for free, hope it sells, and if it does they get paid out of your sells--effectively you paying them, like a vanity press set up, which is what Kindle publishing really is.

Well, it's still your choice not to do it. And while the publisher effectly doesn't pay you anything, he doesn't tell you what to write either. You get paid for your hobby for god's sake. And if you are that great that the publisher wants more from you, that's the moment where they need to pay you on a professional level.

 

[SeerSGB]

I wonder how much of this thinking is the studios and Amazon wanting to cash in on the next "50 Shades of Gray"? One thing you here over and over again is "50 Shades of Gray" started out as a Twilight fanfic. So maybe they're trying to get in a position to cash in on the next big fanfic.

I wonder if the license extends to all products in the franchise? Could, hypothetically, someone use David Mack's OCs and original races from his books in a Star Trek fanfic?

Any fanficcer would be stupid to accept that. If it's contract work, in other words the publisher WANTS something from you, then he's gotta pay you for that.


Most of you know my opinion about fan fiction, copyright and payment, and this is one tiny little wee step towards that vision.

That's the contract under Kindle and Kindle worlds: You write it, you post it on Amazon.com, you get a percentage; after Amazon takes their cut on top of "bandwidth/download" expenses". Only difference here is: You write, you post on Amazon, you get paid after the IP holder, Amazon, and expenses. So yes the publisher/IP holder pays you nothing. You do the work for free, hope it sells, and if it does they get paid out of your sells--effectively you paying them, like a vanity press set up, which is what Kindle publishing really is.

Well, it's still your choice not to do it. And while the publisher effectly doesn't pay you anything, he doesn't tell you what to write either. You get paid for your hobby for god's sake. And if you are that great that the publisher wants more from you, that's the moment where they need to pay you on a professional level.

I sincerly doubt they'll pay a fanficcer on a professional level, when they can just sit back and wait for you to continue the story on your own. They're unlikely to approach you to do more, just keep an eye on teh ones that ring in the most royalties to their coffers.

As for telling what not to write: We don't know yet. Beyond slash-fic, we don't know what each studios or franchise's individual mandates will be in terms of content.

Yes, it's author's choice to do it or not, but I don't see it as some great coming of age of fanfiction. I see it as the studios saying "hey, we can't get free money!".

 

[Christopher]

I wonder if the license extends to all products in the franchise? Could, hypothetically, someone use David Mack's OCs and original races from his books in a Star Trek fanfic?

Well, at the moment, it doesn't apply to Trek fiction, just to the properties belonging to Warner Bros.' Alloy Entertainment group -- meaning book series/CW shows like The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, and Gossip Girl. Though the press coverage is predicting that other licensors will join in pretty quickly.

 

[SeerSGB]

I wonder if the license extends to all products in the franchise? Could, hypothetically, someone use David Mack's OCs and original races from his books in a Star Trek fanfic?

Well, at the moment, it doesn't apply to Trek fiction, just to the properties belonging to Warner Bros.' Alloy Entertainment group -- meaning book series/CW shows like The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, and Gossip Girl. Though the press coverage is predicting that other licensors will join in pretty quickly.

That's why I'm using Trek: It's the most relevant hypothetical to the board. Plus I can see CBS doing this sort of thing with Trek--but a ton of restrictions, figure the Paramount's rebooted timeline would likely be hands off

 

[patspring83]

Every now and then I see unofficial star trek e-books for sale on amazon. Even listed in the recommend for you section

 

[SeerSGB]

I was talking to someone in the same online writing community as me. The short of their POV is if they can knock out fanfic and get paid for it, then they'll just pull stuff from their fanfiction.net account and post in Kindle and churn out a lot of short content quickly. The ideal being that you can go into it and make quick, easy money. They don't realize that they'll be in a flooded market, and crap isn't going to sell for very long before the novelty wears off and people start getting picky. And that's assuming there's a market to begin with.

Years of free fanfic might have killed the market before it's born.

 

[Lt. Cheka Wey]

Please somebody who published in Strange New Worlds write some interesting book about realluy obscure species and charavcters.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I wrote one once about Mr. Adventure. He's pretty obscure. It was a short story though.