#Intellectual Property Blog

[communistkenobi]

saw someone argue that the central defining feature of fanfiction is its attention to proper characterisation. man I don’t think you’ve read very much fanfiction

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

[otto-wood]

I don't know if it's supposed to feel like daytime or nighttime or anything, but you know what? (x)

[brainwashed-parxie]

I'm still here btw

I stayed here

[kotatsudotme]

Waterparks Songs/Lyric inspired blinkies

Notably inspired by the visuals during the Intellectual Property tour in April 2023. from top to bottom: ST*RFUCKER, TURBULENT, and [REBOOT]. UPDATE 5/29/24: We fixed the way "soulsucker" was formatted to match the new release! PLEASE REBLOG THIS VERSION.

f2u on your neocities, tumblr, or where ever! credit is not required, but greatly appreciated/encouraged. reblog if you use please!

[fintellectualproperty]

soooooo shaped arghhhhhh

[kinnie-coins]

SOULSUCKER // ST*RFUCKER

☆ Names + Pronouns ☆

Based on the characters of course, however some are simply based the album Intellectual Property.

Names -

Star, Soul, Angel, Lucifer, Nephilim, Faith, Seraphim, Ritual, Grey / Gray, Spirit, Virtue, Melatonin, Nyx, Aura, Crimson, Lilith, Lucian, Blaze, Rose, Halo

Pronouns -

star/stars, st*r/st*rs, soul/souls, cross/crosses, halo/halos, ven/heavens, vir/virtues, pray/prayers, angel/angels, demon/demons, wor/worships, dark/darks, night/nights, fall/fallen,

☆ / * / +

❤️/💚/🖤/❤️‍🔥

🪽/⭐️/🌟/🌓

✨️/🩸/💫/🫀

🔴/🟢/🟥/🟩

⚫️/⬛/🚫/❗️

[ameliadallon]

you literally cannot steal ideas in a way that matters, especially in a fucking fandom. Fanfiction and even fanart is """"stealing"""" somebody's ideas and going "what if i did it like this?" It is by its nature transgressive with ideas. If disney uses your ideas and makes money, then sure, get mad, thats righteous, but if some rando uses your idea and doesnt credit you? Enjoy having your idea out there for free with practically zero effort on your part.

[website-com]

i have been stressed and thusly only able to pay attention to stupid shit so if my blog gets stupid shit on it please ignore and pretend im still really cool. thank you i love you. unless you didnt think i was really cool then i am neutral towards you, tit for tat.

[vampyretaemin]

thinking about that post where that anon says they report people for copyright infringement when they watermark their gifs... i think most people dont actually know what copyright infringement is bc making gifs and posting them on tumblr is not even close to that ❤️

[steampunk-ghostxx]

Doing my best to appear like a functioning human being😅

(bg 🎵: 'FUCK ABOUT IT (feat. blackbear)' by Waterparks)

[arathyputhillam]

it’s very weird being a swiftie who LOVES Taylor’s re-recording projects while also being a PhD student publishing papers because it’s like why am I signing away my intellectual brainchild to a damn publisher for nothing except a line on my CV 😭

[notwxrriors]

some parx blogs on here r so negative and foul like bro why are you even interacting w parx media if ur just gonna constantly shit on em,,,,make it make sense

[themirokai]

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

[brainwashed-parxie]

MY IP2 MERCH FINALLY SHIPPED.