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earlgreytea68 · 4 years ago

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Heyyyyyy, I bet you were DYING to know stuff about that Google v. Oracle decision, huh?

You may have heard recently about a big deal Supreme Court decision called Google v. Oracle, a litigation that has dragged on for many, many, many years and focuses on Google having copied some pieces of computer programming owned by Oracle and known as APIs. Most of the write-ups I’ve seen about it have focused on its enormous repercussions for the technology sector, which makes sense since it’s a case about computer programming and APIs and other tech-y things.

But the thing about the decision is that it’s a fair use decision. The Supreme Court could have found that the APIs weren’t even protected by copyright. But instead, the Supreme Court used the doctrine of fair use, and this means that the case potentially has ramifications for all fair use situations, including fanfiction!

So, if you don’t know, fair use is a main defense to copyright infringement. Basically, you can use somebody else’s copyrighted work without their permission as long as what you’re doing with it is considered a “fair use.” E.g., you can write a story in somebody else’s fictional universe or draw art of somebody else’s fictional copyrighted characters without their permission as long as your use is a “fair use.”

“What’s a fair use?” is an incredibly complicated question. The long and tortured history of Google v. Oracle illustrates this: a jury found Google’s use was a fair use; an appellate court found that it wasn’t and basically said the jury was wrong; and now the Supreme Court says no, no, the jury was right and the appellate court was wrong. Like, this is not unusual, fair case rulings are historically full of disagreements over the same set of facts. All of the cases reiterate over and over that it’s a question that can’t really be simplified: every fair use depends on the particular circumstances of that use. So, in a way, Google v. Oracle, like every fair use case, is a very specific story about a very specific situation where Google used very specific APIs in a very specific way.

However, while every fair use case is always its own special thing, they all always debate the same four fair use factors (these are written into the law itself as being the bare minimum of what should be considered), and especially what’s known as the first and fourth factors. The first factor is formally “the purpose and character of the alleged fair use,” although over the decades of fair use jurisprudence this has come to be shorthanded as “transformativeness,” and the fourth factor is “effect on the market.”

Most of the energy and verve of a fair use case is usually in the transformativeness analysis; the more transformative your use is, the more likely it is to be fair (this is why AO3’s parent organization is called the Organization for *Transformative* Works – “transformative” is a term of art in copyright law). To “transform” a work, btw, for purposes of copyright fair use doesn’t necessarily mean that you have edited the work somehow; you can copy a work verbatim and still be found transformative if you have added some new commentary to it by placing it in a new context (Google Image Search thumbnails, while being exact reproductions of the image in question, have been found to be fair use because they’re recontextualizing the images for the different purpose of search results). The point is, transformativeness is, like fair use itself, built to be flexible.

Why? Because the purpose of copyright is to promote creativity, and sometimes we promote creativity by giving people a copyright, but sometimes giving someone a copyright that would block someone else’s use is the opposite of promoting creativity; that’s why we need fair use, for THAT, for when letting the copyright holder block the use would cause more harm to the general creative progress than good. Google v. Oracle recommits U.S. copyright to the idea that all this is not about protecting the profits of the copyright monopolist; we need to make sure that copyright functions to keep our society full of as much creativity as possible. Google copied Oracle’s APIs to make new things: create new products, better smartphones, a platform for other programmers to jump in and give us even more new functionality. The APIs themselves were created used preexisting stuff in the first place, so it’s not like anyone was working in a vacuum with a wholly original work. And, in fact, executives had thought that, the more people they could get using the programming, the better off they would be.

Which brings us to the fourth fair use factor, effect on the market (meaning the copyright holder’s market and ability to reap profits from the original work). There’s a lot of tech stuff going on in this part of the opinion but one of the points I find interesting from that discussion is that the court thought that Google’s use of the APIs was not a market substitute for the original programming, meaning that Google used the APIs “on very different devices,” an entirely new mobile platform that was “a very different type of product.”

But also. What I find most interesting in this part is the court’s explicit acknowledgment that sometimes things are good because they are superior, and sometimes things are good because people “are just used to it. They have already learned how to work with it.” Now, this obviously has special resonance in the tech industry (is your smartphone good because it’s the best it could be, or because you’re just really used to the way it’s set up?), but there’s also something interesting being said here about how not all of the value of a copyrighted work belongs *to the copyright holder* but comes *from consumers.* Forgive the long quote but I think the Court’s words are important here:

“This source of Android’s profitability has much to do with third parties’ (say, programmers’) investment in Sun Java programs. It has correspondingly less to do with Sun’s investment in creating the Sun Java API. . . . [G]iven programmers’ investment in learning the Sun Java API, to allow enforcement of Oracle’s copyright here would risk harm to the public. . . . [A]llowing enforcement here would make of the Sun Java API’s declaring code a lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle alone would hold the key. The result could well prove highly profitable to Oracle . . . . But those profits could well flow from creative improvements, new applications, and new uses developed by users who have learned to work with that interface. To that extent, the lock would interfere with, not further, copyright’s basic creativity objectives.”

This is picking up on reasoning in some older computer cases (like Lotus v. Borland, a First Circuit case from decades ago), but I think it’s so important we got this in a Supreme Court case: if WE bring some value to the copyrighted work through our investment in it, why should the copyright holder get to collect ALL the rewards by locking up further creativity involving that work? Which, incidentally, the Court explicitly notes is to the public detriment because more creativity is good for the public? This is such an important idea to the Supreme Court’s reasoning here that it’s the first part of the fair use test that it decides: that the value of the work at issue here “in significant part derives from the value that those who do not hold copyrights . . . invest of their own time and effort . . . .”

This case is, as we say in the law, distinguishable from fanfiction and fanart. APIs are different from television shows, and this case is very much a decision about technology and computer programming and smartphones and how old law gets applied to new things. Like, fair use is an old doctrine dating from the early nineteenth-century, and here we are figuring out how to apply it to the Android mobile phone platform. That, in and of itself, is pretty cool, and it’s rightly what most of the articles you’ll see out there about this case are focusing on.

But this case isn’t just a technology case; it’s also a fair use case that places itself in the lineage of all the fair use cases we look at when we think about what makes a use fair. And, to that end, this has some interesting things to say, about how much value consumers bring to copyrighted works and where a copyright holder’s rights might have to acknowledge that; about the fact that there are in fact limits to how much a copyright holder can control when it comes to holding the “lock” to future creativity building on what came before; about what part of the market a copyright holder is entitled to and what it isn’t. Think about the analogy you could make here: Given the investment of fans in learning canon, which is what makes the creative work valuable in the first place, allowing enforcement against fanfic or fanart would allow the canon creators to have a lock limiting future creativity, which would be highly profitable to the original creator (or, let’s be real, to Disney lol), but wouldn’t further copyright’s goals of promoting creativity because it would stifle all of that creativity instead. And just like Google with the APIs, what fandom is doing is not a market substitute for the original work: they’re “very different products.”

This is not to say, like, ANYTHING GOES NOW. Like I said, fanfic and fanart are very different from APIs. Fictional works get more protection than a functional work like the APIs at issue in this case. And there’s still a whole thing about commercial vs. non-commercial in fair use analysis which I didn’t really touch here (but which obviously has limits, since it’s not like Google isn’t making tons of money, and their use was a fair use). But this decision could kind of remind a big media world that maybe had forgotten that the copyright monopoly they enjoy is supposed to have the point of encouraging creativity; we grant a copyright because we think people won’t create without a financial incentive. (Tbh, there’s a lot of doubt that that is actually a true thing to believe, given all the free fic and art that gets produced daily, but anyway, it’s what the law decided several centuries ago before the internet was a thing.) Copyright is a balance, between those who hold the copyright and the rest of us, and the rest of us aren’t just passive consumers, we have creative powers of our own, and we might also want to do some cool things. And this case sees that. None of us are starting in a creative vacuum, after all; we’re all in this playground together.

#copyright #copyright law #legal #long post

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edie-k · 4 years ago

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Legally Ginger (Chapter 2)

Title: Legally Ginger

Chapter 2/9

Rating: PG-13 (I use fuck more than the MPAA allows for PG-13 but that's a stupid rule - there's no explicit content)

Pairing: Romione endgame

Summary: When Ron Weasley's college girlfriend declines his proposal because he doesn't meet her standard for future husband, he decides comes up with a plan to let her see him in a new light.

Notes: This is an AU Muggle reimagination of Legally Blonde. It's very different than anything I have ever written - and my first chapter story. I intend to update each Monday - although I'm slightly early due to commitments tomorrow.

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter has a character making a joke about an incident of sexual harassment they were the victim of. This is a line directly from the movie and is bolded to indicate it's not my original dialogue. Unlike the movie, the conduct is identified as harassment.

Shout out to TheKillerTigerBunny’s recent fic for inspiring a scene in the admissions video.

Thanks to adnei again for her feedback!

Read at AO3 or click below for more

Ron mindlessly shoved his hand back into the bag of chips next to him on the bed as he stared at the TV in the corner.

He had spent all day Sunday trying to compose the perfect text. The magic words that would bring her back. He composed dozens of drafts. Some were apologetic - clearly he shouldn’t have sprung an engagement on her but that didn’t mean they had to break up! Some were logical - there was almost a full semester of school left that they could spend together and see where they stood at graduation. Some were just pathetic - begging and pleading her for a second chance.

Finally, he decided to keep it simple.

can we please talk?

She responded.

it’s too hard to talk. I love you but that doesn’t mean this can work I’m sorry

He didn’t respond further. In the end, he couldn’t figure out how to fix what was wrong with him. There was no clear way to make himself worthy of Astoria.

So when the alarm went off Monday morning, he hit snooze. Then he hit it again. And again. And then he just turned it off for the next four days, only emerging from his room in the middle of the night to raid the pantry for more supplies. Apart from a few supportive texts from his siblings and friends, he’d been mostly left to wallow. Which could only mean that news of his humiliation had spread across campus and people were keeping their distance. He appreciated it but had a hunch his brothers’ patience would soon wear thin.

As if on cue, the door flung open.

“All right, Ron,” said Fred, barging in the room. “It’s been a week. Time to emerge.”

“Uh,” grunted Ron. Pig trotted in happily and jumped up on the bed next to Ron.

Fred paused and looked at the TV. “My God, are you watching NBC Sports Network? You need to snap out of it.”

Ron shrugged. “Lost the remote two days ago.”

George poked his head in the room before entering. “God, it reeks in here. And it better be beer in that bottle by your nightstand. Thankfully, we brought reinforcements.”

“Hey bro,” said Ginny, popping into the room. “It’s time to seize the day!”

“No,” he said flatly to his sister.

“Come on, you don’t want to blow off your classes. You’ve worked too hard to have to graduate in the summer semester. You want the celebrity commencement speaker, not whatever ancient associate dean they con into putting on a robe in August,” Ginny appealed.

“I’ve been emailing my assignments. It’s fine.”

“Well, this isn’t fine. Come on! I know what always cheers you up,” Ginny wheedled.

“Ehm,” Ron grunted, turning over.

“Please!” begged Ginny. “I need to blow off steam too.”

“I’ll buy you cheese fries,” George suggested.

“My own order,” Ron said.

“Yes,” agreed George.

“And beer,” Ron added.

“Goes without saying!” said Fred, yanking the covers off of him. “Shower and we’re off!”

****************************

Forty minutes later, he was moping under the umbrella shaded patio table outside of the batting cages, Pig at his feet, picking at his fries while his beer warmed in the sunshine. Fred and George were taking cracks off the pitching machine with a couple of his frat brothers and members of Ginny’s sorority that had tagged along.

“Come on,” said Ginny. “You need to hit something.”

“I’ll take the next one,” Ron replied listlessly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Girls, make him see reason,” she appealed to her sisters, who were seated next to him flipping through magazines. Ginny jogged off to join the others.

“Ron, Astoria is trash,” said Lavender.

“She is not!”

“She’s trash,” agreed Parvati. “Bougie trash.”

“I’m the one that’s clearly trash.”

“No, you’re a fucking straight up 9 and if I wasn’t in love with the moron taking 40 mile per hour softballs to the head - ” Lavender gestured at Seamus who was doing just that - “I would already be in your pants,” Lavender assured him.

“You’re a little too earnest for me, if I’m being honest,” said Parvati. “And you’re a dude, so no. But if you dated one of my friends, I wouldn’t tell her she could do better than you.”

“Yeah,” said Ron, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Astoria, you should take me back. I’m not as good of a catch as a guy that tries to achieve CTE for fun but at least Parvati won’t shit talk me behind my back.”

The girls giggled. “Ron, I know it hurts that she didn’t feel the same about you but truly, you are better off. She was just flat out wrong. You’re smart, you’re accomplished, everyone likes you. She’s a snob looking for a certain name to hyphenate behind hers. Just like her sister,” Parvati insisted, pointing at the People magazine in front of her.

Ron peered over her shoulder. There was a color shot of Astoria’s sister Daphne, her hand ensconced in the hand of a dark haired man, walking the sidewalks of New York.

“Is that the Kennedy Taylor Swift dated?” asked Lavender. The two girls' voices faded in the background as he read and reread the caption.

Third year Princeton Law.

This is what Astoria was talking about. Her sister was dating some east coast prep school guy who went to a fancy university. In some ways, he got it. That need to live up to your siblings’ accomplishments or better yet, surpass them. He certainly felt it himself.

Bill, with his gorgeous French wife, was on the executive track at a financial firm. Charlie, with his easygoing personality, had somewhat accidentally launched a successful YouTube channel about his wildlife adventures in Asia. Percy, who had somehow managed to weather the civil servant storm and was on his third presidential administration at the IRS. Fred and George had their plans and Ginny knew she’d go early in the next National Women’s Soccer League draft if she didn’t opt to play soccer professionally overseas.

And Ron had had Astoria. The thought of a good life with a good job supporting an amazing and ambitious woman was exactly what he wanted. But she needed a little more. She needed someone that could prove they played at her level and bring a little flash and substance, like Daphne’s fiancé did.

He stared at the picture. Ron couldn’t get the Kennedy name. But he could wear a fucking rugby shirt and throw gel in his hair and...

“That’s it!” Ron shouted.

“What?” both girls asked, startled.

“I’m going to Harvard Law,” he announced.

Both girls stared. “Seamus, sweetie?” called Lavender. “Bring your batting helmet. He’s got some brain damage and we need to protect his skull from further harm.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Ha ha. So Astoria’s a little… materialistic and thinks about optics. Everyone Is flawed. And Lav, you said yourself that I’m a nine. How does law school, hell, Harvard Law School, not get me to a ten?”

“What’s going on?” asked Ginny. They’d abandoned the cages at Lavender’s call.

“I’m going to law school,” Ron announced proudly.

“Why?” asked George.

“Ron, no. You loved your internship. You have three job offers doing what you enjoy. This is fucking insane,” Fred insisted.

“You can’t give up free beer,” Seamus added.

“Maybe I’ll love law school,” Ron reasoned. “And if I don’t, I don’t have to finish. It’ll be enough to prove to Astoria I can get into Harvard - ”

“Harvard?” George asked.

“—And not embarrass her. The jobs I enjoyed have regulatory aspects to them so hey, a semester of law school can only help, right?”

“This is asinine,” Parvati said.

“Free beer,” whined Seamus.

“Holy shit,” cried Ginny, flashing her phone towards them. “Have you seen the cost of tuition?” She flashed it to George before Ron snatched the phone out of her hand.

“How the fuck are you going to pay for that?”

Ron cringed. “It’s not going to be my proudest moment. but I’ve got an idea.”

********************

“Hi, Auntie,” Ron said, as he followed the maid into the giant sitting room.

“Ronald,” Muriel greeted. They stood looking at each other awkwardly a moment. “Well, sit down. You,” she barked at the maid. “Bring us some drinks.”

“Right away, ma’am,” the maid scurried off.

Ron and his siblings came from fairly blue collar roots on both sides of the family. In fact, they were the first to attend college. The cost had made it out of reach for his mother and father to attend themselves. Mom’s brothers had planned to take advantage of the GI Bill but unfortunately were casualties of the first Gulf War. After that, Muriel had set up education trusts for her great niece and nephews with the $20,000 incentive. While his mom and dad had always refused any other financial help from Muriel, education was just too important to pass up.

Muriel had money to burn. Unbelievably, she’d been the trophy wife of an oil billionaire 35 years older than her back in her heyday and other than maintaining her estate, caring for at least 6 dogs at any given time and keeping a steady supply of brandy, she mostly just spent her money on controlling whatever family and non-profits she could sink her claws into.

“So,” said Muriel as the maid returned with a snifter of brandy for each of them. “I assume you’ve come for an advance on your graduation gift. When I saw your mother last month, she said things were quite serious between you and that Greengrass girl.”

“Uh, not exactly. See Aunt Muriel, I’ve had a change to my course of studies.”

“You’re almost done and NOW you realize that culinary arts will earn you pennies?”

“No,” he gritted his teeth. “Not culinary arts. It’s food science. It has to do with the biochemistry of food systems and preservation.”

Muriel snorted. “And you’ve decided that since pioneer women had canning figured out, there was nothing further for you to do.”

“Actually, I’ve decided to attend law school.”

“Law school?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Harvard Law.”

“You think you’re going to Harvard Law?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Why?”

“Why-why do I want to go?” Ron responded. He wasn’t sure if his reason would impress Muriel much.

“No, why do you think you’ll get in?”

It was a fair question. Before college, he had never been an over achiever. That had started with the CULA soccer coach coming to see Ginny play during the spring of her junior year. He’d joined the coach, his parents and Ginny at the house after the meet and delivered the disappointing news that the only event he’d qualified for in the district meet was the 3200 meter. While his family looked sympathetic, the coach smiled and said, “Yes, I’d expect that you’d be a great distance runner. My husband coaches cross country at CULA. Could I give him your name?”

No one had ever expected him to be great at anything.

He won the state title in his division for 3200 meter that year and went on to win the conference title twice at college.

And once he proved himself there, people expected he’d be good at chemistry and they expected he’d be a good president of the house and good at fundraising. And he was. Doing what he was expected to do worked.

But now, they all expected him to give up on the love of his life.

“Just… want to do the unexpected.”

“You know I’m on the board of the local humane society?”

“Uh, I guess,” said Ron. He was actually clueless to her old biddy affairs.

“I understand you raised $12,000 for us at the end of last year.”

“Me and the rest of the guys,” he answered.

“Violet Pullen led me to believe it was mostly your doing.”

Ron shrugged. “I was the one who knew how to brew the beer. And it wasn’t that hard to get the permissions to bottle it and sell it and stuff. The other guys got it promoted for the most part.”

Muriel looked at him appraisingly before she chuckled dryly. “Bring me an acceptance letter and I’ll cut a check.”

*************************

“What the hell is all this?”

Ron glanced up from the stack of study guides he was perusing to answer the twins. “LSAT study guides.”

Fred groaned. “Are you still on this?”

“Of course,” Ron said. “My advisor said I need like, a 173 on the LSAT to be seriously considered.”

“Why would they consider a food science major?”

Ron shrugged. “I have a 3.89 GPA. And Stori’s a philosophy major.”

“But that makes sense,” George said.

“How?” challenged Ron.

“Dunno. I guess because philosophy is a snob subject that’s totally useless without at least a graduate degree.”

Ron ignored them.

“And how are you paying for this?”

“Muriel will cover tuition if I get in. I’ll live at home this summer and I’ve got a couple technician jobs I can take that my degree makes me more than qualified for, plus some catering gigs. I figure that’ll be enough to get through the school year.”

“Ron,” Fred said. “Bro, you like your life. Why change it for some girl?”

“I’m getting fucking tired of this. She’s not some girl. I’m in love with her. She’s the one and I just need to show her I’m worthy of her.”

“You ARE worthy of her,” George insisted.

“Then it’ll be easy to prove, right?” said Ron.

The twins looked at each other and sighed.

“Here, take my lucky pencil for the exam. It helped me pass Spanish.” Fred held out the writing instrument to Ron.

“You passed Spanish because you gave Professor Trewlaney a lap dance,” George reminded him.

“Yeah. Luckily.”

“That’s sexual harassment,” said Ron.

“It is?” asked Fred.

“Yeah, it’s called quid pro quo. She should be fired for that.”

“Well hot damn, Ronnie,” said George. “Maybe you’re set for this law school stuff after all.”

“The exam is the least of my worries. I need a two page essay, professor recommendations, and a ‘personal statement’ of some sort. I’ve never been great at selling myself,” he admitted.

“Well Georgie,” said Fred with a grin. “Looks like you just found the subject of your senior marketing project.”

***************************************

“Well,” said Horace Michaels, rubbing his face and looking at his fellow panel members. “That was certainly something.”

“The video was a lot but… I like him,” said Veda Kasyor. “He’s a college athlete and president of his fraternity while carrying a high GPA.”

“Oh, is he an athlete Veda? Did the shirtless jogging footage tip you off?”

“He was also brewing beer in his frat basement.”

“He’s a food science major.”

“And he sold that beer on campus as a Humane Society fundraiser.”

“Who produced this video? Pretty heavy handed with the studying in the library footage,” Richard scoffed.

“He’s got a 3.89 GPA and he got a 177 on the LSAT. He probably studies.”

“Was he playing chess naked in the video?”

“It was his opponent who wasn’t wearing clothes - I believe it was strip chess.”

“If we’re looking for diversity - ”

“A white man’s not it.”

“Typically, no but he’s got, what, 6 siblings? Dad’s a mailman, Mom’s a parapro. He’s not some trust fund legacy case.”

“He had internships with two major corporations. And his resume shows part-time jobs since he was 16.”

“I’m concerned about his course of study. Food science is the hard sciences. Is he going to be equipped to handle position statements?”

“His personal essay was well-written and compelling, plus he minored in business. His Business Strategy prof had a glowing recommendation.”

“Ron Weasley… welcome to Harvard.”

#au romione #ron and hermione #romione fanfic #ron weasley #ron x hermione #romione #ron weasley defense squad #hp fanfic #muggle au

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shadow-manor · 1 year ago

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Since this gets reblogged a lot with just the link to the original thread, and since Twitter is a dumpster fire and the original thread might die a horrible death at any moment, here's a text copy of the whole thing. ---------------

I see the "AO3 should let us make money" takes are going around again, so as a copyright attorney, I'd like to again provide some information about fanfiction and fair use.

In the US, the reason we can create fanworks without getting sued is the fair use doctrine. A lot of you are probably familiar with this - it allows us to use existing IP in limited contexts (i.e., when the work is "transformative")

What most people don't know about fair use is that it's an affirmative defense. An affirmative defense is used when you DID violate the law, but the law provides exceptions where that's okay.

All fanworks are infringing by default. When you invoke the fair use defense, you're saying, "Yes, I did infringe on this copyright, but it's okay because x, y, and z."

I think this is something a lot of authors and artists don't realize.

When you write fanfiction or draw fanart, you are engaging with someone's copyrighted work. You're allowed to do this, but you have to understand that you're doing it with certain rules that need to be followed.

Two of the big factors in determining whether you can use the fair use defense are:

whether you were paid

how much of the original work you used

The 1st is obvious. It's HUGE.

The 2nd is, unfortunately, why fanart is generally more acceptable than fanfic when it comes to copyright. Fanart captures a single moment while fanfic uses characters, settings, themes, etc. It's more drawn out.S

So saying "but fanartists make money!" doesn't work. The analysis is completely different - fair use is a balancing test, and writing v. art tips the scales in different directions.

Do I agree with this? No. Fanwriters should be able to make money! But that's how the law is.

Back to the 1st factor. There are a lot of creators who are fine with fanworks now, but they're Only fine with it because fanfic is free. If that changes, we would most likely see more lawsuits.

As a non-profit, AO3 is able to face the world and say "all our fanfic is free."

Their policy is in place so that they're able, in good faith, to certify that all of the fanfiction on their site is unpaid. It's a MASSIVE boost for the fair use defense. It means that if anyone sues the site or an author on the site, they'll have a much harder time of winning.

I won't tell you not to include ko-fi in your twitter bios or to tweet fanfic links with tip jars, I just want everyone to understand why ao3 has this policy.

Because heres one other thing more people could understand: lawsuits are EXPENSIVE. Especially copyright suits.

It's really a gray area what's allowed and what isn't in terms of fanworks, but the point is, if someone sues you and you win, it could still cost you A LOT OF MONEY.

What ao3 is doing isn't only to protect you legally, it's to make sure that no one even TRIES to sue you. So yes, they are being more cautious than the law necessarily requires, but in this case, caution is a very good thing.

(this thread is for educational purposes only, it's not intended to be legal advice, etc.)

This is already getting some RTs so: I'm a fanfic author myself, but I also write original fiction!

You can read my LGBTQ+ fantasy detective series for free at http://sheridanbell.substack.com 💜

(Another addendum, sorry: as I'm licensed in the US and ao3 is us-based, this is all focused on US law).

A great addition for folks outside of the US:

@ting_jz Adding to thread as an Aussie lawyer who does a lot of ©: fair use does not apply around the world. Australia, Canada, UK and other jurisdictions use fair DEALING which is narrower than American fair use exception. That means even less legal room for error and risk taking.

Fair use: four factors to weigh up, one of which is how your fanfic affects the potential market or value of the ©work.

Fair dealing: your fanfic must be done for a very specific purpose listed in legislation (eg, criticism/review) and also be fair in all the circumstances

The certain rules for engaging in fan creation are both legal rules under copyright, and "industry standard" ie what the professional creators and media folk who own the IP find acceptable.

Fan creators using intellectual property for fun and little to zero💰is much easier for IP owners to ignore or even tacitly accept.

Start making serious money from or negatively impacting intellectual property—not just © but also ™️—and the lawyers will send cease and desists.

The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids. You won’t like what happens next.

#ao3 #fanworks #fair use

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lifeinahole27 · 5 years ago

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CS ff: “Walking the Tightrope” (Chapter 10/10) (au)

Summary: Killian’s daily routines are a matter of habit. When he wakes up late one morning, his routines all change for the better. Emma doesn’t care about routines, but she does care about Killian, no matter how reluctant she is to admit it to herself.

Rating: E (the content warnings matter this time!)

Content Warnings: Everything from the previous chapter applies as far as the Walsh business is concerned. Other than that, a very tame chapter.

A Special Thank You: My continued gratitude to my lovely friends, @captainstudmuffin and @phiralovesloki. And a heap of love to @captainswanbigbang for putting this together and helping me accomplish this.

A/N: So, this is the last main chapter. There is an epilogue which I will post on Sunday, and then this grand adventure will be wrapped up! Thanks for being with me on this ride and for any comments, reblogs, and likes. I’m thankful beyond words. <3

Find it on Ao3 & FFN!

-x-

Chapter 10: Snowshine

Walsh still looks exactly the same as the last time she was here. Emma tries her best to keep her stomach calm when all she wants to do is throw up on his face, projecting an outward cool that she doesn’t feel as he enters the room and looks up at her.

“What the - Emma? What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”

“Taking back what’s rightfully mine,” Emma says, gesturing to the box of pictures sitting on the bed beside her.

“Oh no, sweetheart. I would hardly call all of those yours.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart, asshole.”

Through all of this, James has been watching a progress bar load on the computer screen. With a noise of victory, he looks back to her.

“There you go, Emma. All done.”

“You brought David with you? Mr. Wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly?”

“Oh, buddy, believe me. You’re gonna wish I was David by the end of this. Good job hosting a whole website with a bunch of non-consensual photos on it. But shame on you for making it so easy to break into.”

“You have another brother?”

“Didn’t I ever tell you that David was an identical twin?”

At the little jingle that plays from the desk, he tries to push James out of the way. “What did you do to my computer?”

“Gave it a little tune up,” James tells him, crossing his arms with pride as a little unicorn marches into the center of the screen.

All three of them watch with rapt attention as the unicorn stands and waves, before squatting.

“Oh my god,” Emma says, bursting out in laughter as the unicorn defecates in the shape of an artfully written “fuck you” in rainbow colors.

After a couple seconds, the whole thing emits a screeching noise and shuts off with a loud pop.

“All your buddies that subscribed to your email list got something pretty similar. I mean, I don’t know if they’ll all open it but with the heading ‘Check out the brand new section!’ I’m willing to bet a lot of dudes are about to lose their computers.”

Walsh finally makes it around James, desperately trying to turn on his computer but nothing happens when he hits the button. “All of my business files were on there.”

“You kept all your shit on your personal computer? Wow. You’re even dumber than I thought.” James turns towards Emma on the tail of that thought. “You ready?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Emma responds, picking up the box of photographs and handing it over to James. They manage to make it out of the bedroom before Walsh must come to his senses, and he’s after them immediately.

His hand closes around Emma’s arm, and she spins around. On instinct, Emma swings as she breaks the hold. And while James misses taking a snapshot of that hit, he doesn’t miss the one where Emma knees him in the nuts hard enough to bring him to his knees.

“I have the perfect new image for the welcome screen on his trash web page,” James says as Emma backs away. He holds the phone out for her to see and she just barely stops herself from cracking up. “Here, take this. I’ll be right behind you.” He hands over the box, gently ushering her towards the door.

She doesn’t go far, leaving the door cracked just enough to hear what James has to say to Walsh.

“Here’s the deal, you Wizard of Oz-looking monkey piece of shit. All of the accounts for that website are completely wiped out. All that money you made off of people like my sister? That money is so far offshore that you’ll never be able to trace it ever again. Got it?”

“I’ll call the cops,” Walsh says weakly.

“You won’t. You have no evidence. And if you try to do that, or ever try to do this again, I will screw up your whole life. We’re in a digital age now, Walsh Whitney Covington. I have everything of yours now. Personal records, social media, bank accounts, the password to your pretentious little LinkedIn page that lists you as a connoisseur of wood, which… come on, man.”

“That’s all illegal,” he whines back, and Emma is mostly just enjoying the snivelling tone in his voice.

“Yeah? And? I’m sure Emma signed a consent form for those pictures you had posted of her, right? You had her sign away her financial freedoms for the profits on it, too? Don’t ever fuck with our family ever again or you’ll regret it.”

After a couple more minutes of silence, James exits the apartment and gives her a bright smile.

“Now, that was a fun afternoon with my brother. See? We should bond like this more often,” Emma says as they make their way out of the building and back down to where he parked his car.

“Yeah yeah, don’t get used to it. Jack would kill me if she found out this is how I spent my day.”

“You’re still with Jack?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I did marry her, after all. She wanted to wait until she made partner to have a baby and so I switched gears and became a stay-at-home dad after she went back from maternity leave. It helps to have a super lawyer as your wife.”

“None of the words that just came out of your mouth are what I was expecting when I called you about all this.”

“Well, it’s not like I send out Christmas cards with updates on the family,” James says, a little resignation in his voice.

“Did you really take all the profits from the website?”

“And refunded the money you spent on that settee you bought there back before you started dating.”

Just as he says it, Emma’s phone dings with a notification. There’s a message from her bank saying there’s been a deposit into her account. Looking at the numbers, it’s way more than what she paid for the moderately priced item, but James shrugs.

“Maybe I got the numbers backwards in my head. Added an extra digit. Whatever. So you mentioned earlier that you have a boyfriend? You haven’t changed your status on Facebook.”

“You follow my social media?”

“Just because I don’t let any of you know about what’s going on in my life doesn’t mean I don’t check up on you.”

“Well, I’m supposed to be at a Christmas party for his company down in New York but someone insisted we do this today.”

He rolls his eyes as he opens his door and climbs into the driver’s seat. No sooner is she seat-belting in when another notification chimes on her phone.

“Did you seriously just buy me a plane ticket to New York City?”

“I’ll hand all of that over to David,” James says, indicating the box she placed in the backseat. “Besides, he and I are severely overdue for a brotherly chat.” Without another word, he starts a route for the airport.

“When was the last time you had one of those? When you were fifteen?”

“Something like that. Hey, text him and let him know what’s going on. I should be back there in about an hour but I don’t want him to worry.”

She shakes her head, doing as he asked and sending a message to David.

As they pull up outside the airport, Emma turns to James. “So, what do I still owe you?”

“Nothing. I got the cash he had stashed in his desk, all the money from his subscription side of the website, and free childcare for the evening after Jack gets home from the office today.”

“Did you tell David that yet?”

“No, but I will. And you know he will - he’s David. Go on,” he tells her when they arrive a short time later. “Enjoy the party.”

“Okay then. And hey, thanks for all your help. I couldn’t imagine doing that with anyone else.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, Emma?”

Her door is open and she’s just about to climb out when he says her name.

“It was nice seeing you,” he admits.

She leans in quickly and hugs him, noting how familiar yet utterly foreign it feels. “Come visit us sometime,” she tells him as she pulls away. She stands there until his car pulls away and he’s out of view before she walks through the doors.

Somehow, James managed to get her the perfect flight so she had enough time to get through security, although she looks suspicious as hell going in with nothing but her purse, if you ask her. It’s still considered early when she lands in the city, but with nothing else with her, she has to get party-ready with nothing but the money in her bank account. Thanks to James, there’s a little bit extra to play with in there.

Emma feels like she should be in some cheesy movie montage as she struggles to find everything she’ll need to get ready. Hair and makeup come first, and she’s thankful the salon isn’t far from a decent looking clothing shop or else her charges in cab fares alone would’ve gotten out of hand.

The dress she finds is perfect - a sleek, black number that doesn’t fit too tight but that doesn’t hide her shape. It’s similar enough to the dress she was planning on wearing to this, the one she borrowed from Ruby as a first-date possibility but put aside in favor of the soft pink she wore instead. She admires the whole look in the mirror as the shop attendant helps her clip tags after Emma pays. She buys two pairs of shoes - a cute pair of cutout ankle boots and a pair of flats - in anticipation of the point in the party where she’ll want to feel her toes again.

It’s only once she’s fully satisfied with the total picture that she heads out, making sure everything she wore down here is tucked securely into the weekender bag the attendant helped her pick out.

This time, she opens the rideshare app for a little more comfort, and then it’s off to the Manhattan Penthouse to finally get to where she wants to be.

-x-

Tucking away the knowledge that Robin just gave him, Killian settles into his seat with only a lone glance at the empty chair beside him. He has Henry on his other side, and the rest of the Mills-Hood family in the remaining seats. They’ve not even begun when he receives a sharp, bony elbow to the side.

“Hey,” Henry whispers as he leans close. “Isn’t that Emma?”

He turns his head, glancing in the direction Henry is pointing, and his breath catches. Sure enough, Emma is standing there in a black dress that surely should be illegal to look so good in. Her hair and makeup are all done, and she’s scanning the room. It takes another elbow to his ribs for Killian to finally stand up, waving over his girlfriend and attempting to wipe the surprise off his face while he does.

“Hi! Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re just in time, actually. I’m so… don’t get me wrong, Swan, but I never expected you’d be able to make it.” He leans forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek and taking a moment to soak up her closeness.

“Yeah, well, sometimes when you make a deal with the devil to take down satan, you get what you want faster than you expected,” she says, and while he doesn’t fully understand, he knows he’ll get the full story later.

He pulls out her chair for her, pushing it in as she sits. “I do believe we all know one another,” he says to the table at large. “I’d told them to cancel your meal, so excuse me while I get that turned around.”

“Emma! I’m so glad you’re here!” Henry who’d been sitting on his right, beams from ear to ear as he slides over to talk to her.

“Hi Henry. Everyone. Glad I could make it.”

Hearing her voice and the animated conversation that sparks up between her and Henry immediately calms his nerves for the evening, and he hastens to find one of the caterers so he can return to the table.

By the time their dinner is served, he’s noticed no less than four times Henry has pulled out his iPod to jot down something in his notes. He smiles as he watches it happen, watches the gears turn in the lad’s head and the magic take root. He manages to keep it in his pocket for the entirety of the meal, but he’s pretty sure that was due to a questioning look from Regina right as the salads were placed in front of them.

With the rest of the table occupied with their desserts, Killian takes a moment to lean over, keeping his voice low as he whispers in her ear. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” she says, a satisfied little smile on her face. There’s been a peace evident on her face since the moment she walked in, and he’s intrigued but enjoying it. She was never too tightly wound to begin with, apart from the times she got stuck in her own head. This, he assumes, is due to the business with her ex being all wrapped up.

After the dishes have been cleared, Killian rests in his seat for a bit. There’s still a lot more networking he’ll have to do, but for now he takes the time to relax as he and Robin discuss strategy for announcements. He’s in the middle of helping figure out the order when Emma’s hand creeps onto his thigh. His words falter for a moment, and he can see Emma’s smile get just a little wider.

When her hand travels a little higher, he reaches down, knowing full well that his ears and cheeks are both bright with flush, and takes a moment when Robin is asking Henry a question to fully turn to her.

“Have pity on me,” he whispers, pulling her hand to his lips to place a kiss on the back of it, and she laughs quietly, turning her palm to link her fingers with his.

“Just this one time,” she concedes, settling in with their hands clasped.

-x-

Walking into the venue, Emma is momentarily overwhelmed. She forgot that the Storybrooke office isn’t the whole team, and that a lot of the authors would be there, so there’s just a sea of people as far as she can see across the space. But then Killian stands up, her eyes finding his as he waves her over.

And it’s halfway between where she is and where he’s waiting that it hits her full in the gut: She is in love with Killian. She is so in love with that man that she can hardly stand it. He has never once looked at her differently or placed unrealistic expectations on her - he never set out to hurt her.

There, with the lights of the chandeliers glittering overhead, and the backdrop of the city getting dusted in snow, Emma realizes that she is looking at the man she wants to spend all of her time with if she can. Her heart squeezes, even as she smiles and accepts the kiss he places on her cheek as they settle in.

It’s the first time she’s ever been to a party like this, and she has to think it’s going pretty well. While Killian is occupied with his duties, Emma offers to watch Roland so Regina can go with Robin as he makes rounds to greet everyone. Emma follows him as he drags her from one end of the penthouse to the other, eager to show her anything and everything he can.

By the end of the night, her feet hurt and she’s all too happy to get her belongings from the coat check room so she can slip on the flats she bought. She’s leaning against the wall, innocently trying to pry her feet out of the booties when Killian comes up behind her, his hand warm through the material of her dress and his voice hot in her ear.

“Are you trying to kill me tonight?”

“I’m just trying to change my shoes. It’s not my fault your eyes automatically go to my ass when you approach me.”

He looks affronted when she turns to look at him, a smile hiding behind the expression.

“Besides,” she says, “I just can’t wait for you to get me out of this dress.”

“I’m ordering us a car right now.”

It’s amazing; she knows he prefers the quiet and solitude of their little town, but he performs so well in the city - like he was built to live here - and she loves that he chooses not to. They’re both on their best behavior in the car, but Killian purposely sat on her left so his hand can rest on her knee. Rather than spiking that part in her that’s always game for another round of sex, though, it reignites her thoughts from when she entered the party and she stares at him in the dark as the city lights pass them by.

When he notices, he turns to her with a peaceful look on his face, and they smile at each other. “What?” he asks, his fingers tightening once.

“Nothing,” she replies, taking the moment to rest her head on his shoulder for the rest of the journey. “Tonight was great.”

Back at the hotel, they at least manage to settle a bit before Killian follows through with her request, with both of them sighing as the dress slips from her shoulders and drops lightly to the floor. They take their time, slow and languid, savoring each moment with each other.

“I know I’ve said this plenty of times, but I am so happy you were able to make it,” Killian tells her as their skin is still cooling. She needs to go wash the makeup from her face but she’s not quite sure her legs will function in order to do so.

“Me too.” She stares at him, her eyes roaming his face and sinking into the wonder that has been the last three months of her life, thanks to this man.

“What is it?” he asks, his expression serious as he tries to figure out what she’s thinking.

“I… want to thank you for everything. You went into this without knowing and you still haven’t pushed me to talk about what happened or anything and so I just… wanted to say thanks.”

His smile falters, still there but just a touch disappointed that the words weren’t the ones he was expecting after she set it up to be something else, and she knows how it feels. Her thumb strokes along his cheek, pushing at his smile briefly as she leans in to kiss him.

Maybe next time, she thinks as she moves to the bathroom to clean up before climbing back into bed. Outside, the city keeps moving on as their world slows for sleep.

-x- December 21: Saturday

As usual, Killian is the one that wakes up first. He sets about ordering breakfast and jumps in the shower in the interim. Emma is awake and sitting up in bed when he comes back out, and he leans over the bed to kiss her good morning.

“David texted me that he’s on his way home. He has everything we took from Walsh and he’s going to drop it off at my place.”

“That’s certainly good news. Even better news is I have coffee and breakfast being delivered soon.”

She chuckles at that. “Perfect. I wish I had more clothes with me, but I suppose yesterday’s will be fine.”

“My luggage is yours, love. I always pack extra just in case, so help yourself.”

Which seemed like a good idea, until Emma walks out of the bathroom after her own shower in one of his button up shirts, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her supple form filling out the garment better than he ever could.

They eat breakfast in bed, the curtains flung open wide to let in the weak, winter sunshine. As they graze their food, Emma books her ticket for their return to Storybrooke, crowing in victory when she scores a seat on Killian’s flight.

“I’ll text David and see if he can pick us up,” Emma tells him when they’re getting ready for their outside adventure, pulling her hat securely over her ears and wrapping her scarf around her neck.

They brave the cold to hit some of the popular winter activities in the city, taking in the Christmas markets and strolling Fifth Avenue. In the early evening, they meet up with Robin, Regina, and the two boys again to enjoy dinner together. With the pressure from the night before long gone, they talk instead of the upcoming holidays.

It’s clear that Henry is willing to keep the magic alive for Roland, asking the younger boy what he’s planning on asking for Christmas when they go to see Santa after the meal is over. When Killian catches Henry’s eye a short bit later, the lad smiles and gives him a thumbs up.

After dinner, they set out on their own again to see the Rockefeller tree in person. They stand there, watching the lights twinkle and the skaters on the rink until neither of them can feel their toes and their noses are bright red.

Sinking into their hotel bed that night, Killian makes sure to set his alarm, but Emma grabs for it before he can set it down.

“Just wanted to double check. Wouldn’t want to miss your alarm or anything,” she says, that smile hidden in the corner of her mouth.

“Cheeky woman,” he says quietly, making sure to kiss her hard and lovely before they each burrow under the covers.

There’s another message from David waiting for Emma when they wake up letting her know they’ll be there to pick them up. Thankfully, with no luggage, their disembarking process is much faster and they’re able to get out of the departure door right as David and Snow pull up.

While they go their separate ways when they get back to town, he and Emma have a standing appointment for later in the afternoon to take everything that was acquired from Walsh’s apartment to send it off properly, as she did with her uniform.

He sets to work on a mission, unpacking his bag and stripping off his dirty clothes to throw everything in his hamper. There’s still time before he meets with Emma, but since he’s been out of town since Friday, he’s behind on his weekend duties and he knows he’ll feel better if he takes the time to do it now rather than waiting. He throws his clothes in the wash, opting for warmer clothes for their task ahead. Instead of sitting around and waiting for the machine to be done, he takes the time instead to pack a picnic of sorts for the task ahead of them. Those items and a blanket all go into a tote bag he got from the last publishing conference he attended.

Shortly after his laundry is folded and put away, Emma breezes through the door with a large box in her arms.

“Ready?”

“Aye, just let me grab my keys.”

He locks the door behind them on their way out, and then they make their way to the beach closest to his flat. There’s a fire pit that was built ages ago, large stones surrounding it and a fresh pile of logs that Killian would place money on betting that David set it up for them.

As he sets to work lighting the fire, he hands Emma the tote to start unpacking their items. She hums happily as she finds the soup, and again when she opens the second thermos that has the hot chocolate. He’s just finishing with his task when he turns to see her pouring the drink into each mug he brought, and raises an eyebrow as she tips a generous amount of whiskey into each one.

She shrugs when she sees his look. “Believe me, I’m going to need it,” she says after a sip to taste-test.

They stay on the beach much longer than most people would in December, with fresh snow occasionally falling around them. But they make sure each individual picture makes it into the fire. As delicately as they can, they remove them from the box, and he hands a stack face-down to Emma for her to fold each picture so he can feed it into the fire.

She sets the thumb drive on the rocks around the pit, making sure to give it a solid stomp before throwing that in as an afterthought.

“I’m sure it’s terrible for the environment but I need that thing wiped from existence.”

When each item has met its demise, including the box it was all packed away in, Emma puts out the fire using every precaution he’s sure David taught her.

Back in the comforting warmth of his place, Killian pulls out every blanket he owns and waits for Emma to come out of his bedroom from getting changed into pajamas. He piles them on top of her, going to change his own clothes before joining her on the couch. He holds her while she processes the whole thing - some anger and tears, some relief, until she falls asleep on Killian’s shoulder and he has to shift around until they can both stretch out.

He doesn’t fall asleep until long after she does, whispering a quiet “I love you” against her hair before he finally falls asleep, as well.

-x- December 23: Monday

They’re still on the couch when Emma wakes up, if only just barely. She’s facing Killian, her back pressed against the couch, with Killian’s arm looped over her waist. She’s just opening her eyes when she hears his gasp and then he’s teetering off the edge. Now wide awake, she peers down to see Killian wincing on the floor.

“Are you okay?”

“Just peachy, love,” he grumbles, rubbing his head where it smacked on the floor. She’s stifling laughter when he leans up and kisses her softly. “Good morning to you, my sweet couch hog.”

“We could’ve moved at any time. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because I love you and wanted you to rest more than I cared about my own comfort,” he responds, only realizing as he finishes speaking that he may have said too much. His eyes, wider and brighter blue than she’s ever seen them, meet her steady gaze.

“I love you, too. But that’s a little dramatic of a reason for why you’re now on the floor.”

“I’d go to the ends of the earth for you. Or time. This time just happens to be on my remarkably uncomfortable area rug.” She can’t help the laugh that slips out this time and she runs her hands through his hair. Hangover be damned, she loves this man so much.

“Thanks again for last night. I was a bit of a mess,” she says, even though it feels like a vast understatement to what she actually was the day before. He waves his hand to dismiss her words.

“Sometimes, we just need to throw a mini-rager and burn a bunch of illegally obtained pornographic materials. You sure we’ll never need any of that as evidence in case there’s some kind of criminal investigation?”

“James was pretty clear with Walsh about what would happen to him if he tried to pursue legal action. Not only that, but every picture on the website has been removed and the only thing that pops up when the site is unlocked now is a picture of Walsh clutching his junk with an expression of pain on his face.”

“I wish I could’ve been there to see you make that hit,” Killian admits, pushing up off the cushion to stand. “Come, love, let’s sail away to the kitchen where I can recite dirty poetry to you and make you breakfast.”

She laughs as she takes his hand, because while he doesn’t recite dirty poetry, he does make her breakfast and convince her to play hooky with him for the day. And when he takes her to bed a short time later, he infuses her skin with the words of his love over and over again.

It’s the first time in years he doesn’t stick to any kind of routine at all, and they’re both perfectly okay with that.

-x-

Epilogue

#captain swan #cs ff au #captain swan ff #sarah writes ff #csrt

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justmeandmythoughtson · 5 years ago

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If you don't understand why AO3 needs so much money, here's a few pointers.

First: the difference between making a website and making AO3.

Making a website - like a Carrd - means that you're storing a tiny bit of information on someone else's hard drive, essentially. You might have organized it, but that information isn't being save to your computer - it's being saved to a central server. And you're paying the person who gave you server space in personal information, which they can sell for money to advertisers. OR, they put their own ads on your site, making money whenever someone opens your website.

Making a SERVER, however, means that you own ALL the hard drives that that information is stored on. It means you have to create code to allow outside individuals to access that information remotely. It means you have to create a website to let people accurately navigate your archive of information AND store that website data on that hard drive type thing.

You have to pay for maintenance, all the time, to make sure everything is working properly. And maintenance is physically fixing machinery and circuitry, not just fixing a few lines of code (though if you code you KNOW how annoying and time consuming finding the single issue can be) Like, did you know that the term "debugging" a computer refers to the fact that insects (used to) often nest in these giant computer storage units? And errors with programming would occur because of them, so people actually had to go through and search for the insects causing the problems? That's part of server maintenance - finding the loose connections or faulty lights in the maze of computer parts.

You also have to pay for massive air conditioning costs - have you heard your laptop fan kick on high and noisy when you're running a huge program or video game? Great, imagine that but it's a whole room or building of nothing but giant versions of your computer, just without the screens or anything associated with directly letting you look at the information coded into those machines. It gets HOT, so you need to keep it from overheating. Now imagine MILLIONS of people running that same program in different ways at the same time in the same computer. That's gotta be a HUGE computer to take that load without slowing down.

And, this server ALSO has to keep up with advancing technology! If it becomes obsolete, nobody can use it, and the archive becomes worthless, so it has to be updated every so often. That's more costs to deal with.

And then, you have to PAY people to do all this work! Being a non-profit doesn't mean that the professional coders who come in to fix an issue don't get paid. It doesn't mean that the maintenance crew that keeps the physical computer components running work for free. Non-profit means you're breaking even on costs and expenses and aren't actively trying to do anything but cover operating costs.

Sure, a LOT of people who work on AO3 put their time into this project without asking for anything in return. And we need to thank them for it. It's exceptional. But $300k to maintain a server with MILLIONS of users and millions of fanfics is NOT asking much. Hell. If we assume ten people and ONLY ten people are permanent AO3 staff, and that money ONLY goes to them, they're making 30k a year.

30k a year is LESS than the salary of someone with a 15$ an hour wage that works forty hour work-weeks, 52 weeks a year. That's barely a living wage. Hell, I'm not sure at this point I'd care if the people working in AO3's administration paid themselves from the leftover money, if there is any. They're maintaining an entire server! I mean, think about how much Jeff Bezos is making for doing something similar.

AND AO3 ISN'T EVEN ASKING FOR THAT MUCH MONEY. THEY'RE ASKING FOR 130k.

TL;DR

AO3 isn't a scam. It's a group of volunteers doing what is usually an immensely expensive thing on the cheap, and they're doing it on a massive scale. Sure, it's not Amazon. But it's huge and it's fan-owned. It's for us, by us, and you won't have to worry about your email address being sold for cheap to scammy advertisers to keep the site running.

And in addition: all this information is publicly available on AO3's front page. They not only post a breakdown of the budget, but they even post a link to the google doc that has all of their expenses and costs written out, plain as day.

And

if after reading all this shit, you STILL decide you don't like AO3 and that people shouldn't donate if they want to, well-

Fanfiction.net is right there.

AO3 isn't gonna change because you're whining about it. Either suck it up, or put your money where your mouth is and boycott the site.

Hypocrites

#pro shipping #pro ship #pro ao3 #ao3 discourse #ao3 diskhorse #tortalks #long post

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go-events · 5 years ago

Photo

GO Rom Com Spotlight: @racketghost

The fabulous @racketghost has claimed Zack and Miri Make a Porno to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s some information about the source material!

Synopsis of Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Lifelong friends and now roommates, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are buried under a mountain of debt. When the electricity is turned off, they realize that desperate times call for desperate measures. They decide to make an adult film to raise some cash. Though they swear that having sex will not damage their friendship, their business proposition quickly turns into something much more.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @racketghost (also racketghost on AO3) a little better!

* * *

goromcom: Here it comes, my silly tags question. You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post about "#aziraphale is baby and #ineffable husbands." I am DYING at that first one, because correct tag is correct!

racketghost: Oh my gosh, that is amazing. I use that tag an unholy amount. But I mean, he is baby, so—I think it’s warranted!

goromcom: You chose to adapt Zack and Miri Make a Porno as your rom com. I'd like to disclose to you at this time that I am the one who added that to the masterlist, and was secretly hoping someone would take it. And you have! :) Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

racketghost: AH! I remember when the prompts were being claimed and I think it was you who said OMG someone took Zack and Miri and I wanted to stand up and say, it was me. I’m the absolute loon! I am SO GLAD you added it to the master list. It’s an under-appreciated romance movie (I think because it gets covered up by all the wonderful, wonderful filth).

I will confess that I chose this movie because @summerofspock and I were chatting about which movies to take (I originally wanted Pretty Woman! Anyone who has read Strange Moons knows why) and we were discussing which movies would be the hardest to adapt. And then I sort of coughed up an idea for Zack and Miri and Summer went full supportive-cheerleader mode and pointed out that pining-while-also-having-sex is sort of my entire wheelhouse. The rest just clicked. She’s wonderful. <3 (I have also always loved the movie. I really adore Kevin Smith. It is my duty as a native of New Jersey!)

goromcom: What's your favorite moment of your chosen rom com, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share? (I will inline spoiler alert for the answer if it seems necessary.)

racketghost: I think my favorite part of my romcom isn’t necessarily a moment or a scene, it’s more that Zack and Miri are the very dearest and closest of friends that we get to see over and over again. They have a wonderful platonic intimacy that I think mirrors Crowley and Aziraphale very, very well. Lots of bickering and long-suffering sighs and many an eye-roll. But also a fierce protectiveness. Like, this is MY best friend and yes they are ridiculous but only I can say so. I hope to capture that intimacy!

goromcom: Do you plan to stick very closely to the story beats of the original movie, or make bigger changes?

racketghost: Oh no, my story is…. Very, very different from the original. It will follow the same story beats to a degree but I am flipping this from an ensemble cast thing into a just-the-two-of-them thing. So that’s a big change!

goromcom: What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

racketghost: Well, anyone who has read my other stories knows that I am clearly incapable of writing anything that isn’t hopelessly full of angst. So I have upped the stakes quite a bit and basically scrapped the entire mood of the movie. I also really twisted the idea of someone turning off the power, so to speak. There are bills to pay! It’s set in a canon-universe so they aren’t worrying about keeping the lights on. Basically, Zack and Miri Make a Porno but make it goth.

goromcom: I am blatantly stealing this last question from The Good Place: The Podcast, but here goes: Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

racketghost: Let me begin this by saying YOU are wonderful for managing this wild bunch and starting all of this. You are doing an awesome job and I really appreciate all the work you do for us!

Second, my dog Jackson is the goodest boy of all the good boys and I love him forever.

And third, I am a big fan (and so is Jackson) of a grass-roots organization called The Surfrider Foundation. I’m basically an unevolved ocean creature (when did I sprout these legs?) and I think the preservation of our oceans is one of the highest and most important campaigns we can all work toward. They do regular beach cleanups you can join in and they help preserve oceanic habitats, educate people on single-use plastics and residential water consumption, and champion making informed choices on sustainable seafood. They’re non-profit and staffed by some truly wonderful hardworking humans who just want to preserve this great, beautiful blue planet and all the things living in it. Crowley and Aziraphale would be fans, I think.

goromcom: Aww, thanks for that first bit. And Jackson and The Surfrider Foundation both sound amazing.

So GO fans, make sure to watch for...and I am giddy to be saying this...a canon-compliant adaptation of Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

#goromcom #good omens #goromcom spotlight #racketghost #zack and miri make a porno

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hergan416 · 1 year ago

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Ok, serious, genuine question.

Is there any way for tumblr to stop being a corporate run, for-profit website, and to become like AO3 [non-profit, no ads, clear mission statement, user-funded]?

I know that pictures, gifs, audio and video take a lot more space and money and maintenance than the text-based things AO3 stores, and that's why AO3 has you use embedded links to files hosted elsewhere if you want images or audio in your fic.

I know that this means we weren't profitable, and now it sounds like we are not worth maintaining.

It doesn't sound like they are trying to sell tumblr off, either, which I'm sure complicates things.

But this community is special. How many things are here that are no where else? How tragic would it be if we hit the iceberg when we can see it from miles away?

I like tumblr because I can make a post this long without having to break it up into tiny segments. I like tumblr because I understand the social norms. I like the way reblogging works compared to sharing posts on other websites. I like the people that are here and the friends I've made and the silly things we do for fun. I like tumblr holidays and destiel memes and ignoring things that involve making me feel guilty if I don't reblog them even though I agree with them otherwise out of spite.

I might be forced to upend my home someday. But I really don't want to.

Can't we buy the property off the landlords and make it our own?

To be clear, unless staff trips over the trail of extension cords keeping the servers running, Tumblr likely isn't going anywhere any time soon.

What the info we've seen suggests is that updates are going to slow down, maintenance is maybe going to get a little shaky, and we're going to see more glitches as time goes on and the remaining staff gets further behind their workload.

Is this a good thing? No, absolutely not.

Should you be panicking, jumping overboard, running for the hills, etc? Also no.

So what does it mean?

Well, for myself and several other creatives you all saw tagged in that post, it means we're looking around trying to figure out what to do in the long run. We're not running for the lifeboats. We're just eyeing the iceberg in the distance and getting our shit together in the event that the worst comes to pass.

Speaking for myself, I intend to crawl through the walls of Tumblr until they pry me out of the air vents armed with a broom and oven mitts. I'm not going anywhere until the lights go out, and even then, I'll be chewing on the wires.

But that doesn't mean I'm not looking around for somewhere to land when the time comes.

Myself and several others are not panicking about this, but we are trying to be organized about it.

I'm just old enough to remember when fandom websites being nuked overnight was a very real thing. You'd go to bed one night and wake up the next day to find friends you'd known for years were just gone with no means of contacting them because the site you'd been using got wiped. Entire collections of fandom history were just destroyed in the blink of an eye.

We don't want that again. And the good news is, we have time. We have time to back up our shit, time to swap contact info with our friends, and time to find a new place to exist within our communities while also staying here because Tumblr ain't dead yet.

She's just slowly going to wind down over time.

Unless, of course, they trip over the cables. Then we're fucked.

#rambling #tumblr

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exalok · 4 years ago

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whaddup my dudes!!!

i am tired and wired and this means brain no writey but brain VERY focused on absolutely all the fic i have going on at once that aren’t prompts (prompts will be incoming, no worries dissociation anon)

and THAT means y’all get to hear about my many. many. MANY projects, or at least the ones that make my heart go pitter patter when i think of them

a few examples: demon!corvo and priest!daud with extra worldbuilding ; the naptime cuddles AU ; corvo doesn’t come to dunwall so jess and daud end up arranged-married for profit (more info..... under the readmore..... i’m gonna get rambly)

also feel free to ask questions, i love questions and they get me thinking even more in depth about the world and specific instances of characters and that is the entire POINT

LIKE OKAY SO MY BRAIN PRETTY MUCH CONTINUOUSLY THROWS IDEAS AT THE WALL AND ABOUT 95% OF THEM STICK BECAUSE I’M A HOARDING RAT BASTARD i love my ideas they are my precioussss

i might have about. 25 fic more or less active at the moment? which sounds like a reasonable number but those are the ones i have an actual plot for as well as the will to get them out into the world

let’s put aside the ones i have actually posted on tumblr or ao3 (teen!daud, domestic zombie apocalypse, bondageverse, knife!corvo) in favor of those you have either no or little idea exist. begin:

I MEAN OBVIOUSLY I MADE FANFIC OF MY OWN FANFIC or as i call it parallel/companion fic, because at some point in the past a prompter inspired me and i was deep in the prince!daud fic at the time and i thought what if high chaos. what if void monster corvo? what if horrifying yet human creature of the depths!!! what if EVERYTHING was TERRIBLE and daud killed corvo as a last ditch and vain attempt to get his people out of burrows’ clutches, and it all went to shit from there??? also they’re bound by marriage contract and the vagaries of magical intention and daud becomes corvo’s life battery, in essence, which you can imagine leads to a very unhealthy relationship i think it’s not spoilering much to tell you it does NOT end well, and i’ll be writing it as a sort of foil to low chaos prince!daud

i have quite a few high chaos fics actually. high chaos is depressing to play but the story outcomes are DELICIOUS and the degrading world and character motivations are a lot of fun to play around in

weirdly enough another one of these high chaos fics is the naptime cuddles AU!!! i won’t lie it’s the one i am currently on and i want to talk about it to everyone so bad constantly. in short, corvo doesn’t kill daud and the whalers because he’s trying to get out and currently too fucked up to fight, and when he doesn’t manage to save emily despite his best efforts he comes back to daud for some kind of symbolic execution. meanwhile thomas convinced daud to take a goddamn nap with him there because daud, despite his paranoia, does sleep better with people around, and this is entirely an excuse for semi-platonic daudthomascorvo cuddles in bed followed by whaler puppypiles when the gang catches on that this is a thing they can do now I LOVE PUPPYPILE WHALERS I LOVE NAPS I LOVE REDEMPTION THROUGH THE POWER OF RESTORATIVE SLEEP please i’m so tired and i can’t actually fall asleep next to people let me live my dream vicariously additionally: this will be my contribution to the absolutely wonderful whaler vineyard of old fanon

there is also what i feel should be a classic and ISN’T though a couple of fics were written around the concept and one in particular is /chef kiss, and the concept is: high chaos corvo meets low chaos corvo!!!!! i made it a threesome with daud because no one can stop me and i fucking LOVE the idea of daud ending up capable of telling them apart through tiny details even when high chaos corvo, bastard that he is, tries to impersonate low chaos corvo, who is a bastard in much more subtle ways and would probably be better at impersonating hc!c than the other way around but finds it distasteful; also i added intense body horror because that’s how i roll and there are eventual magical CONSEQUENCES to hc!c being in the low chaos world and regularly in contact with what is essentially his narrative double when he doesn’t belong there, probably ends in a tragically bittersweet way, i’m not completely clear on it yet though i do have ideas

and oh man......... the time travel corvo fic.... the one where high chaos corvo ends up in his own seven-year-old body........... fuck i hashed out so much of the general worldbuilding for that one and ended up going way too far and imagining a sequel like i always do where corvo learns how to walk universes and gathers people he cares about from places where he can actually save them from their eventual tragic futures and the dissolution of their timelines once the outsider is ousted from the void and a new void avatar is made and SHENANIGANS YO!!! SHENANIGANS AND CAMPING!!!! SELF-CROSSOVERS!!!!!!! I COULD HAVE HIM MEET HIMSELF IF HE HADN’T TRAVELED BACK I’M CRYING I HAVE SO MANY EMOTIONS

the one where corvo is a fae child is probably a lil bit high chaos though it isn’t determined yet, and he has all of these instincts with regards to possessing and exchange and deals, and assumptions as to how other people must work approximately the same, and he is so wrong. then there’s the really creepy bad touch possible sequel that i won’t get into unless someone specifically asks because it’s a lil bit much really

oh MAN oh SHIT speaking of bad touch there’s another dead dove do not eat one where i grabbed an entire handful of granny rags’ apparent fucking around with magical arrays and rune creation and general spellery and threw it at corvo post-interregnum and he sees “ghosts” and doesn’t understand what the FUCK is going on and things go really badly for him, and one ghost, soon the only ghost, is daud, and corvo doesn’t know if he’s real, if he’s seeing things, if he’s NOT seeing things but daud is some kind of void demon, if he is and also having psychotic breaks he doesn’t remember because he ends up with some hellish bruises, but the real daud is actually still out there just hiding out and corvo will eventually meet up with him and real daud will meet fake daud and even more shit will happen

god, the demon!corvo AU gets pretty fucked up as well if i remember right; corvo is both some dude with a wife and kid and the demon that inhabits him, jess is his wife and the demon that inhabits her (to be clear, separate characters but both based on either jess or corvo oh my GOD what if i switched the demons that would be amazing but no, calm down, maybe for a short what-if scenario that will inevitably turn into its own thing), daud is the overseer with the really good exorcism record trying to get the demons to fuck off except he thinks there’s only one of them and the other takes him by surprise; cue daud being hunted by that demon, furious that daud shattered his favorite pupil, and some revelations about what exactly lives inside the abbey and also under it

on a somewhat lighter note, the one where corvo never comes to dunwall (i think his mom gets sick and he doesn’t win the blade verbena at sixteen?) is also where jess keeps losing her royal protectors to assassination attempts because the first one was decent and died protecting her and the second one was decent and had an accident and people start believing there’s a curse on the position or a curse on her, and she’s like okay so how do i make sure i don’t die now that no one is willing to become my protector since it’s pretty much a death sentence, and she arranges a meeting with the best assassin in the city and suggests an alliance -- protection and some commission overview, all secret, versus funding and housing -- in the form of a marriage and daud ends up agreeing; then later duke abele visits and corvo is among his personal guard and he gets to meet the empress, and the assassin, and there are ot3 shenanigans

oh my GOD also the kids in karnaca AU. obviously. fuck you may have seen the (dis)armingly charmed notefic but this would be them meeting as actual kids, in karnaca, just tiny babies, daud recently kidnapped and corvo doing his best to make this cool older kid into his friend and also maybe hiding him from the people who want to train him to do Illegal Things, and there are dumb childish arguments and daud goes on the run to avoid capture and there is an exchange of letters that at one point stops and corvo is Devastated and there is a REUNION and they are ADORABLE but also INCREDIBLY STUPID, AS IS RIGHT AND CORRECT, and i don’t know what happens later but it gives me warm fuzzies okay

then i have a NUMBER of oneshots that are more or less plotted out, like the one where jess has a kind of groundhog day because Heart reasons but over months and starts out not quite remembering what happened in past attempts and OF COURSE it ends with royal ot3; and there’s the one where Daud becomes the Outsider and is very temporally confused and OF COURSE it ends with corvodaud who do you take me for (including Very Perplexing arguments where daud doesn’t know at what point in this relationship’s development he is and corvo is angry or very patient depending on where he accidentally time travels to, and i make some assumptions about the non-linearity of the void avatar’s existence); and there’s the one where corvo catches the plague and gets through kingsparrow to get emily out then to people he trusts, ie the curnows and sam beechworth, then crawls away to die, but daud finds him and sighs and rolls up his sleeves and sends whalers to the Tower and emily thinks the Tower is haunted then, when it becomes very clear the Tower is not, demands one of these assassins teach her how to stab a bitch; AND THERE’S THE ONE WHERE CORVO AND JESS ARE GHOSTS AND DAUD IS A REAL ESTATE AGENT AND THE WHALERS ARE THE KIDS HE TRIED TO HELP OUT AS A SOCIAL WORKER and yes it’s ot3 and yes he buys the ghost house and ends up being filmed by the whalers to do cooking videos and fancy knife tricks and asmr because his voice is insanely soothing when he’s not being ornery; oh fuck and there’s the one where i wrote an unrequited corvodaud prompt and my brain grabbed it, smelled it, and decided that corvo very reluctantly falling for daud was necessary to the health of my feelings, and there is at least one (1) sleeping beauty coma while corvo yells at the outsider about the Heart; also there’s the one where in D2 billie was evasive about the old guy living with her on her boat and em finds daud rather than sokolov in jindosh’s basement and they have long, emotional discussions; and for the character building hell of it one that would span the outsider’s beginnings and growth and how the void tries to welcome him in

okay........................ i think i’m done rambling now

i love fanfic y’all

#dishonored #writins #so many writins #gonna have me a nap now

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schwulkid · 5 years ago

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Since Ao3 just had/is having a donation drive the same stuff as every year has come up, now with a pandemic guilt twist, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on the topic.

1. Censorship issue (anti-Ao3 users main talking point): Censorship is a tricky topic. Ao3 hosts TONS of works and unfortunately has to walk a fine line with it. Because, while the subject matter of many fictions are undeniably vile, they are also topics that may be incorporated into stories for plot purposes (as mainstream media does ALL the time). Example being: say a character in a fanfic was sexually abused and the writer writes a flashback scene to it for their backstory. Technically, if Ao3 was to censor ‘rape’ this would fall under that and be banned content. Unfortunately, it’s /impossible/(as there are 5 million+ works and a small volunteer staff with other jobs) to go through all the works on the site on a case by case basis to then filter works (plus it would then be up to an individual to judge what they deem appropriate or inappropriate which I would say is a fine line too). So for Ao3’s part, I think they decided blanket censorship was an infringement on creative liberty and would be way to complex to implement (I mean we saw how badly tumblrs bot worked, Ao3 would have to implement something like that and I doubt it would go much better). Whether you agree or disagree with that is your own prerogative but I think this issue is more complex than people acknowledge. (Censorship is a hard topic and can easily go sideways. Example being China banning Ao3 for explicit content /and/ LGBT content. idk it’s a hard thing tbh)

2. Ao3 is a non profit website. They run /completely/ on volunteers (web developers, a huge number of which are women), contractors (lawyers, accountants, marketing), and donations. They do their fundraising to keep the website running. Because servers (and Ao3 needs a lot of them with how much content and how many users they have and how much traffic they get) cost a lot of money and so does licensing and website domains. They also have to pay things like lawyers. Now, their lawyers protect the website and content creators from being sued by big media companies like Disney or Netflix and other franchises. It also keeps them from having to run commercial ads/selling information to 3rd parties to tailor those ads to users, or having to be beholden to a conglomerate who takes over the content (I.e. Yahoo with Tumblr). You can literally look up the budget plans for the archive on their website and it lays out /every/ cost and expense. They are also allowing budgeting questions to their financial team on April 25th. That’s some pretty serious transparency for a website. (As a nonprofit they also can’t pocket any money cause that’s illegal so nobody is being the evil monopoly man here!) And whether or not you donate makes no difference to your user experience, no tiers nothing, they are simply doing their regularly scheduled fundraiser (they only do 2 a year) and seeing if people donate.

This leads into point number 3

3. If we had to pay to use it, like Spotify or Netflix, would that be an okay expense? I mean my Spotify is 10 dollars a month and I could give that money to someone in need, so should I feel bad about using Spotify? I think we need to stop policing others on how to be a “good person”. There’s a lot of black and white thinking going on here and it’s frankly something a therapist would have a field day with (trust me, mine always tells me how bad black and white thinking is for you. It’s a cognitive distortion). People aren’t made to feel bad about giving money to entertainment services they have to pay to use, so I don’t see why this is much different. I mean I don’t have to have a Netflix account but I do, I spend money on it and so do most people. Ao3 is a platform that, like Netflix, is helping entertain people during the pandemic so they (like paying for Netflix) may donate money to help see it thrive. No, they don’t have to spend money since Ao3 is free to use, but you also don’t /have/ to have Netflix. YouTube is free. This also leaves out the fact that I’m sure many people donated money to Ao3 AND people in need. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. There are 2 million registered users on Ao3 and you don’t have to be registered to donate which means it’s a bunch of people giving them like a few dollars. I mean basically, unless you’re only spending money on the absolute bare minimum, with no non essentials, and donating the rest of COVID relief then I don’t see how anyone is in a place to judge. I’ve seen people say how they’ve bought new note books or new makeup to make them happy and give them a little reprieve from the anxiety of this situation, but I don’t see anyone calling them out. Ao3 is something that makes a lot of people happy and I’m not sure they should feel guilty for basically spending money, just like a lot of people are doing, on something that makes them happy.

@thomasmarvoloriddle put it perfectly in their own post about the subject:

https://thomasmarvoloriddle.tumblr.com/post/616248040270053376/there-are-not-few-people-giving-out-large-amounts

“Because asking middle and working class people to be held responsible for the suffering of other middle and working class people is ridiculous.”

And

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t help people, but we shouldn’t hold non rich people accountable for solving problems the rich are creating. People trying to enjoy their lives and spend money on things that make them happy is not causing others to suffer. It is intrinsiqually and completly the fault of the government put in place to disenfranchise the lower classes.”

People seem to be casting those who’ve donated to Ao3 as heartless villains and it just feels like that should be directed at the government and the rich elite who’ve caused suffering for people in the first place, not fellow middle and working class people. Not to mention this stuff /always/ comes up every time Ao3 has a drive and it’s just getting tiring to see people ,who clearly don’t understand how censorship, websites, or businesses/nonprofits are run, trying to slander them.

#ao3 #archive of our own #fanfic #fanfiction #a03 #fic #decided to make a seperate post for this cause i wanted to update some points after seeing other discourse #fan fiction

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babbushka · 5 years ago

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A Word (Or Several) About That Fanfic App (And Others Like It)

I am sure by now, whether you’re a frustrated fanfiction author or a friend of one, you have become aware of certain apps that are circulating on both Android/Google Play and Apple stores which offer access to your favorite stories hosted through AO3, such as the one shown below.

And while these apps may seem harmless, while some are saying that it’s not a big deal, that it’s all the internet and what you put on the internet is free game for anyone/anything, while some don’t consider this to be exploitation – they’re wrong.

But for right now, let’s not talk about the fact that these works were taken or streamed from AO3 without authors’ permission. Let’s ignore the fact that there’s not even any ounce of notification that an author’s work has been taken.

Let’s ignore the fact that many of these apps steal traffic from the archive (which as I’m sure we’re all aware is entirely volunteer-run, volunteers who do incredible work to be able to provide such an amazing archival space for fanfiction). Let’s forget about the point that these apps don’t actually do anything that AO3 doesn’t already provide.

Because while all of those points are valid enough for such an app to be considered unethical and frankly in poor-taste, the real issue – both legally and morally – is monetization of transformative works.

Much like with fanart, there is a hot debate over whether or not it is legal to profit off of sales of products that contain copywritten material. On the whole, fanart does not generate enough of a profit to compete with officially licensed artwork and merchandise – or at least, not enough of a profit to really be of any concern to the corporations who technically own the intellectual property.

Fanfiction, however, has a much more frustrating history regarding copyright, which I won’t get into here because this isn’t the time or place for that.

Because of this tense relationship between fanfiction authors and copyright owners, fanfiction authors are incredibly careful about how they share their works, and where they circulate their stories. Places like AO3 have provided a safe-haven for millions of stories and people who enjoy them – and they’ve been able to do so (mostly out of the eyes of the big CEOs) by keeping the archive a non-profit site.

The moment that money is involved regarding copywritten literature, it’s as if the lawyers have caught wind and descend upon small independent writers with fists of fury, legal fees, suits of action, and in some cases, complete erasure of the material.

Fanfiction is a labor of love just as fanart is, but while fanartists have a little more freedom to monetize their works, authors almost exclusively write and share fanfiction for free. It is, for many, a hobby that we dedicate our time to because it fulfills us in some way; it allows us to express ourselves literarily without having to worry about editors or producers or agents cutting our ideas down.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I know that in my own experience, hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work get poured into my fanfiction. Between research for AUs, plot planning, outlining, writing and rewriting (and rewriting again) thousands of words, I treat fanfiction as a serious form of literature – and I am willing and eager to spend that time writing, not because it is a lucrative business model (because it truly just isn’t), but because it’s something I love to do.

If I were to monetize my fanfiction, it suddenly becomes a job to me, it becomes an obligation. I purposefully keep my content as accessible and free as possible because I simply want to share it for the joy of sharing it. It is a choice that I have made, to keep my fanfic fanfic, and not turned into OC works.

Now, this is not to say that anyone who monetizes their writing is bad or wrong. That’s not what I’m meaning whatsoever!! I know many people who generate a small side income with writing commissions, and ko-fi donations, and things like that. But that is the decision of the author who owns the work, and is at the discretion of the person who is creating that work.

Generating profit off of someone else’s work and not compensating them for it (whether that’s paying royalty fees or licensing fees or a flat-buyout rate) is stealing. It is plagiarism.

It’s the same as someone selling prints of stolen artwork and then defending themselves by saying “but I credited the artist!” Credit and compensation are not interchangeable, and shouldn’t be treated as such.

These apps are taking stories from authors who pour their time, energy, heart and soul into their works. Not only are they taking the stories, they are profiting off of someone else’s labor, without their knowledge, without their compensation, without their permission.

I know there have been a thousand posts like this before, but as someone whose entire AO3 profile of over 120 works was taken without my permission, I’m a little salty over it.

But more so, I’m hurt for the people at AO3, who work so incredibly hard, who are so thorough and meticulous about making the archive as high quality as it can be, who do everything for free through the non-profit, who are all volunteers, who are all lovers of stories just like us. And who are being slapped in the face by these apps which do a watered-down version of what the archive does (mainly I’m talking about the ability to download stories for off-line reading) but who are somehow making money through subscription based services and ad revenue.

So please, don’t flood the AO3 customer service with hate, or demands for them to fix this. They are aware of the situation and they have made numerous statements regarding the legality of this and how they are unable to really do anything, because they technically do not own the works. The archive is just that, it is an archive where owners of their own intellectual property can store their works for posterity.

It is up to us, the authors whose work is being exploited and the people who read and support us, to get these apps taken down.

If you’ve read this whole thing I offer my sincere thanks, and am sending you my love, and all that I ask is when you see an app like this you flag/report it and alert your favorite author that someone out there might be making money off their work.

Support fellow authors, support the Archive.

Here are links to report the app:

Google Playstore link

Apple Store link (download app, then go to report it here )

screenshots taken from the app’s page on the Apple Store

#ao3 #ao3 app #fanfiction #fanfiction app #fanfiction authors #psa #fanfic psa #signal boost

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phlebasphoenician · 2 years ago

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@finnglas is exactly right.

AO3 was founded on the principle of transformative work - that's exactly why the parent non-profit is the Organization for Transformative Works.

And that's because transformative work isn't a fandom belief or ideal - it's a legal definition.

Let me quote from this article by the University of Minnesota.

A new work based on an old one work is transformative if it uses the source work in completely new or unexpected ways. Importantly, a work may be transformative, and thus a fair use, even when all four of the statutory factors would traditionally weigh against fair use!

It's a fairly new one too, having only been around since 1994, and AO3 has lawyers who make representation at many levels of government - and not only in the USA - who push to maintain this legal principle, who argue for it and defend it.

I'm not a legal scholar, but one of the things that makes transformative work transformative is how close it hews to the original work - in the case of fan work, that means the canon.

If the characters in the fan work are something completely different to what they are in canon - Madara and Hashirama live in 1990 and run a coffee shop, for example - then the work is clearly transformative and any legal case arguing for infringement of copyright becomes rather shaky.

But what about works that hew closer to canon? To the extent of being very, very similar?

Those fan works are still protected!

Because they make no money.

Profitability is a key point in any legal defence.

In monetising their works, fan work creators are treading that dangerous line. Which is fine if that's what they want to do! But they can do it on their own websites or on websites whose terms of service explicitly allow for it.

AO3 is there to defend fan work as a whole. It could be brought down by companies who argue that it promotes copyright infringement for money.

And then where would the people who post on it be?

So no, the people who report violations of AO3's terms of service aren't 'being cops' or even enforcing social norms - they are defending the right of fan work as a whole to exist in this format.

I've been in fandom since the early 1990s, before the principle of transformative work existed, and the whole of fandom lived in terror of being sued back then. In 2001, Lawyers representing Anne Rice threatened action based on what they said was copyright infringement of her works and that entire section of fandom disappeared from ff.net overnight.

Boom. All of those works, just gone. Authors were left wondering what had happened to their stories, and the fandom was left to pick up the pieces.

A similar thing happened on livejournal during the strikethrough and boldthrough events. Whole blogs and communities were killed overnight.

I was there when it happened.

I saw it.

AO3 was born from events like that, from fandoms desire to preserve their own works and never again have them taken away.

So why doesn't AO3 have ads? Why don't they monetise? Why are they purely fan run? Why are they a non-profit?

Because they are the Archive Of Our Own.

It's ours.

We own it.

And we don't want it to be taken away from us.

So please, don't try to monetise your works on AO3.

Monetise them elsewhere.

Don't destroy this community that we've made.

Please, please report people who put their ko-fi or Patreon on their AO3 without mercy. Just click the link at the bottom of the page that says Policy Questions and Abuse Reports and say the user is engaging in monetisation. Say where you saw their ko-fi link or mention (author’s note, whatever) and copy the info on their user profile, too, in order to make it easier for the volunteers.

REPORT THEM ALL

#public service announcement #how to ao3 #it’s in the terms of service because ao3 doesn’t want to be sued #and neither do i #presumably you don’t either

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sullustangin · 4 years ago

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A Code of Conduct for a Smuggler Ship

This is a world-building piece I'm using in my own fan fic. Our smugglers, pirates, rogues, and other non-aligned/independent ships do have rules and codes of conduct. They wouldn't live by Imperial/Republic/Federation/Klingon/Fleet rules. Whether in space or on the sea, they still have to co-exist with their crewmates and captain. This is mostly compiled from historical pirate codes, Gibbs from NCIS (it works), and other real-life incidents.

This is crossposted to AO3.

Code of Conduct for Virtue’s Thief, under the command of

Captain Eva Corolastor

1. The Captain’s responsibility is to the ship. The ship is the crew, and the crew is the ship. The Captain is to save the ship at any cost, including her own.

2. The Captain is the first and final authority on Virtue’s Thief.

3. Never screw over your Captain or your crewmates.

4. All profit is disbursed evenly after the ship receives its share for maintenance. Private gambling, inheritance, and profits do not apply here.

5. If someone is permanently injured, maimed or disabled in the service of Virtue’s Thief or her captain, they are to be pensioned off for the duration of their lives.

6. The crew is entitled to a discount for services at the Captain’s discretion.

7. Police your brass and cover your ass.

8. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

9. Always announce your entrance into the cockpit or the Captain’s quarters; she is armed.

10. Always carry a knife.

11. Never drink the last of anything.

12. No pets.

13. No children.

14. Nobody talks about VATs [Very Awful Thing(s)].

15. Blood stays in the cargo bay; do not track it around the ship. Remove your boots as needed.

16. No fighting on the ship; settle your differences planetside.

17. No sleeping naked.

18. No shagging in the ship (exceptions to be granted by the Captain).

19. All crew members will carry spare clean underwear in a waterproof bag at all times.

20. Birthdays are to be celebrated. Get over it.

1. This rule is included since my captain is a Good Gal. She's a Chaotic Neutral Leaning Good. If your Captain is not so inclined, you may wish to alter this to better suit how your Captain sees his or her crew and ship: are the crewmen and crew-women expendable? Is the ship itself a tool to be used and broken, or is it the Captain's beloved home?

2. Many pirate codes have votes and other democratic devices so each man had their say, especially if their Captain sees them as tools or as useful rather than friends and family. Because my captain is GG in Rule #1, Rule #2 is not democratic, but rather, an assertion of authority because of GG status; your Captain has to be a leader, not a doormat. If your Captain is more ruthless, then you may want to counter-balance with a rule that gives the crew some veto power.

3. This is self-explanatory. Ships have limited quarters, and it's in everyone's best interest not to hate each other. Gibbs' Rule.

4. This is a pragmatic rule, as the ship does have to be maintained as the home for everyone, even if she is own by the Captain. This could also go toward the upkeep of ship's droids, if you're operating in the Star Wars universe. This is based in actual rules from historical pirate codes.

5. Another historical pirate code rule. This one is very generous (Good Gal Captain). Often, there would be a limit set or a delineation of what body parts are worth how much -- arms, eyes, and legs all have different value, and how much of you lost also matters. In the modern world, we have this when claiming disability benefits, particularly for veterans. This is an opportunity for you to discuss how your characters are valued by the Captain/ship.

6. Depending on how you set up your ship and crew rules and who decides what jobs to take, this rule can be very relevant or not relevant. I use it as an opportunity to prove Captain's benevolence, but this can be used to build tension -- is this job worth it? Are you actually going to pay us for this gig?

7. Gibbs' Rule(s), but highly pertinent. Most non-aligned ships are non-aligned for a reason -- shady activities? troubled past? "Police your brass" is a term for cleaning up one's spent casings so that you don't leave a trace or evidence you were there. Covering your ass is a catch-all for making sure there are no loose ends. This is the "don't bring trouble home" rule -- don't bring unwanted attention to the ship.

8. Gibbs' Rule. Even if you follow #7 to the hilt, this is still possible -- stay alert.

9. The Captain often has the most to lose. This is typically their ship, and all troubles land on their desk. They're the ones trying to lead people of questionable character -- there's a reason they're out on their own. Depending on what the job is, they may be carrying strangers on their ship or there may be concerns of a boarding party. This can be used to depict Captain's trust, but also Captain competence -- do you want someone who trusts everyone responsible for your safety?

10. Gibbs' Rule, but interesting to utilize in space settings. In modern/historical settings and military settings, you always carry a personal sidearm or two as a hold-out; knife and a single-shot pistol (especially 3-D printed) are useful. In space, there's all this fancy tech, like blasters, lasers, phasers, vibroknives, and so on. A knife can cut air supply hoses, slice electronics, puncture life support suits, and all sorts of chaotic things that a "highly evolved society" wouldn't think of.

11. My own creation -- I have a hard-drinking crew, and if you want to break Rule #3 in the worst way possible, this is it. One thing I have headcanonned is that there were originally just 10 rules on the Thief. The second 10 come as a result of people breaking the first 10 -- more specific rules for more idiotic behavior that the writer didn't anticipate. In the words of my captain, "Can I preface that by saying the rules exist for reasons? As in, someone screwed up, and after we all didn’t die, I made the rule?”

12. and 13. These are flexible, but you have to consider what type of operation your ship is running. Is it derring-do and swashbuckling and a business venture? Or is something else more akin to a family group? Within the SWTOR universe, I've seen people keep their ships very businesslike, but the same crews in another fan fic are raising kids and have pets. Totally fine.

14. VATs are a sideline business that my Captain operates alongside her two female crewmates; the boys find what they do so distasteful, they try to ignore it as best they can. In my universe, VATs are wetwork, assassinations, torture, extortion, espionage, information-brokering, and other morally questionable items that don't fall under the main purview of business on the ship. Does your ship have anyone with a sideline? It doesn't have to be as violent or dark as this. Is it officially recognized? To what extent? Is it a secret? Is there a rule against doing this sort of thing?

15. Generally cleanliness reminder, but if you have this sort of a rule, you better show off why it's necessary.

16. Historical pirate rule -- if you have beef, go settle on the shore. Some codes get the quartermaster directly involved in fairly outfitting both parties and determining whether the matter is settled or if someone should get left behind at port for the good of the ship.

17. This is for red alerts and making sure nobody wastes too much time trying to throw clothes on while trying to deal with a disaster. It also ties into #18.

18. Historically, pirates were not supposed to bring wenches on the ship. First, there was a risk of someone being accidentally kidnapped if the ship left before critical personnel woke up after a night on the tiles. Secondly, rape was a serious crime to pirates; the penalty was death. I've seen in multiple pirate codes that boys and ladies were not to be brought aboard. Some do allow for a guardian for these people so that they can remain on board until the next port, but those were special conditions in special circumstances. Since I have a smuggler ship, it's egalitarian -- no sexy times for anyone onboard the ship. Also, if you're busy getting busy, if there's an attack, well, it takes more time to untangle yourself than if you're by yourself.

19a. This is a personal rule (IRL and in fan fic). As I've been writing, I find that people's clothes getting trashed or messed up is a pretty regular thing. However, it's made exponentially more tolerable by having a spare set of something dry. If you plan on having characters get messy and want to move the plot along without dealing with the "uh oh, naked" thing (especially if there's a romantic/sexual tension), this isn't a bad rule to have around. Granted, if you're writing PWP, make sure nobody has any spare anything. Also, spare clean undies aren't just useful for the obvious; think of bandages, messages that could be sent while everyone else is "hurr durr"ing over panties, underwires that can be used for other purposes. Basically, this is where you can put in your MacGuyver plot device -- make people carry some seemingly useless item around and then it's the Most Critical Thing to making some ad hoc plan work.

b. Caveat: Chekhov's Gun. This the literary principle that you shouldn't put anything into your story unless it adds to the bigger plot: don't put a gun on stage unless it's going to fire. So you can have a lot of funny business with your #19 (or any of these rules) but don't spend too much time on them. Some of it might remain headcanon forever, which is fine. Remember that codes/rules are meant to help your ship function, not to bog it down unnecessarily.

20. Personal rule. See 19b. Feel free to use these rules or variants thereof; just give me a mention @sullustangin or via AO3 (top of the page).

#fan fiction #original fiction #worldbuilding #swtor fanfiction #star wars fan fiction #star trek fanfiction #pirate fiction #rules #gibbs' rules #pirate code #historical pirate codes #reblog #don't repost

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yoiangstzine · 6 years ago

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Mobile FAQ

About the project:

Namida is an inclusive Yuri on Ice zine focusing on ‘angst’ and ‘hurt/comfort’.

Namida is the Japanese word for tears. Hurt/comfort and ‘angst’ is a common trope in fan works… for good reason! Both making and creating work with an emotional impact can be a helpful way to process or release emotions. Sometimes we all need a good cry.

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