#even if im not part of that fandom or really know the characters

[vanilla-twilights]

Attorney from the US here, working in the entertainment law field here, and who deals in copyright matters on the daily, which is, in fact, my favorite area of US law (even thought its hot garbage mess on the best of days).

In the US at least, the requirements for something to qualify for copyright protection are genuinely very minimal. In other countries, it may be more or less. If you're French, the law is generally massively in your favor as an artist even. No one does artist protection like the French, truly.

But in the US the only requirements are 1) originality of expression 2) fixed in a tangible medium 3) in one of 8 categories of works (literary, dramatic, pictorial/graphic/sculptural, choreography/pantomime, music, sound recording, motion pictures/audiovisual, archtecture). If your work, or parts of your work, meet all three you "own" a copyright to the work or those parts of your work.

So actually there is a high degree of protection affordable to fanfiction and fanarts, outside if the limited elements from canon that someone else holds the copyright to.

For clarity though, an idea is not copyrightable. It's the original expression of that ide which is. For example, an idea is "coffee shop meet cute". The expresion that is original is what an author does with that idea, the plot and the story beats, the dialogue and the descriptions. You know you've seen or read various expressions of this idea across fanworks and fandoms to know it can be developed in a myriad different ways that are each unique. That uniqueness is the part of a story that would always qualify for protection under copyright law, regardless of the names and physical descriptions of the characters in the story.

DC might own batman and superman, but if you write a coffee shop meet-cute au fanfic about those characters, your original story and plot elememts, and especially, the particular syntax and dictionary of your story is highly protectable. That is your originality of expression in a literay work. It's what sets your fic apart from every other cofee shop meet cute written in every fandom under the sun, probably, including any other that may exist for Bruce and Clark.

See 50 Shades of Gray, notorious for having started its first life as Twilight fanfic. Not my fandom, but im sure its not the only kink fic that existed in that fandom. And clearly, the story had sufficiently original elements to it to be able to stand on its own and be a commercial sucess as a copyrightable work with some judicious filing away of specific canon elements.

Now, if you make something truly derivative of canon (think an different looking superman or batman suit), that would be a grayer area, beacuse one of Supes defining traits is that he has the suit with the S shield on it. When you get too close to something made by someone else, its harder to separate your originality from someone elses. You can't really "file the serial numbers" off a Superman suit too easily after all, without modifying the artwork significantly to where its no longer a "superman" suit. That isn't to say there aren't or couldn't be protectable elements in the artwork, it's just that they'd be so entrenched with the canon elements that a court would almost certainly consider the work as a whole derivative. Saying something is derivative does not void it of all originally of expression, it's just that it steps on the toes of someone else's rights to their elements. This is the reason fanart generally cannot be used commercially. The idea behind that is that your taking a bite out of someone else's money pie and that isn't fair in the eyes of the law. It's not to say that there was no originalty of expression in your work.

But that cuts both ways, which is why authors don't want you sending them detailed ideas for a story, and why studios return unsolicited screenplay unread. If DC came up with their own original Bat & Supes meetcute story, the last thing they want to contend with is a fanfic author trying to sue them for stealing their story elememts. If they don't look at anything fanmade, they can assert that as part of their defense. For the love of your fandom, don't send your fanfics to the authors! It's the fastest way to make sure that idea never sees an official light of day.

All that said, RPF is actually a very intersting area, because there is no copyrightable canon elemts you're using. Traits of a human person are not copyrightable. Mother nature cannot hold copyrights in the eyes of US law. RPF, especially sport rpf, is not tyically pulling from a "canon", unless it's pulling from music videos or other creative work, but from real life traits and events of people. The reason these cannot be commercially marketed is because they'd infringe on things like someone's right of publicity and potentially could be considered libel, if the person was fussed enough about the content, but only if you were trying to posit the fic as true and factual events (its why true story film say "based on" or "inspired by" actual events rather saying these are true and actusll events). RPF though, as far as copyright goes, almost definitely entirely protectable.

Tl:dr you do own lots of elements of your fanworks, just not the specific bits that are pulled wholesale from canon. RPF surprisingly even more protectable.

You don’t own fanfics. They’re inherently public domain because they aren’t your IP. Agree or disagree with AI, there are no grounds for “protection” from AI because it isn’t your IP to begin with. That’s what you chose when you chose this medium

Oh dear.

Okay, you get an answer, because at least you took the effort to write your ask out properly, even if you are hiding behind the grey, sunglassed circle.

Do I, or any fanfic author for that matter, have any legal claims to our work? No, not really, no. (Although if someone took a fic, filed off the serial number--deleted the fandom specific elements--, and then had it published for financial gain, yeah, that would be a case.)

BUT

Fandoms are built on a social contract that says we respect each others work, the effort people put into their art. We don't steal or disrespect the work of our peers. By feeding people's fanworks to AI you both steal and disprect it, and we need to make people realize that before it's too late--before fandom falls apart, because there will be no more real, actual fanworks.

Disrepectfully,

Orlissa

(i can't believe I have to say this)

[plaidos]

i dont know if my opinion matters but im tme and arcane looked dumb as shit to me (plus i dont care abt league lmao) and learning that it's transmisogynistic and ableist and still seeing people on my dash talk abt it feels so weird to me. nobody on my dash is pointing out the transmisogyny except you !! this shit's dire

well, to be honest, the reason nobody’s pointing it out is because the really REALLY transmisogynistic part is a small scene in the first episode. the transfem character who gets such little air time you don’t even hear her name is a different problem (the fact that transfeminine representation is always just one off characters for a couple of scenes). like the truth is, Arcane isn’t any more or less transmisogynistic than anything else you like, and i doubt people are discussing those other things being transmisogynistic either. the problem is that nobody cares and everybody says we’re just reaching or looking to be offended when we point it out. i’m not asking people to stop watching Arcane or stop talking about it — i wish they would, but mostly because it’s really bad and being praised as the next greatest thing because it has brooklyn 99-style politics with a Nimona-style animation.

nobody is talking about it because nobody ever talks about it. instead of guilting people for liking shows with transmisogynistic stuff in (which is literally inevitable, i promise your favorite stuff is transmisogynistic too) you should be aware of it and point it out when you see it in other stuff too — don’t make this about Arcane!!! it’s about fandom in general!

[agatharioscoven]

Okay. I had so much fun making my edits that I'm going to throw this out there.

If you want an edit like my profile picture of anyone from any fandom, let me know the person/people and what colour background you'd like.

Or if you have the perfect picture in mind, then go ahead and send the picture to me and I'll make it.

I am working for the next few days so it might not be done quickly, but if anyone is interested then please let me know!

[fastidious-and-a-mess]

guys can we PLEASE stop shipping riz w people. honestly at this point i kind of don’t even care if you yourself are also acespec/arospec/aspec.

yes, aspec people can be in relationships, etc etc, but riz specifically has expressed over and over and over again that that is something he personally has absolutely zero interest in.

he’s not just canonically aroace, he also canonically does not want a relationship.

“aroace people can be happy in romantic/sexual/queerplatonic relationships” is a true statement. “people who do not want to be in any kind of monogamous committed relationship can be happy in a monogamous committed relationship” is quite a bit harder to argue.

i’m just so sick of it. i’m glad we all understand that there’s nuance to aspec identities, and everyone’s expressions of and experiences with their own aspec identities are going to be different and personal.

like, it’s not even just about the asexual/aromantic aspect anymore. it’s also just refusing to let him not want to be in a relationship. why are so many people so resistant to the idea that he does not want to be in a relationship. like genuinely, why can you not accept that there are people who just don’t want that. who would just be unhappy in a relationship. why can’t you wrap your head around the idea that wanting a relationship is not a thing that everyone secretly wants. like, No, he hasn’t just not “met the right person” yet. because there is no right person. because he’s simply not interested.

this post is kind of rambly and not as effectively phrased as it could be i think but idc.

TL;DR: riz being aroace is not the only reason to not ship him. he also, explicitly and repeatedly, has stated he does not want to be in a relationship. “aspec people can be in relationships” is completely irrelevant because regardless riz simply does not want a relationship. please just respect thag.

edit: plz don’t like this is u wont rb. i won’t guilt you into rbing, it’s ur blog i’m not ur dad do what u want etc etc. it’s just irritating for me personally to see ppl interacting w this but not willing to actually put it on their blogs.

[todayisafridaynight]

i’m pretty surprised that you can be in a fandom without really checking the tags regularly for new content or discussions that’s pretty impressive

ive got twitter for that and twitter has shown me enough as is

[suffarustuffaru]

I don’t speak Japanese so I’d LOVE to hear more about the differences between the English and Japanese Re:Zero fandoms

yeah sure its very interesting to me now that ive noticed it more lately :o !! though ok disclaimer - i dont speak japanese either hah so if anyone is seeing this and does speak japanese + is familiar with the japanese speaking side of this fandom please add info if youd like!! and of course ill be mainly speaking from the english side of things bc im more familiar with that yes (sorry anon again im not a japanese speaker T^TT so sorry if i tread on info you already know!!). but yeah im speaking from my own experiences given the Topic at hand. ive been in this fandom since... 2019?? which is so wild to me aljsdfljsd.

anyway so - i think the big difference is mainly that the english fandom and many english speaking people that engage with rezero are. to put it bluntly, misconception runs Rampant to a very Interesting degree. to the point where it seems like the english speaking side of the fandom is More. Aggressive. than the japanese fandom. not that the japanese speaking side of the fandom is perfect - also bc what fandom is ever perfect 100% of the time, tbh - but that the louder people in the english rezero fandom are. well its a Very low bar. Very low. and from what little ive seen and heard so far, the japanese fandom tends to understand rezero and its characters better than the english fandom. which ig makes sense bc you know, rezero is japanese media, and also im sure cultural differences come into play here as well (im not familiar enough on this to speak about it in depth but the cultural differences feel Pretty Clear even though i cant 100% put my finger on what they specifically are).

but also bc yeah. its not That hard to beat some of the english fandom when it comes to media comprehension. misreading rezero is unfortunately Extremely common, both in and out of the rezero community. its Everywhere - youtube, myanimelist, ao3, ff.net, reddit, twitter, various rezero discords - and from what ive experienced, rezero tumblr basically kind of feels like finding an oasis after crawling through the desert for days on end lajdslfjs. which is probs bc rezero tumblr is Smaller and also a lot of us seem to be lgbtq+ in some way or be allies, so you dodge a lot of the misogyny and homophobia that happens in other rezero english circles. its why you see a lot of openly queer rezero-related posts on here while its a bit more. barren. in other rezero english places yes. bc its more safe to post queer rezero things on rezero tumblr rather than rezero reddit for Sure.

im not sure how the japanese fandom is with that exactly but theres some interesting differences between whats popular in the english fandom vs the japanese fandom. i mean as an otto fan ive been noticing how hes more popular with the japanese fandom—and on top of that, ottosuba is Way More popular in the japanese fandom too. reinsuba and julisuba seem to usually be the most popular mlm subaru ships in both fandoms but ottosuba is like A Little Up There in the japanese fandom. not sure if its on the same level as a ship like reinsuba but ottosubas Definitely loved as a ship. from what little ive seen it also seems like ships like vichisha are more acknowledged by the japanese fandom? im not entirely sure on like—Complete differences regarding what the japanese fandom finds interesting that may differ from english fandom, so ill really have to look more into the japanese fandoms fanart and fanfic when i can bc im pretty curious too. in general though, it seems like the japanese fandom has a bit more variety…. you can find fanart on So Many characters in rezero (which already has a very Massive cast full of very fleshed out characters) there. not that you cant in the english fandom bc theres a Bit of variety too, but id more so contribute that a little more to the Big Cast and less to having actual variety in fancontent. and of course im not saying that the japanese fandom may be a bit barren in some areas of fancontent—bc inevitably when u have a big cast of characters, side character content is gonna be more sparse compared to the main characters, but to me it does feel like the english fandom lacks variety in comparison. (and also yeah. seems like the japanese fandom acknowledges gay ships more in general tbh.)

whats focused in fancontent makes it easy to tell what may be popular in a fandom in terms of how fans perceive the source material and what fandoms want to do with the source material, if that makes sense. and its very easy to tell that with the english fandom if you just hop on rezero ao3–or even better, rezero reddit given theres a fanfic ideas thread thats usually pinned right at the top of the site. again i havent looked at japanese fanfic for rezero yet (bc i dont know where to look oops ajdndn) but when it comes to the english fandom you can tell that theyre generally more focused on the female cast both in fanart and in fanfic bc. theyre women and many fans on say, reddit or various rezero discords, are cis straight men, so inevitably… well lets just say you can tell when a man makes content for this fandom o.o theres also the. very weird reaction fic trends and trends following popular fics in the fandom, the two biggest being the watching him die again and again react fic and re:forgotten, the former of which includes a harem plot with subaru and the main girls of rezero while the latter is one of those subaru gets tortured by his ooc friends and then he gets revenge on them fics. which i suppose says something about the english fandom too.

of course on ao3 its dominated mainly by english fics (of course not all fics on there for rezero are in english— big shoutout to all the non english fics on rezero ao3 ur doing great <3 — but the majority are in english). and while yeah ur occasionally gonna find stuff like queer content or side character content or rarepair content, its definitely not that big in amount and also comes with the risk of. Hate. if anyones reading this and remembers the lone star stuff. (if u dont know—lone star was a julius x emilia fic where they NTR subaru or some shit and then it got bombed with hate bc of the ship? yeah.) so yeah english fandom is very cis straight oriented, ironically with the nastiest people being the very people that rezero criticizes. though this is also my personal experience, i do know several people personally whove been in this fandom for a while or were here for a while and yeah english fandom isnt very welcoming at times???? and it seems like at the very least the japanese fandom is A Little Less Aggressive than the english fandom is.

otherwise. yeah im very very curious about more of the differences in popular content between the japanese vs english fandom. i mean the english fandom’s main focus on the female cast for. Interesting Reasons other than their actual character depth is… interesting. and the astreas being popular in general vs otto + ottosubas popularity fluctuating is also very interesting to me (but i have several guesses as to Why that is), among other things. yeah id love to know what else the japanese fandom likes about rezero and see more of their content. i also have to wonder if characters like emilia and subaru are hated less by the japanese fandom…. T^T well that and the english fandom and many english speaking people engaging in rezero have this interesting pattern of either hating subaru No Matter What, wanting subaru to Not Be Subaru (ie using him as a self insert almost or attempting to change him into virtually another character), or putting subaru on a pedestal and ignoring his flaws and mistakes and that he Can do wrong. like theres Really not a lot of nuance there. so i wonder if the japanese fandom is. A Little more chill when it comes to character opinions like this too.

[hella1975]

your sokka is SO sokka and i say this as someone who holds him so dear ur writing of him is amazing. tbh im sooo fussy with his portrayal but its pretty nailed. like so many fics (esp zukka and zuko centric and ESPECIALLY ones where hakoda like adopts zuko) he's constantly pushed to the side in favour of zukos issues and zukos problems when in reality sokka is very hurt himself and has suffered a lot. man i GET taob sokka i really do bc people seem to think he was a lil mean but nobody seems to realise when you're in sokkas position it would've read like everyone was against you. all the swt men, including his dad who snapped at him, and even katara and aang and suki tell him to give zuko a chance and the fact that they were trusting someone who had hurt all of them so much- because yes WE know zuko wouldn't have killed them, but the gaang didn't. not when they were being chased and terrorised, and when sokka had his trust betrayed in the prison, he had absolutely every right to hate zuko, esp when it felt like everyone who he thought would understand his feelings, including his own dad who had been hiding his relationship with zuko from him, seems against him. his conversation with hakoda was probably my favourite scene in taob just bc he was allowed to feel like that without being treated by the narrative as someone just being mean to poor little zuko. he gets to be a sourpuss and angry and jealous at zuko for feeling like hed been replaced by his own dad. all of the water tribe men get this treatment like they're not written as bad people for being wary or disliking zuko initially (even chena despite being enemy no.1 at the start). his convo with hakoda was so important bc it stressed the detail that yes zuko has suffered and deserves to be cared for but SOKKA is his son, his actual child who is so hard on himself for things out of his control and who has hurt so much and deserves just as much as zuko does. sokka is just a baby my boy. he's not the main character but he's just as complex and intricate as zuko, not just in taob but also for the times we have seen him in tams there's been keen detail to his emotion and how he's feeling pointed out

me rn

[asgardian--angels]

...prayer circle for izzy hands

[gobstoppr]

and btw im in my hater arc rn. as time goes on the more i find a lot of 'fandom' stuff insufferable (i like art n stuff. just the way that fandom refits every media to fit a single mold and set of boring archetypes is exhausting.)

i just get really easily annoyed lately. and have been unfollowing people on a whim a lot. its not personal i promise

[roadkill111]

i gasped so loudly when receiving this text

[pleafyistired]

this thing i do when i have not consume anything about a media but this guy who makes art about that media is really good and im gonna follow them. And also its probably because of the sunglas- [I AM SHOT DEAD]

[lesbiangiratina]

Not very fond of people like waving off testament’s gender as just a Gear Thing but well at least it becomes funny when people apply it to gears as a whole. Like yeah i can agree with that. It has nothing to do with being a gear tho theyre all just transgender

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

y'know, I've been seeing a lot more posts talking about how fanfic, specifically, puts characters into boxes and takes away the nuance of them, and while I think that's an important discussion to have, I also find it quite perplexing? Like, these posts seem to come from people who don't even, or maybe very rarely, consume fics in the first place, and I say that because, if you do consume fics semi-regularly, you kind of learn? how to gage what the stories and characterisation are going to be like based on the tags and summary? Sometimes, you do have to step into the fic to figure it out, but it hardly takes very long to realise if it gels with you or not. Idk, it's not anything serious or important, but it does give me... "girl, what were you doing at the devil's sacrament" vibes, you know?

[pyrriax]

ANYWHO goodnight tumblr i'll be back on the art grind tomorrow i think 🙏

[deus-and-the-machina]

ngl the worst thing about the xenoblade fandom (which I think is the root cause of a lot of other issues) is that it’s mostly on twitter. I have to subject myself to twitter for any real consistent fan talk or content. legit there's always some new stupid topic of argument ive noticed in the past few weeks on there and its all very silly and frustrating and what im saying is everyone should move to Tumblr. please. for me. 

[spacedlexi]

thinking more about tlou hbo and that ep2 cold open

while it was very good and effectively frightening.... with how theyve handled fedra/the fireflies so far im a little nervous they might be setting it up for the fireflies to be 100% in the wrong later instead of it being less clear cut like it was in the game...