Amazon to Start Selling Fan Fiction

[Akytalusia]

on one hand, i understand this is a popular hobby, and on the surface, this sounds like a logical step, but is it legal? i was under the impression you weren't allowed to try to make money off of mods or fanworks of protected IPs? i could be wrong though. or the IP owners are getting a cut. that could work too. but there's obviously something i'm not understanding here.

 

[Entitled]

To be honest, fanfiction has been being published for a long time. Just look at Star Trek and Doctor Who and Star Wars and... that all just has a level of official recognition, but it's fanfic nonetheless.

Just look at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. And The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And most of the Disney Animated Canon. Yeah, those were public domain, but still, art with pre-existing characters and settings.

Or for that matter, while we are outside of literature, just look at any of the corporate-owned franchises that are granted to creators at the publisher's will, from Dark Knight to Avengers.

 

[Entitled]

As a budding author myself this news is incredibly concerning. That people can make money from another person's IP is a terrifying concept.

You, along with several others, have missed the part where Amazon will only publish fanfiction based on IPs whose rights owners have already signed a contract with Amazon. Your IP is safe.

Perhaps my post missed the point but I did not. I say that even if there's no inherent risk with this particular venture, it remains nothing more than a slippery slope to bigger problems later on.

Perhaps my bias is lending my comments an air of irrational hate, but as a creative person I wish to see the true creative talents of others promoted and rewarded where possible. I just don't think fan fiction, nor Amazon's promotion of it, is a valid vehicle for channelling such creativity.

Have you read The Wide Sargasso Sea? Or maybe The Penelopiad?

 

[Yal]

Perhaps my bias is lending my comments an air of irrational hate, but as a creative person I wish to see the true creative talents of others promoted and rewarded where possible. I just don't think fan fiction, nor Amazon's promotion of it, is a valid vehicle for channelling such creativity.

This is like demanding that every singer also be their own songwriter.

Written fiction is traditionally a solo enterprise, but it's an outlier in that, not an ideal. Most of the world's creative output is some form of collaboration, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Goddamit, Amazon. Stop encouraging these people. Please. For the sake of everything? Have you learnt nothing from 50 shades of grey?

Indeed they did. They looked at the sales figures and learned quite a lot.

As for me, I dunno. If the original creators are cool with it, then I guess I have no objections. It's kind of like those doujin comics they sell over in Japan.

 

[Albino Boo]

Just look at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. And The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And most of the Disney Animated Canon. Yeah, those were public domain, but still, art with pre-existing characters and settings.

Or for that matter, while we are outside of literature, just look at any of the corporate-owned franchises that are granted to creators at the publisher's will, from Dark Knight to Avengers.

I think you missed the point about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Hamlet is only a framing device for Stoppard to make philosophical points about the nature of characters in plays and the much more personal point (Stoppard is Jewish and was born pre war in now what's the Czech republic) about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern passivity even when doing nothing will result in their deaths. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is many thing but fanfiction it anit.

 

[The Funslinger]

As popular as my own fanfics have been in the past...this seems a bit sketchy to me. Especially since a rather important part was left out of that article: I read somewhere else that Amazon will own rights to your works.

One can only wonder how that last bit will work if you write self-insert fic.

The men in coats will come for you with cattle prods, tranquilizers and an oversized doggy cage, and take you away.

And dear god, this is a terrible idea.

 

[Griffolion]

But I thought they already sold 50 Shades of Grey!

My thoughts exactly. Isn't it one of their all time best sellers?

 

[Monsterfurby]

I am a semi-professional writer. I have published a couple of novels via serious publishers. It's not enough to make a living, but I aspire to eventually get to that point. Also, I write science fiction - surprising, right? It's kind of a current fad, but the creative energy that goes into each and every project is simply astounding once you look back at it.

I don't condemn FanFic writers - many people I know had their first writing experience with FanFics. Maybe I wrote some a long time ago, but I wrote so much different stuff in those days that I can hardly remember. There are also some out there that are seriously good, I'm not denying that either.

However, elevating fanfiction to the mainstream and to the same level as original works is a dangerous thing - first off, it blurs the line between official and fan-made and can be very disappointing to those unitiated.

Most importantly, it WILL hurt writers like me who create small original IPs of their own: while 90% of fanfiction is crap, people are unlikely to see that. People see characters they know and love from TV shows and games and films that have been advertised with millions upon millions of some studio's or channel's ad money and that they, the readers, are therefore already invested in. Who do you think is going to win out? A half-baked Star Wars / Twilight / Whatever is popular at the moment Fanfic that is unwittingly supported by a billion-dollar-company or an original work by an unknown author based around a setting/universe/license/IP that is entirely original but also unknown to the public?

This is going to be bad. Very, very bad. To the point where brilliant works by fairly unknown authors like Metro 2033 might become... nearly impossible to accomplish.

 

[mattaui]

I think this is great. You know why? I would rather derivative fan fiction stay labeled as such than have the serial numbers filed off and sold as something new. We'll still get plenty of it from other sources, but it's really kind of funny that it's taken this long for it to happen. I suppose initially publishers were fine with it existing out there since it was really just generating buzz for their properties, and they sure weren't going to pay for it. But now this is a way for those IP holders to monetize the fandom itself, with fans writing stuff for fans.

But yes, the comments section here is awash with folks who only read the headline (which is correct if incomplete), as this is not Amazon selling any and all fan fiction. It's fan fiction from sources that Amazon has acquired licenses from. And I'm sure they've got content restrictions on what they'll approve.

 

[Charli]

I am alright with this. jpg


It'll be a learning curve but now even more people can be ruthlessly tearing bad fanfiction a new asshole and only the good ones will survive. (And there are good ones)

The porn ones will be hilarious, I'm curious to see the figures on just how many literary perverts own a kindle and will pay for high class fan fiction smut. XD


And I mean really, how does it affect you if you don't like Fanfiction. I don't like a majority of the fanfiction out there but I have found a handful that have been just spectacular and I can only seeing this driving a few to write even better ones.

Also if the fanfiction is bad I assume there will be SOME quality control, or people just won't pay for it. And life will go on as normal. This has to be open to complete and decent writes with a strong story.

 

[Artemis923]

So, I can make money off of my Conan/Elric brofist wetdream?

-_- sounds hawt.

 

[Entitled]

Just look at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. And The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And most of the Disney Animated Canon. Yeah, those were public domain, but still, art with pre-existing characters and settings.

Or for that matter, while we are outside of literature, just look at any of the corporate-owned franchises that are granted to creators at the publisher's will, from Dark Knight to Avengers.

I think you missed the point about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Hamlet is only a framing device for Stoppard to make philosophical points about the nature of characters in plays and the much more personal point (Stoppard is Jewish and was born pre war in now what's the Czech republic) about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern passivity even when doing nothing will result in their deaths. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is many thing but fanfiction it anit.

You can start to categorize 'Dead as "Not really a fanfiction" because it's a satirical work with it's own values, but then would you also start categorizing Fallout: Equestria as "only a framing device" for LittlePip's philosophical musings about the corruption of kindness, and about the end justifying the means.

Or you could start categorizing Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality as not really a fanfiction but an applied lesson about transhumanism and Bayesian probability, and the author's commentary on the wizarding world's excessive reliance on heroes instead of thinking for themselves.

My point is, that there are also many "traditional" fanfictions, that are also making their own narrative points and messages beyond just playing with the original.

By definition, what we call "fanfiction" is nothing more than a framing device anyways. It usually indicates a written work, done by a new author, and normally without the first one's permission. That's it.

This deal with Amazon sounds horrible, if you autatically assume that by "fanfiction", they can only mean worthless circlejerking fanservice with no original message whatsoever. And indeed, most works will be like that, because most writers are shit, fanfiction or otherwise.

But if we assume that by selling fanfictions, they only meant selling works that are set in pre-existing IP, there is nothing that is categorically excluding the kind of smart works either that you would personally categorize as "only a framing device", but using new IP, like the above.

 

[the darknees abyss]

What they can't do that god damn it amazon just stop ok before i have to hate you

 

[Evil Smurf]

Nuuuuu! Fan fiction is partly responsible for making the Internet a scary place. Oh well, I just won't buy it.

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

People retell fairytales, myths and enduring literature all the time. Ullyses is a retelling of Odyssey. Mythpunk. Most fantasy in general, what with their dragons and centaurs and elves, oh my! Sure, the copyright has long since expired, but that's the only thing stopping fanfiction being sold anyway... and we have Creative Commons now, so that kind of thing is actually already here, so...

I don't mind fan fiction of my work, just saying. Of course I'm not published yet, so that's something to consider

 

[aba1]

I said this was coming and nobody believed me... I have never been so sad for writers those poor bastards.