lyore

I was reading my way through

metafandom, and I came across a couple of people honestly enquiring how what FanLib was doing was any different to FFN, giving that both are funded by advertisements. I wrote up a nice, long comment, and then LJ ate it and crashed Safari. So I've lost not only the comment, but who I was replying to in the first place.

But, since writing it out helped me to get my thoughts in order, I thought I might revisit it here.

The difference that fans are reacting to is, in my mind, the matter of a) intent, and b) appearance, and c) risk.

FanLib is openly seeking to make money from fanfic. It's up front about this, and even if they hadn't been, the site/company is funded by venture capital money, provided in expectation of a return on the investment. FanLib, effectively, has to make a profit, and it is a profit that is completely dependent on the exploitation of other people's IP.

On the other hand, despite FanLib's claims to the contrary, FFN has never promoted itself as being a 'for profit' archive, and denies that its advertising revenue going to anything other than funding the site's services (a believable claim IMO, given the size of the site). But frankly, whether or not it's actually making a profit is almost irrelevant - the party line, the publicly available data (at least the easily accessible stuff), all maintains this stance. FFN has the appearance of being a not-for-profit, fan-run site. And therein lies the difference.

Fans have long believed that that one thing that protects them from the ire of IP owners is the fact that this is a labour of love, with no one profiting from the work. Again, whether or not this is legally true or not is undecided, but I personally think it does make a large difference on whether or not IP owners decide to pursue it. After all, putting myself in the shoes of some hypothetical author, for instance - while I may be exceedingly flattered that fans cared enough to write fanfic of my work, I'd be pretty damn annoyed at the idea of other people profiting from it, especially a random third party who has no allegiance to my work. It's human nature. I'd be a lot more likely to throw around the C&Ds, and far more inclined to take it further, if I was chasing a company (and a non-fannish company) rather than a fan.

And it's complicated by the fact that the rights to the IP might not (in fact, probably don't) belong to a person, but to a company - and given this whole mess has happened because Big Business saw a chance to make a buck, do you think the owners of the original IP will feel any differently? FanLib is, in one sense, exploiting a market that could be theirs. Why on earth would one of the big media companies put up with it?

And this is the reason that I see FanLib as different to FFN. It's business and operating model increases the risk to fans, not only by making it more public, but by making fandom a more attractive target. When you combine this with the fact that the very TOS that FanLib feels will protect them may in fact make them more vulnerable, (see

synecdochic's post on the 'safe habour' concept), making the fans more vulnerable to attack from FanLib as well as the original IP owner, this could be bad news.

In RL, I work in projectland, and FanLib violates one of the most basic rules - the risk follows the money. If you want to convince people to take on all the risk of a situation, you need to make sure they are compensated accordingly. In this case, fandom takes all the risk, and FanLib takes all the profit. While I can see why this is an attractive proposal for them, it doesn't fill me with wild enthusiasm.

This doesn't even address the other issues of how FanLib and FFN are different - first and foremost, FFN is largely without the air of exploitation that FanLib exudes. Whether you believe this is gender based, or a simple case of Big Business vs Grassroots, the very act of having 'outsiders' come in and try and make a profit off a community's freely provided content is exploitative, and was always going to raise hackles, even if they hadn't violated almost every rule of (LJ) fandom etiquette there is.

I'm not a big fan of FFN, but I think to equate the two is to miss some very fundamental issues that get to the heart of the whole FanLib debate.

ETA Relevant Blog post by profic author here " I’m willing to look the other way for fans, who are just enjoying themselves and not bothering to try to do anything other than have fun. I’m less inclined to look the other way when someone is trying to build a business a) off my fans without compensating them; b) off of my universe and characters without compensating me."

Yeah, what he said.