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what happens to your fic after you die?

It depends. Like anything else on the internet, it could just sit on the Archive forever.

But if you want something more than that, then you might want to look into a Fannish Next of Kin (FNOK). This is a person you choose to get control of your account if you’re ever incapacitated or if you die. 

How do you choose them? They can be a real life friend or family member. They can be someone you know in fandom. Whoever it is, it should be someone you trust because they’ll be given access to your account in the event of your death. You’ll need to be able to talk to them about how you feel about your fanworks and what you want to have happen to them. Do you want them to stand just as they are? Do you want them added to the orphan_account? Do you want your entire account deleted?

After you have chosen your FNOK, both you and your chosen person will need to send a message to the Abuse team - they’re the team who also manage next of kin requests. Both of you will need an AO3 account in order to do this, so if the person you choose isn’t involved in fandom they’ll need to get an account first.

You don’t have to be next of kin for each other. It’s fine if the relationship is just one way. But, you can only have one next of kin. If there are 2 or more, there is the possibility of disagreements about what you want done, and AO3 has no way to arbitrate those disagreements.

You can end the agreement if you want to. If you have a falling out with your friend, or if they leave fandom and you lose touch, or if you want to end this part of the relationship for any reason, either one of you can send another message to the Abuse team and provide both usernames of the people involved. They’ll send you both a message to let you know the FNOK relationship has ended. 

How does AO3 know you’re dead? Your FNOK will tell them by submitting another report to the Abuse team. The Abuse team will then send an email to the address they have on file. If you don’t reply back within 10 days, they’ll pass control of your account over to your FNOK. It is important that you keep your AO3 account email up to date so you don’t miss this message. Remember that AO3 doesn’t know your real life identity, so if the person you trust says you’ve passed and you don’t tell AO3 that you haven’t, then they’ll believe them.

If your account is transferred but you’re still alive, submit a form to the Abuse team and let them know! They’ll do their best to get your account back to you.

You can read these and more details about Fannish Next of Kin over at the AO3 Terms of Service FAQ. Live long and prosper - and plan for the future 🖖

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The New York Public Library System is trying to close the "black hole in the cultural and scholarly record is harming the progress of knowledge, especially as researchers increasingly move online to conduct their research". They are collaborating with the Author's Guild, University of Michigan Press, University of South Carolina Press, University of Massachusetts Press, and MIT Press -- and Google will be doing the scanning -- to take scholarly works that are out of print, and allow them to "emerge from scholarly invisibility. They will be discoverable and usable by a global audience of readers and researchers even if their level of use would never ascend to a point at which their publisher would choose to put the work back into print."

More at the link -- and more things for us to read and research in the coming year(s).

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Happy 40th Anniversary to the case that underpins Fair Use, technology & the Internet.

“Do Notte Buye Betamacks.”

—

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett wrote that classic line in Good Omens in the late 1980s, when Sony’s Betamax video tape system was already known to be a commercial failure. While it was the first viable at-home video recording system, it had been largely supplanted by VHS videotapes because of their longer recording time and lower cost (although they had a slightly lower quality image as well). 

But there was one area where Betamax was never supplanted by the VHS tape and player manufacturers, and that was in the US Supreme Court. On January 17, 1984, the Court issued its ruling in Sony vs Universal, the case that gave device manufacturers the right to invent, make and sell products that could be used to infringe on copyrights, as long as there was also a significant non-infringing purpose in/regarding the device.

When the Justices first discussed the case, only one of them thought that it was legally permissible for an individual or family to make a single copy of a tv show at home. Just think for a moment of what our world would look like if the Court had ruled the other way - at a minimum, cassette tapes would have been taxed or sold with a license fee on behalf of the songwriters’ publishers, recordable DVDs and the devices that record on them would probably have never existed, and it’s not even clear whether home computers would have developed the way they did; Congress certainly would have regulated the Internet differently in the mid-90s. 

As the EFF wrote in 2005, had the case gone the other way, would innovators have been 

forced by copyright law to ask permission from entertainment moguls before building new technologies? If Sony had asked permission from Hollywood, the Betamax might never have made it to market (or might have had very different features). It’s thanks to the Betamax ruling that the makers of VCRs and every other technology capable of infringing and non-infringing uses (e.g., personal computers, CD burners, the TiVo DVR, Apple’s iPod, and Web browsers) can continue to sell their wares without fear of lawsuits from copyright owners.

Fred Von Lohmann, now with Google’s GC office, wrote this ten years ago - before YouTube (and even gmail) even existed:

New technologies make copyrights more valuable because they unleash new markets and business models. That’s been the rule, without exception, for a century. The VCR ended up making Hollywood rich, with sales of pre-recorded cassettes quickly eclipsing the receipts from box office ticket sales. There’s no reason to think that the Internet won't create even more revenue-generating opportunities.

Every new technology that’s accepted by the mass market impacts all the markets that already exist. Von Lohmann mentioned the publishing industry and scanners in that article ten years ago - and scanners are what made the entire Google Books ruling possible last fall, which in turn expanded the definition and tests regarding Fair Use of all types. 

Every new technology that’s accepted by the mass market changes how we interact with stories, and often, it changes (and expands) copyright law, too.

So no, do notte buy Betamacks (in 1980) if you’re interested in a lower-priced way to record tv shows for two hours before switching tapes. 

Do buy into Betamax’s argument from thirty years ago that a single copy of a copyright-protected work does not infringe. Do buy into Betamax’s argument that single copies and library-building are both Fair Use. Do buy into the Supreme Court’s ruling that inventors and users cannot be liable for infringement for creating, distributing or using a device, program or item that is capable of non-infringing uses. 

Do record something today - likely on digital media - to mark the fact that you can do so, legally. 

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“fanfiction,” as a concept, only exists because of intellectual property. at the end of the day, it’s just fiction. some of it is great, some of it sucks ass. sometimes, it can reveal something damning about the author—prejudices, biases, whether or not they think cats should be left indoors, how they feel about offshore tax evasion, whatever. that’s the nature of fiction. this is not news to anyone who’s ever opened a book

what’s truly unique about fanfiction is that it’s anonymous and free with a barrier to entry that ants wouldn’t notice climbing. also, it’s amateur by necessity; barring a few notable exceptions, nobody expects their gaudy slash fiction to win them an award or make them a million dollars. this crock pot of internet fuckery lends itself to two things—a monumental diversity of skill level and buck wild nasty behavior

fanfiction is neither god’s gift to all man kind nor an incurable blight. it’s just a thing. that exists. it’s neither defenseless nor indefensible. it can be harmful, helpful, or benign. more importantly, it’s not going anywhere, so i wish we’d stop arguing about whether or not it’s “legitimate” and talk about what’s actually happening with it instead

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Mickey art by @foxestacado; Magic Kingdom photo by @heidi8.

I took my first Copyright Law class in 1993; just after the term concluded, certain motion pictures had their copyrights restored because of NAFTA, but the copyright terms for things like the Marx Bros' Animal Crackers, and yes, the original Mickey Mouse cartoons including Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy were supposed to expire by the early 2000s, free for use by anyone, for any purpose (other than trademark infringement).

As we all know, they did not; the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act stretched the term from 75 years to 95 years after first publication, keeping the public domain closed for 20 years -- but those 95 years expire at midnight on January 1, 2024 for Steamboat Willie -- as well as Virginia Woolf's Orlando, the picture book Millions of Cats, a few of my favorite songs from Burt Kalmar & Harry Ruby, and the first sound recording of "Yes! We Have No Bananas!"

What does this mean for creativity? It's unpredictable! Will there be more productions of Threepenny Opera? Stage musical versions of Animal Crackers -- or Marx Bros VR? More tiktoks and YouTube videos set to songs our great grandparents enjoyed, now that the sea shanty trend is over? Will there be horror movie versions of early Mickey cartoons, the way some indie filmmakers did a horror movie version of Winnie the Pooh when the first Milne book went into the public domain a few years ago? Will there be a sequel to that horror film featuring Tigger now that His Bounciness is entering the public domain? Will I do a video setting Mickey to "Mack the Knife"? Perhaps!

But I and everyone else needs to remember that Disney still holds trademark rights in Mickey Mouse -- the original version and the evolutions since -- so it'll be important to include a disclaimer or notice that any follow-on work based on things in the public domain is not owned, created or distributed by Disney or the other relevant brand-owner.

What will I be doing to mark the occasion? I'm planning on celebrating the public domain moment *at* Walt Disney World; I need to feel it in my soul; I expect fireworks, and absolutely no recognition from anyone other than me (and possibly my family who tolerate my ridiculousness on this) about the momentousness of the moment. I may livestream it.

I've been waiting for this moment for thirty years, and I can't believe I finally get to celebrate it this week! Creativity is magic, and it'll be fascinating to see what happens next!

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I just love this imagery.

Taylor @ the Chiefs game today! (12/25/23)

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Flashback time. I (heidi) came on board in July, 2007; in May of 2007, LJ's then-owners, SixApart, banned a number of fanfic communities including Pornish Pixies, which played a role in some of the discussions about having a site where there would be ownership of the servers, so fandom wouldn't be at the mercy of third parties who changed policies with some capriciousness and, occasionally, less notice.

Now I (heidi) enjoy that my kids (who are now all now young adults) read and post on AO3, and that they won't tell me what their usernames are.

You keep talking about the origins of AO3 as this group effort by an actual group of people who were friends and who spent time discussing this with each other in person. It's kind of blowing my mind. Is there a post or a journal somewhere that specifically keeps record of this?

--

I'm dying.

Nonnie, seriously?

No, that's mean, I know you're serious. It's just flabbergasting how much fandom has expanded and how much there isn't a direct link to the past.

Astolat and Cesperanza floated the idea at Vividcon and various places, I think, though I wasn't going to cons in that era. We were all on LJ in those days, and Astolat made a big post nailing her theses to the door. Discussion in the comments was instant and prolonged.

A LJ com was set up to discuss. It was later renamed to otw_news, but if you go all the way back to the beginning, you can see brainstorming mess instead of official news posts.

Fanlore page linking to Astolat's post and giving a little context.

Early brainstorming: https://otw-news.livejournal.com/2007/05/

For example, here I am collecting links to older archives to look at for research when designing AO3.

Fun fact, we never intended to call it AO3. There was a whole call for name suggestions, but nothing was as evocative as astolat's original post title referencing Virginia Woolf. (For those who haven't thought about it, AO3's name is a reference to A Room of One's Own.)

Here's the name discussion

Here's the poll that came out of it

But also notice how many people voted: 562.

That's how many people cared at the time: a few hundred. Maybe a thousand if you count lurkers, but frankly, that community was not as lurkery as now. It wasn't just ten friends. It was a community effort. But what "our" community looked like at the time was vastly different. It was six degrees of Kevin Bacon astolat, not a vast sea of strangers like fic fandom on AO3 is now.

Here's an early post suggesting we ban the under 18s from the site entirely. Pity we didn't do so, given the rise of antis.

Here's the invite to a fundraising party at astolat's in NYC that following Halloween. I dressed as Amanda from Highlander, not very well.

You can tell we knew each other by looking at those comments on astolat's initial post. You can also tell how discussion-based that part of fandom was back in 2007.

The way my tumblr is now with a ton of text, back and forth, and hopping around between threads of conversation, all featuring a consistent set of faces, is very much like LJ. Most of tumblr is not.

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As someone with a mango allergy, ✅⬆️♾️

PSA: tomatoes are not spicy. Tomatoes and tomato products should not be spicy. Pizza sauce isn’t inherently spicy. Tomato-based pasta sauce is not spicy. Ketchup is NOT spicy.

If tomatoes are spicy, you have an allergy to tomatoes.

This announcement brought to you by my almost 29-year-old husband learning for the first time in his 2.8 decades of putting food products into his mouth that spaghetti and saucy pizza aren’t spicy foods

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why do you and others like vaccines so much?

not dying of preventable diseases is actually one of my favorite hobbies

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Today we're thrilled to publish our latest article—a piece on U.S copyright law and fandom by @earlgreytea68!

Fan creators don’t speak with one voice any more than any creative community speaks with one voice. I am well aware that I am one of you, but I am definitely not all of you. But most fan creators don’t consider themselves to be lazy or thieves—including me. In fact, all the fan creators that I know work very hard on our creations. We don’t consider ourselves to be stealing anything, because what we “steal”—some characters, some settings—is part of our cultural heritage, part of the world around us, part of the raw material we’ve been given to examine and make sense of our world, the way creators have for millennia.

She'll also discuss the topic on this week's episode, out today for Patrons and tomorrow for everyone else!

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Trademark Law in the MCU

Loki 2.01 "Ouroboros"

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In my chapter in FIC, I wrote about how WB asked us at FictionAlley to mark all the slash as rated-R, and we said no. (But that was in 2002 and nobody knew then that Dumbledore was gay. And I’m not sure they discussed this with Joanne before making the request.)

So I’m on AO3 and I see a lot of people who put “I do not own [insert fandom here]” before their story.

Like, I came on this site to read FAN fiction. This is a FAN fiction site. I’m fully aware that you don’t own the fandom or the characters. That’s why it’s called FAN FICTION.

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Is anyone else concerned with the growing monetization of fandom?

--

Approximately 100% of Olds, yes.

Actually, internet activists are pretty worried about the corporatization of the internet in general, not just of fandom.

All of the oldschool DIY subcultures are facing similar pressures, both from people who want to co-opt them and from desperate people who need to gig-ify their whole lives to get by.

Here's an example of the kind of manifesto I'm talking about.

I can't make other people's choices for them, but we can build sites and communities that resist this kind of thing. AO3 is one, and it destroyed any potential market for a for-profit fic archive.

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what if elle woods from legally blonde had been harry’s lawyer during his hearing in the order of the phoenix

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I would just like to take a second to thank every single fanfiction writer who’s ever published a fic. In the last 3 weeks, I’ve read over 890,000 words of fanfiction while in quarantine. I know legally, fanfiction writers are not considered “essential” but let me tell you: they are essential to me. Essential to my sanity, my wellbeing, my happiness. Fic gives me so much joy and such a love for the world and the people in it, and fic writers don’t ask for anything in return, except occasional engagement. So from the bottom of my heart: thank you fic writers. Thank you for keeping me company during this time of isolation. Thank you for writing stories that give me hope and take my mind off of my anxiety. Thank you for making me laugh even when I don’t think it’s possible. Thank you for giving me something to be excited about when it feels like the world is falling apart around me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

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Re-posting this because I finally got to scan it in high-res.

Betty Bates is a goddamn hero.

—“Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law” in Hit Comics #47 (1947)