Trainwreck, coming soon!

[neotoma]

So, apparently this guy named Keith Mander bought LOTRFanfiction.com and a Twilight fanfic archive -- esteliel has wonderful coverage here -- and is going to monetize them ... somehow.

This is not good.

OTW has already posted their reaction to this -- they're offering Archive of Our Own accounts to any writer from those sites who don't already have an AO3 account and the OTW coders already working on custom importers for anyone who wants to transfer their stories.

My own take on it is that this guy is going to be no more successful at monetizing fanfic than the guys behind FanLib, mostly because the core fanficcers will flee from this kind of horsecrap. Fanfic exists in gray areas to start with and has a gift culture that is fairly shy of attracting attention from the rights' holders, and blundering in trying to make money off of other people's fanfic is considered beyond the pale. In part, because it violates the gift culture, but also because it just emphasizes just how much of a clueless outsider you are and that you might just bring down the attention of rights' holders (like the Tolkien estate, which is pretty fierce about their ownership of the the rights) on people who have been trying to fly under their radar.

Comments

[madripoor_rose]

Head-desk.

It's almost funny, watching these Suits think they've found an untapped market. I wonder if this guy's going to get into a flamewar with fleeing fen like the Fanlib people....

[author376]

O_o...

Really, I'm amazed that someone has made this mistake again. Not only do they open themselves up to a huge lawsuit from the Tolkien estate, but it violates the various fan-authors' rights as well, and the culprit's responses come across like a teenage con-artists trying to sound reasonable and adult.

Thank you for posting this, though, it definitely shows how greater awareness of the fanfiction community isn't always a good thing.

[neotoma]

I don't think he's a Suit, per se. He seems to be a techie-geek with some aspirations to be a tech-business flipper... he might even have delusions of being an innovator, but his business plan as he sketched it out in his own post definitely sounds like a flipper to me.

He definitely is not answering the questions people are leaving in the comments.

The fact that LOTRFF now seems to be owned by a limited liability company based in the UK (owned by Mander, one assumes) is just... the Tolkien Estate is in the UK. Why would anyone with any sense incorporate as an LLC in the same country as the people you may be copyright infringing on as part of your business plan?! Especially when the UK is much narrower than the US in the 'fair use' exemption that fanficcers try to skate under.

Basically... :P

[neotoma]

He sounds like a dudebro, doesn't he?

The OTW does champion work, but then they have to work damage control when some fool like this one shows up. Seriously, I doubt they wanted to have to shift a lot of their coders (who are volunteers, you know! I believe the only paid employee is the CPA who handles the OTW taxes) over to creating custom importers to transfer stories from the LOTRFF and Twilight archives.

[author376]

*nods* One person trying to make money off of the work of others, and in turn he makes twice as much work for volunteers. :/ And, yes, I think that word sounds up what he sounds like nicely.

[gehayi]

I hope that the Tolkien Estate lands on him with the force of Saruman's Tower crashing down.

[neotoma]

Well, hopefully all of the actual fanfic writers have evacuated by then. But since LOTRFF currently isn't set up so that people can delete their accounts... it looks to be a clusterfuck in the making.

[laughingrat]

Oh man, that is skeevy.

[neotoma]

It's just... wow, this is going to be such a trainwreck.

[laughingrat]

And if I read that overview right, users can't take their stories down from the site themselves? Oh man.

[neotoma]

Apparently they can take down their stories but they can't delete their account (with associated contact info, one assumes?), at least at the moment.

Basically, it sounds like it's going to be as much of a mess as FanLib.

[annalee]

Yeah... This is NOT going to end well. I just hope the writers don't end up being the ones to get burned.

[neotoma]

Well, the writers seem to be fleeing, so maybe they'll get out of the splash zone before the everything blows up.

[st_aurafina]

The OTW is so awesome - I can just see this guy going "But they're giving invitations away? For free? What?" as all his content goes to a better place.

I love fandom so much sometimes.

[chomiji]

Yet another young techno-jerkass who thinks that the world (including fanfic authors) is his oyster. I think he imagines that all the fanfic writers are naive young women with heads filled with fluff and stars in their eyes.

[neotoma]

I kind of wonder what the previous site-owner for LOTRFF was thinking, since if she had the site running for 7 years, she must have some inkling of how the members would react...

But yeah, I expect this attempt to monetize on fanfic archives to work just as well as FanLib...

And OTW is quite awesome. I need to chuck some money their way.

[neotoma]

He definitely comes off as the techie-geek subtype of the common dudebro, yes.

At least in his own personal blog, he doesn't seem to be answer the questions about the legalities. Although, frankly, I don't know how he could win anyone over with his 'business' plan.

[cofax7]

I admit that the person I'm raising my eyebrows at the most is the site-owner who sold the site to this guy... wth was she thinking? It's one thing to get donations to keep the site up and running (and as of this morning there was a big Donations button on the left), but another entirely to dump your community and bug off with the cash. She's not going to refund the donations with it, I'm sure.

[st_aurafina]

It sounds like he has a good spiel going, with the flattery and the gratification, and "You've done such a good job - I'm a professional and I'm impressed!" Very skeevy, especially preying on the kind of people who do volunteer work keeping fansites up for the love ot it.

He obviously sees fandom people as a paddock full of big woolly sheep. I love how we're collectively baring our teeth.

wandering by to say...

[celli]

Hee, not even the CPA who does the taxes is paid.

--the CPA who does the taxes

Re: wandering by to say...

[neotoma]

Really? Well, then, thanks for donating your time and expertise! You're wonderful!

[neotoma]

I dunno -- I'd have thought people who were in fandom for the FanLib experience 4 years ago would have spotted the spiel immediately. Or maybe that's just me, with my resistance to people trying to sell me pies-in-the-sky.

We're definitely not sheep. Herding fans is like herding cats -- it really doesn't work.

[neotoma]

I don't know what the internal politics of LOTRFF was like before it was sold, so really, the previous site-owner could be anything... naive about the deal, willing to sell out, genuinely exhausted and at the end of her tether, or some combo of each.

I expect more information will develop over the course of the weekend -- and how convenient this was over the Independence Day weekend, so most of the US fans are going to be occupied with their holiday? Hopefully some light will be shed into just what is going to happen, and how fandom will collectively react to it all.

[oneiriad]

What has me headdesking the most is the way he's saying one thing to the fandom and another on his blog - seriously, when are people going to realize that saying different things to different audienzes is the direct route to epic fail. Because we will found out. And when we do... *rolls eyes, would break out popcorn, but it's not even noon yet*

[neotoma]

Cause it's not like we can follow links and use google to find you...

Fandom is just not something you can just waltz into. Obeying the social conventions is extremely important in making any business venture work in fandom.

Re: wandering by to say...

[lauramcewan]

Thank you for your hard work!