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.

[gehayi]

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

[laughingrat]

Oh man, that is skeevy.

[annalee]

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

[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.

[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.

[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*