Amazon announces publishing platform for licensed fanfic

[unjapanologist]

Hi! Sorry about the months of silence, I hope everyone's doing well... Dreamwidth seems quiet these days. More soon about the ten million things I've been busy with. First though, a crosspost of a quick analysis thing I wrote for Fanhackers about Amazon's new great idea. The tone of this post is restrained because Fanhackers is not a private soapbox, but my personal objections to the idea of Amazon trying to revolutionize fanfic distribution are, um, extreme.

 

PaidContent reports that in June this year, Amazon will be launching Kindle Worlds, a legal publishing platform for fanfic. According to Amazon's announcement, Kindle Worlds will start out by allowing fanfic based on Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries.

It's not necessarily bad news that companies are trying to create options for "licensed" fanfic, and I'll leave the in-depth analysis of the legal aspects of this to professionals. Legal issues aside, though, I certainly hope that Kindle Worlds won't become a model for other attempts to legalize fanfic. This concept seems to repeat a lot of fan-unfriendly aspects of previous forays by companies into the weird world of fic monetization. Kindle Worlds would allow fic authors to sell works "without hassle", as PaidContent says, but apparently also without many rights, and within the boundaries of extremely strict content guidelines.

The platform refers to fandoms as "Worlds". Copyright holders can give Amazon Publishing a license to allow fic writers to upload stories about licensed media to Amazon Publishing, which will then offer the stories for sale. Since this is not a self-publishing platform, Amazon Publishing will be setting the prices:

Paidcontent:

The fan fiction authors get a royalty of 35 percent for works of at least 10,000 words, and a royalty of 20 percent on works between 5,000 and 10,000 words.

Amazon's "Kindle Worlds for authors" page:

Amazon Publishing will set the price for Kindle Worlds stories. Most will be priced from $0.99 through $3.99.

Fic authors will get a monthly payout. Amazon will be paying an undisclosed amount of royalties to the copyright holders of the media the fics are based on, and presumably also keep an undisclosed amount of money for itself. In short, while fic writers will get some money, they have zero control over how much they might want to charge or how much of a cut they deserve, and no options to negotiate. Amazon can organize its business the way it pleases, of course. But this "you will take what we offer you or nothing" approach may offer a big clue to how Amazon believes the rights of all parties should be balanced out when fic writers and copyright holders try to share income from fanworks.

An ever-returning problem with "official" fanfic contests and corporate websites is that they tend do have content guidelines that are rather more restrictive than what many fans feel is sensible, and Kindle Worlds is no exception. The copyright holders who license their properties to Amazon to allow fanfic on Kindle Worlds will be deciding which content is allowed:

World Licensors have provided Content Guidelines for each World, and your work must follow these Content Guidelines. We strongly encourage you to read the Content Guidelines before you commit the time and effort to write.

It's not immediately clear if this means that there will be different content guidelines for every fandom on top of the content guidelines that Amazon itself sets. But Amazon's basic content guidelines are as follows:

Pornography: We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.
Offensive Content: We don’t accept offensive content, including but not limited to racial slurs, excessively graphic or violent material, or excessive use of foul language.
Illegal and Infringing Content: We take violations of laws and proprietary rights very seriously. It is the authors' responsibility to ensure that their content doesn't violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
Poor Customer Experience: We don't accept books that provide a poor customer experience. Examples include poorly formatted books and books with misleading titles, cover art, or product descriptions. We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience.
Excessive Use of Brands: We don’t accept the excessive use of brand names or the inclusion of brand names for paid advertising or promotion.
Crossover: No crossovers from other Worlds are permitted, meaning your work may not include elements of any copyright-protected book, movie, or other property outside of the elements of this World.

This is rather incredibly restrictive, but I can't say I'm surprised. In other fanfic contests and corporate fic-hosting endeavors, media companies have also set content guidelines that prohibit sexual content or other hard-to-market things. (Also check out this thesis by Suzanne Scott and this article by Roberta Pearson for more discussion on this.) Last year's MTV-organized Teen Wolf fanfic contest caused some amazement precisely because it wasn't explicitly hostile to slash or porn.

Needless to say, these guidelines will be excluding a massive number of authors from legally monetizing their fic - from those who write smut to those who like to write some violence, have their characters curse, or just don't manage to provide a good "customer experience". I'm curious what Amazon will make of non-sexually explicit slash.

Some may also consider it an issue that there will apparently be DRM on the stories to prevent them from being read on non-Kindle devices and programs:

Stories will be available in digital format exclusively on Amazon.com, Kindle devices, iOS, Android, and PC/Mac via our Kindle Free Reading apps. We hope to offer additional formats in the future.

And then we come to where the copyright on the submitted stories will go:

Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright. (...) You will own the copyright to the original, copyrightable elements (such as characters, scenes, and events) that you create and include in your work, and the World Licensor will retain the copyright to all the original elements of the World. When you submit your story in a World, you are granting Amazon Publishing an exclusive license to the story and all the original elements you include in that story. This means that your story and all the new elements must stay within the applicable World. We will allow Kindle Worlds authors to build on each other's ideas and elements. We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.

Exactly what this implies is best explained by a legal professional, and I have no doubt that the OTW's lawyers will have some advice ready soon, as they did with earlier corporate attempts to solicit fanworks. However, it certainly sounds like Amazon acquires all publication rights and will give the copyright owner a license to use a fan's contributions without any compensation in any further commercial media they publish. (Whether Amazon gets any additional income from this licensing to the copyright holders isn't mentioned either.) I'm curious about whether, for instance, this licensing agreement with Amazon would permit a fic writer to still offer her story for free on another fic archive.

Regardless - since claiming all rights to fanworks is another thing that many "official" fanwork-soliciting endeavors from Syfy with Battlestar Galactica to the fic contests planned by the infamous Fanlib have been lambasted for, I'm not sure if this will go down well anywhere.

All this doesn't sound like the Kindle Worlds was designed to take fans' rights and concerns into account. The list that Amazon gives of advantages that Kindle Worlds offers to fic writers is tellingly meaningless:

Writers benefit from Kindle Worlds because:

• Amazon Publishing has already secured the necessary licenses to write about any Kindle World

• They can earn royalties writing about established characters and universes

• The Kindle Worlds self-service submission platform is easy to use

The first point seems to imply that fic writers need a license to be allowed to write fic at all, which is a contested idea at the very least; many legal scholars writing about fanworks would probably argue differently. The second point, earning money with fic, may be considered a good thing by some fic authors; I've argued in favor of fic writers considering commodification options, as have others, so I'd personally say that this can indeed be a legitimate advantage - although as mentioned earlier, the fact that fan writers would have no control whatsoever over pricing makes this a qualified "okay then" indeed. The third point, that Kindle Worlds is easy to use, is just silly. Plenty of websites where people can publish fic are easy to use. I get the feeling that they just needed a third point in there to match the three-point list of advantages for copyright holders, and couldn't think of anything.

 Again, I'm not against the idea of "licensed" fic in and of itself, and those who want to agree to Amazon's terms certainly have the right to do so. However, something like Kindle Worlds can be only one option among many for licensing fic, and it definitely shouldn't be a model for other "solutions" to the legal uncertainties surrounding fanworks. The only option for publishing fic legally can't be a platform that takes or licenses away many rights, doesn't give fic authors the option to set prices, and excludes large numbers of fans with its content guidelines. Hopefully, alternatives that strike a better balance between the rights of fans and copyright holders will emerge soon to counter this.

Comments

[owlmoose]

Good article. It's that first piece of the bullet list that concerns me the most, too, just as it has every other time we've gotten on this particular merry-go-round: does this create an expectation that the only "legit" fanworks are those approved by the original IP holders? Which would be a serious step backwards for fandom right now.

[unjapanologist]

Yeah. The thing that worries me about this particular new incarnation of the monster is that it's Amazon announcing it, and the news is being covered all around the regular blogosphere etc. I sure hope Amazon doesn't end up setting a standard with this and/or creating more confusion about whether fic writers need permission.

[khellekson]

I wish they wouldn't call it "licensed (fan) fic" but instead call it what it is: work for hire by freelancers in a shared world. The terms you're seeing are exactly what I see in the freelance writing world.

(I'm watching the Internetz explode with this. Innnnteresting!)

[unjapanologist]

*nodnod* It does sound like they're treating the fics exactly like works for hire, without the conditions of the fics' creation actually having anything to do with those generally associated with works for hire. I wonder how legal that would turn out to be if a judge actually had to look at it. Really looking forward to the lawyers' analysis.

[khellekson]

Basically they are going to consider unsolicited content. HA HA HA HA HA. Good luck with that. I predict: they will backpedal after some shit goes down that is unpleasant, and stop taking unsolicited MSS, after they get a stable of writers who do well.

[unjapanologist]

:D I've seen people floating around suggestions that we all send in our piles of old crappy porn and crash the system.

The "no poooorn" rule isn't unexpected in and of itself. But I wonder how many authors who "do well" they could realistically get, if people can sell only gen fic with no curse words and no controversial themes and no nothing.

[yoshitsune]

Wow. Just. I pretty much started laughing in an ugly way at "fan fiction authors get a royalty of 35 percent for works of at least 10,000 words, and a royalty of 20 percent on works between 5,000 and 10,000 words."
Amazon on any way to earn an extra dollar by doing next to nothing but exploiting other people's hard work.

How do Japanese media companies manage to let fandom sell doujinshi and short story collections without much fuss? Is it because the prices are usually not much more than printing off-set? Or because it adds to their business?

[unjapanologist]

Yeah, they're not falling over themselves to value fic authors' contributions properly.

It's a combination of factors in Japan - because the companies see it as free marketing, because they can use the dojinshi market to see what's hot and use those innovations in commercial works, because they can pick up good/successful dojinshi artists and have them make original manga, and because most dojinshi creators have clearly fannish motivations and are obviously not trying to just make money; most of them are in the red and barely even cover their printing and materials costs.

Of course there's a lot of discussion these days about how far things can go before you're thought not to be acting out of "fannish" motivations anymore. There's doujin shops that sell new and used dojinshi, some dojinshi circles that sell thousands of copies, etc. It's not a perfect balance, but there are certainly remarkably few incidents between copyright holders and dojinshi creators IMO.

[yoshitsune]

That's interesting. Sad to hear that most artists can't even recoup their printing costs, but I can understand why they'd still do it when they love the fandom. Hm, yeah actually I've been wondering about doujinshi being sold at large manga-oriented stores...

It's kind of funny is a sad way that many Western/U.S. companies are so clueless about how the creative side of fandom functions.

[unjapanologist]

The dojin stores have existed for ages, but they've gotten huge now with chain stores in every big Japanese city, and they're selling new dojinshi as well instead of just second hand stuff. There's people who say that selling your dojinshi through a store instead of in person at conventions is not "fannish" behavior, but like with a lot of unwritten norm things, this boundary seems to have shifted. People like the convenience of buying and selling at stores.

The Western/US companies have tried to stay separate from creative fandom for so long that they're now unable to engage with it meaningfully, it seems. It's probably hard to backtrack if you've spent decades insisting that you must protect your intellectual property at all costs and fanworks are barely to be tolerated.

[flourish]

I didn't read the license statement very carefully. That is interesting. I was definitely approaching the whole thing from the perspective of "well, the entertainment industry runs on money. If they think fans can make them money and are willing to pay even a tiny amount back to fans that is a step... well... I'm not sure it's forward, but it's something..."

[unjapanologist]

The realization that fan activity can earn copyright holders money is certainly a step in the right direction, I agree - even that basic awareness was lacking not so long ago. And that they're willing to pay some money back is too.

But this whole endeavor still seems based on the idea that fans are allowed to make their stuff only by the grace of benevolent copyright holders, that they shouldn't get to control how things are monetized, and that they should consider themselves lucky to get whatever amount of compensation they're graciously offered. This isn't a partnership where both parties agree that the other is contributing something really valuable and deserves to be compensated. For me, the whole setup suggests that this was conceived out of a desire to squeeze money out of fandom, not a desire to establish an exchange where both parties get more value out of what they're already doing. That's... really disappointing. I want there to be serious, fair ways for fans to monetize their stuff if they want to :(

I wish there had been some discussion with fans before they set this up. It would have been a much more viable concept if there had been some fannish union representation making sure that the license wasn't an exploitative mess.

[flourish]

Completely true—and I do think the desire is to squeeze money out of fandom. It's a short-sighted attitude to take, in my opinion, but that's one effect of capitalism. (Ha.)

Actually, the thing I'm working on right now is something trying to bring fan voices into this conversation—my company has given me a lot of time to think about/work on trying to think of ways to do that and I'm hoping to launch an initiative on it within the next month or so. It was totally serendipitous that Amazon announced this just now.

[unjapanologist]

It would be great to have an initiative that's based on dialogue between all parties. There has to be more understanding of why everyone is in the game, what they would consider value, what their motivations are.

A system that disrespects any party's motivations has no chance of getting off the ground. Companies in a market economy are mostly motivated by the desire/need to make money, and fans can/should respect that. Fans (English-speaking media fandom fans at the very least) in a gift economy are motivated mostly by the desire to share their stuff within the communities they like. Kindle Worlds gets several things wrong, but it really makes a fundamental error simply by forbidding fans who submit their stories to it to still share them for free elsewhere. If you sell your story on Kindle Worlds, you're not allowed to hand it out for free anymore to those who can't or don't want to pay for fic.

Sharing is a core fannish motivation in very many fan communities. If you forbid fans to share their stories as a condition for participating in a market economy, you're not building a bridge between your market economy and fans' gift economy; you're trying to co-opt that gift economy. If you ignore the basic motivations of people in gift economies, those people won't want to work with you. Generic you, not you you ;)

Oh god I need to get back to work. What I mean is, I look forward to the new and more sensible initiative! When can we expect more info?

[flourish]

I basically agree (and I also need to get back to work). I think that if nothing else, any initiative that succeeds will have to embrace and support the existence of a gift economy. I think that forbidding fans to share the stories that appear on Amazon Worlds isn't totally ridiculous, but that doing so without emphasizing that they understand that fans have a choice to participate in this market based story-sharing economy or not is really deeply problematic.

I think that there doesn't necessarily have to be a bridge so much as there has to be a path—a path that can lead both ways, where people start off thinking in terms of money and can exit to a gift economy focus, or vice versa, or can exist in both realms at once (even if one story can't exist in both realms at once).

More info - I'm hoping soon, soon, soon! You'll know: I'll post about it all over the place. :)

[extempore]

This is pretty much the opposite of what fanwork (and by continuation, fandom) is to me. That is nothing else than hiring cheap (as in not costing too much money) authors to write in other people's franchises and under strict rules. Has been common practice for ages in various genres of pulp fiction, for example.

[unjapanologist]

Agreed. Various people have been comparing it to work for hire in all but name, and while I'm not a legal professional, it certainly looks like it.

Missed chance #491, sigh.

[extempore]

I'm always suspicious of attempts to rein fanfic in, to regulate it in some way. Someone wrote a comment in another journal mentioning "the wilds" of fandom and fanfic, and that exactly is, to me, the very core of fandom in its broadest sense. In a way this "wilderness" mirrors some sort of fantasy, of utopia or crazy ideal where people simply enjoy each other and each other's work without limitations. Where everyone finds something to their taste, because everything exists.

Where else do you get something like that? No wonder it tempts, scares or perhaps annoyes outsiders, who try to make some sense of it, get some use out of it, try to find a way to "make it fit".

[unjapanologist]

*nod* That's why this sort of initiative feels like a missed chance and not a dangerous attack on fandom or somesuch. Fandom's a crazy anything-goes place, and that's how people want it to be, and most fans really don't care if whatever they're doing is company-approved or even legal. Even if Kindle Worlds becomes an industry standard and all other fic-writing is outlawed by evil warlocks, people will still be making stuff. You can't stop or take over fandom.

So while I'm not worried, I am disappointed that there are so many initiatives that might give a piece of the money pie to fans who'd like that sort of compensation, and that the initiatives just keep on sucking. (Come on, guys. Lots of fans would be happy to make a buck and give you more bucks too, just make a fair system.)