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squidgestatus) wrote2021-07-07 10:18 am
squidgestatus) wrote2021-07-07 10:18 am
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SquidgeWorld Updated TOS
Based on some things I've been seeing around AO3 and Tumblr, I updated the SquidgeWorld Terms of Service. The Terms of Service are here: https://www.squidgeworld.org/tos
The text of the additions is here:
The text of the additions is here:
NEW - Added July 7th, 2021: Users will not add any link, in their profiles or in their profiles or in any posted work or comment that points to a fundraiser of any kind including, but not limited to, Patreon, Ko-Fi, or the like. The only exception to this is in the case of a piece of work that is of original work, meaning the fandom used is Original Work, and no other fandom is listed. The work must have original characters at all, and must not utilize any aspect of a fandom such as characters or relationships that stray from the "Original" characters and relationships listed in the child tags to the Original Work tag. You may, however, link to an off-site (non Squidge.org property) profile such as your Tumblr profile or such, and that site may link to whatever you'd like. Fanfiction and other fan works are guaranteed under the "Fair Use" clause, and are protected as long as the person posting it makes no money off of the work. People linking to Patreon or such and making money off of fanworks submit the SquidgeWorld Archive into legal jeopardy.
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Just a quibble with your wording: Public domain fandoms, like the Bible or Jane Austen, aren't a legal issue if they're monetized, because the original sources are no longer in copyright. Likewise, sometimes the original creators permit commercial publication of fanworks. I believe that the SF author Hugh Howey allowed this at one point, and so do I; my original fiction is issued under a BY Creative Commons license, which permits commercial derivative works.
I realize you may not want to deal with figuring out which fanworks can lawfully be commercially published and which can't (as AO3 clearly doesn't), but maybe tweak the wording of your TOS addition to correctly reflect the legal reality of the situation?
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We need to discuss this more, including possibly ways to use GPL items safely.
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"it becomes a really slippery slope if someone posts fanfic using The Great Gatsby, but they use Georgina in their fic, not George."
You are so much smarter than me; I hadn't even thought of that - but of course you're quite right. It happens all the time in fanfic.
I'm perfectly comfortable with your decision not to allow references at SquidgeWorld to commercial fanworks. It makes me a bit uncomfortable, though, that your terms of service says (in so many words) that no fanworks can lawfully be sold, which isn't true. There's so much bad information circulating around the web about fanworks' legal status; I hate the thought of SquidgeWorld contributing to that confusion. I thought, instead of going into the "Fair use but only if it's noncommercial" explanation, perhaps you could say something like, "We're keeping the fanworks portions of our archive noncommercial." That wouldn't mislead anyone as to fanworks' legal status, but it would make clear what your intent is.
On a different topic: Original Work doesn't seem to be listed in the Fandoms index? I looked for it in Other Media, which is where AO3 has it; then I tried Uncategorized Fandoms, just in case. I couldn't find it in either place, yet when I did a search, I found a few fics that had Original Work as their fandom tag. I don't know how the software works; does a fandom tag get indexed after a set number of fics use it? Or is indexing a manual process?
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This confuses me - how can this not be true? Can you give me an example so I can understand better?
As for Original Work, right now I have it under "No Media" - which is wrong. I set it up that way at the very start, which isn't where it should be now that I understand the software better. I need to move it (and a couple other equivalent items) to "Other Media". Thanks for the heads up on that!
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"I need to move it (and a couple other equivalent items) to 'Other Media'."
Thank you for your help with that!
"Can you give me an example so I can understand better?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_Beowulf#Novels_based_on_Beowulf
These are all examples of fanfics being sold commercially in a perfectly lawful fashion. "Beowulf" (the canon) is way out of copyright, and the authors aren't - one hopes! - basing their fanfics on recent media (except in the one case listed there of an authorized novelization).
I'm not saying that you need to permit SquidgeWorld creators to link to their lawful, commercially sold fanworks. I'm just saying that, when you say in your Terms of Service, "Fanfiction and other fan works are guaranteed under the 'Fair Use' clause, and are protected as long as the person posting it makes no money off of the work," that's not true for all fanworks. It's true for most fanworks, but not for all of them. In some cases (like the Beowulf novels), the right to create and distribute fanworks is protected, period, regardless as to whether the person makes money off their fanwork, because the canon is either public domain or is licensed for commercial derivative works.
There's a lot of confusion about this among fans, simply because, when professional authors write fanfic, their publishers don't usually label it as fanfic. But there's no content difference whatsoever between professional author writing a Beowulf novel that's published by a Big Press, and a fan uploading their own Beowulf novel to SquidgeWorld. And now that professional authors are getting a lot more candid in public about the origins of their novels and stories ("I wrote this as a challengefic in a fanfic contest!"), it's becoming much more obvious to everyone that some professional novels are simply fanfic that can be legally published and sold.
So that's why I was suggesting that, instead of that sentence about Fair Use, you simply say that you want to keep the fanworks portions of SquidgeWorld noncommercial. I don't think you need to elaborate upon the very complex legal nature of fanworks. I think it would take a savvy lawyer to do that!
(I hope I'm not making you bleery-eyed with all this. I didn't mean to spend so much of your time!)
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I'm willing to discuss exceptions to the "no patreon, etc" links for public domain items, though honestly as with my previous post about "George vs Georgina" it can make for a slippery slope. I've made a new "news" item on SquidgeWorld seeking input on this, though we can continue to talk here as well. Link: https://www.squidgeworld.org/admin_posts/23
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I think we're going in circles, because twice now I've said that I'm fine with your policy against linking to commercial fanworks. I always was. :)
I was just suggesting that the way you worded your ToS was confusing. But I think I've taken up more than my fair share of your time, and I'm taking you away from far more important work you could be doing. It may be that nobody besides me will have any problems with the ToS wording; I certainly hope so.
Heading back to the beginning of this conversation, thank you so much for being welcome to Original Work creators. :)
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Thank you for the discussion!
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I'm glad I was able to provide a distraction to your boring work. :) Always a delight to talk with you; thanks again.
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But mentioning in a whole category shift "public domain" would be baseless and useless at best.
Though, come to think of it, a disclaimer would be useful as simple citation at that; for the simple case of finding out further data.
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"The work must have original characters at all"
Should that be "no non-original characters at all", or "must have only original characters" or something like that, or have I misunderstood the intent?
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As for legal jeopardy, that's a nonsense claim at best, my neighbor, and so is to be disregarded.
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But pay no heed to the cries of the powerful corporations, as their opinions are totally irrelevant due to their resources to begin with.
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As I said in my comment on SquidgeWorld, if you do not like my position, feel free to delete your account and you can archive your stories elsewhere.
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So, if we're talking about intellectual honesty; there really is no possible conflict on that issue alone.
As far as copyright law goes; violating copyright is far more bother than it is worth, no matter if someone gets away with it or not- it is infinitely far easier to go with making up one's own story inside another person's universe and including a disclaimer than to violate copyright as it turns out.
As for the claims of rank; that's never going to work at all in your favor, but the situation is with intellectual honesty is completely agreed with immediately.
However, if you fear them coming after you, you pretty much make sure they will as it turns out.
Paid for writing fanfiction; basically that alone violates copyright law, not to mention the even more binding, and rightly so, matter of intellectual honesty.
The only way anyone would be able to be paid for a fanfiction is with a written contract with the copyright holder; anything else is highly illegal.
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This is in no way any endorsement of intellectual dishonesty, nor to be seen as such- good golly, man! That's indefensible at best!
But, if you fear them coming after you, you have by fearing it made certain they *will* come after you; by simply trying to avoid it and appease them.
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Do you mean fanfiction of something protected under American copyright? You might want to specify, unless it's obvious in context. Fanficiton is also protected under Canada's non-commercial user-generated content (bleugh) and the UK's fair dealing clause, but I can't speak for anything published in other countries.
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