News
Analyzed 10 days
ago based on code collected 10 days ago.
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Posted
2 days
ago
by
Claudia Rebaza
Fans and the general public are becoming less tolerant of corporate overreaches in copyright claims. A crackdown on Etsy vendors marketing Firefly-related hats caused sufficient outrage that one outlet selling the licensed hats decided to donate its
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profits to a Firefly charity. Yet as The Mary Sue pointed out, at least part of the anger was because now that "Fox has actually decided to license merchandise based on the ten year old television series" they're "taking shots at the smaller, unlicensed retailers that have been serving the market niche they’ve been ignoring."
Other overreaches garnered an even larger response, prompting the enforcement-happy Disney company to change an upcoming film title. "[T]he Internet flipped out in response to the news that Disney had filed several applications to trademark the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, which is the subject of an upcoming Pixar film. The freak out-age is completely justified: Trademarking Día de los Muertos would be exploitative, appropriative, and disrespectful of Mexican culture, plus it’s just downright insane (owning trademark to a holiday? C’mon, Disney). Luckily the massive amount of criticism got Disney to back off." Collective action seems key. Research fellow Nicholas Theisen wrote about copyright in relation to manga and scanlations as well as examining issues surrounding fair use. "[M]edia companies quite often bully individuals and smaller companies into abdicating fair use rights simply by virtue of being able to spend more money on lawyers and on legal means of protecting one’s IP." This doesn't affect just fans but also scholars. "[I]t has become standard practice for publishers of comics scholarship to demand that authors get express written permission for each and every image to be reproduced, even though a work of scholarship is an obvious example of fair use." The problem is one that doesn't even reach litigation. "Scholars regularly lament this state of affairs, yet there is little pushback, because, at the end of the day, if you don’t get the permissions, your book doesn’t get published, and if your book doesn’t get published, the likelihood of your getting tenure plummets. The practice of publishers is likely never to change unless people at some point say “no,” at very real risk to themselves and their careers." The new U.S. H.R. 1892 bill would amend the DMCA to require that circumvention be in aid of copyright infringement to be unlawful. This would fix a number of issues, including the OTW's need to get an exemption for vidders every three years. U.S. fans to whom these exemptions are important might want to contact their representatives in support of the bill. What collective action have you seen bring about a success for fans? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans. We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: AcademiaEntertainment IndustriesIntellectual PropertyDMCATakedownsAnime and MangaActivismMessage: News of Note [Less] |
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Posted
4 days
ago
by
Curtis Jefferson
We would like to thank everyone who responded to our previous call for Support Staff. The chairs are reviewing applications and should be contacting people within the next two weeks.
Today, we're excited to announce the opening of ... [More] applications for: Testing Volunteer - Closes May 27th Web Developer Staff - Closes May 27th We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available. All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist volunteers@transformativeworks.org in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us. Note: We are continuing to work on a set of Volunteering Frequently Asked Questions that we hope to have posted within the next few weeks. If you have any questions about volunteering for the OTW, please let us know. Testing Volunteer The Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee (AD&T) is the guiding body that coordinates software design and development on behalf of the Organization for Transformative Works. AD&T is committed to developing high quality, accessible products that support the goals of the OTW while providing opportunities for professional and personal growth for its members. The main project concerning AD&T right now is the Archive of Our Own. Quality Assurance & Testing (QA&T) is a subcommittee of AD&T responsible for testing bug fixes and new features before they go live, overseeing release and issue management tasks, and maintaining relevant documentation. We are currently looking for motivated testers to join our team of volunteers and help us test new code before deploys. More information is available at the Testing Volunteer application. Applications are due May 27th. Web Developer Staff Do you have experience with Drupal and website management? Join our team of Web Developers! Web Developers are responsible for improvements to and maintenance of the primary OTW web properties. You will participate in an on-call rotation with other Web Developers, design and implement new features and fixes for the websites, and help to determine priorities for future web development efforts. More information is available at the Web Developer application. Applications are due May 27th. News topic tags: Accessibility, Design, & TechnologyVolunteers & RecruitingWebmasters CommitteeMessage: Volunteering [Less] |
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Posted
7 days
ago
by
Claudia Rebaza
It's not only communication between entertainment creators and fans that's becoming common, but also a creative dialogue. Anna Pinkert at Spinoff Online wrote about the benefits of embracing slash and other fan creations. "At a recent event, a ... [More] reporter showed The Avengers star Mark Ruffalo a series of drawings of his character snuggling with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. He began giggling, and then even made up captions for one of the cartoons, “Would you like a gummy worm?” Better yet, he told the reporter, “I endorse [this art] 100 percent. You know what it is? It’s open-source creativity.” She suggests that "[h]omoerotic fan art might be a new signal that you’ve arrived in Hollywood. People know your face (and your abs) well enough to do 30 sketches of you embracing another star." At least some actors are ready to invite fans to play. Of course, direct collaborations can be a mismatch of expectations. The L.A. Times wrote about Paul Verhoeven's semi-crowdsourced film Tricked describing the problems. Fans were asked to develop chapters of a story that were then filmed. "Nearly 30,000 people...were part of the community submitting or commenting on prospective "Tricked" elements...Nor was the process cheap -- production on the film only cost about $800,000, Verhoeven said, but the expenses incurred running things such as the online-submission platform approached $4 million." Assembling disparate suggestions was also challenging. "When the suggestions poured in...they again found themselves with a mess (one writer might drop in aliens, another would dial in characters more at home in “50 Shades of Gray"), Verhoeven kept fiddling, working on the episode for several weeks, shooting it and repeating the process. Finally, after nearly a year, he had a film that was about 70 minutes long." A better model seems to be to adopt after the fact. "[W]hen ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda Softworks noticed singer-songwriter Malukah's covers of songs from their hit game Skyrim had gone viral on YouTube, the companies approached her to create an original song about the upcoming massive multiplayer game "The Elder Scrolls Online" (ESO)." Suggesting that a game is by nature a collaborative creative work, writer Yannick LeJacq concludes "We can probably expect more blurring of the lines between fans and creators in the next-generation as the technology behind game development becomes ever more accessible and democratized." What do you think are the best collaborative fandom playgrounds? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans. We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: Commercial Works AuthorsComicsGamingAudio FanworksFanartMessage: News of Note [Less] |
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Posted
8 days
ago
by
Claudia Rebaza
Statement of Purpose
The Strategic Planning Committee is continuing to work on helping the OTW develop a strategic plan for the next 3 - 5 years. As a quick refresher, the first stage of this plan is to survey internal stakeholders. We are ... [More] in the process of interviewing all committees in turn and creating a report on each committee. The reports only include information that is gathered from the committees themselves, and all the conclusions and recommendations come from aggregating the data of those surveyed. After a report on each committee is issued, we will create the first public Strategic Plan for the OTW. The goal of this stage is to create a basic, comprehensive report and strategic plan that addresses our internal problems and is: * practical * usable * implementable * straightforward * as jargon-free and plainspoken as possible * short-term The ultimate goal is to address internal, systemic problems that are a big part of what’s preventing the org from formulating workable long-term goals or pursuing strategic projects such as, for example, teaming up more with the EFF. Procedure for Contacting Retired Staff and Volunteers There were some questions that arose in response to our last report about how we contact retired staff and volunteers for each team we survey. Due to OTW's confidentiality policy regarding the identities of its volunteers, we do not have the ability to directly contact former staff and volunteers. Instead, we forward our surveys and invitation to communicate with us to the Volunteers & Recruiting Committee, who then email them on our behalf. We do follow up with everyone who contacts us, so if you are a retired staff member or volunteer and you would like to make sure that we get a chance to survey or interview you about your former team, you are more than welcome to provide your contact details to us via our direct contact form. As always, we will preserve the anonymity of your responses, according to our confidentiality policy. If we have already released a report on your former team, we are still interested in hearing your thoughts! Our reports are living documents, and we intend to release revised versions of all previously published reports simultaneously with our final report for the whole organization. Reports to Date * Volunteers & Recruiting Committee * Tag Wrangling team (committee & volunteers) (PDF) News topic tags: Strategic PlanningMessage: Discussion [Less] |
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Posted
11 days
ago
by
Claudia Rebaza
Given media representations apparently a lot of people continue to think that female fandom projects are rare, although this may have to do with how gender segregated fandom projects often are. In a feature on the "Hello Sweetie" podcast, its ... [More] founder discusses why it came into being. "She and others were listening...to 'Geek Show Podcast,' the popular online show started by X96’s 'Radio From Hell' host Kerry Jackson, local movie critics Jeff Vice and Jimmy Martin, and Tribune TV critic Scott D. Pierce. "'They never have any female panelists, rarely had female guests, and a lot of people were complaining about that,'"...On one episode of 'Geek Show Podcast,' one of the hosts said, 'If you [women] want to have a podcast, you should start one.'" One reason for the separation may have to do with how female characters in fandoms are frequently depicted. One of the latest fans to address that issue uses cosplaying girls to create artwork depicting superheroes as they might really be. "It's not only combatting the myth that girls don't read or care about comics, but it’s showing that girls, too, can play the male superheroes that so often overshadow their female counterparts. And it's also proving just how easy it is to upend the sexist conventions that keep the women of comics in scantily clad, unrealistic uniforms for the purpose of sexually objectifying them." The site Machinima.com pitches itself as equivalent with the fanwork in the tagline "a programming movement that captures the hard-to-reach 18 to 34-year-old male demographic." They have decided to try crowdsourcing video production on its Happy Hour Tales series. “Fans are invited to submit ideas for what happens in the second part of Trial of the Songbird…I wonder if there’s some branded intentions here; after all, inviting viewers to write about a brand new video game is a good way to get them to play that game. Happy Hour Tales is the overarching name of the series, which suggests that we will get crowdsourced stories set in other video game worlds before long.” Since fans have little need for an invitation to create new fannish content, the plan seems more in line with further commercializing fannish creativity rather than encouraging its independent development. Another fannish site that's looking for fannish contributions has a long history of female participation, though Aja Romano wonders if the creative team is taking that into account. For one thing the fandom already has major fandom wiki projects, although they don't "emphasize fan creations and fanworks the way that Roddenberry's Trek Initiative does." But "it seems odd that Roddenberry has gone the traditional route of archives, wikis, and fan forums, rather than the more web 2.0 route emphasizing social media, media sharing, and interactive media. It's possible he hasn't registered just how big Star Trek is on Tumblr, where the new reboot reigns supreme among millions of fans, mostly women." Do the fandom sites you visit seem to target one gender over another? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans. We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: Gender and SexualityTelevisionAudio FanworksCosplayFan VideosMessage: News of Note [Less] |
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Posted
12 days
ago
by
C. Ryan Smith
The OTW is delighted to welcome 852 Prospect -- the Sentinel Adult Fiction Archive -- to its new home within the Archive of Our Own. The Archivists of 852 Prospect (most recently alicettlg) have worked hard in conjunction with ADT and Open Doors to
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make this move a reality.
There's some special history associated with this move. 852 Prospect was the first automated fiction archive on the web. Back in 1997, astolat wrote the first version of the Automated Archive software for 852 Prospect, which made it possible for authors to post their stories simultaneously to a mailing list and to an archive, and which also made it possible for archivists to maintain fic archives without hand-coding every post. The automated archive software is now old and creaky and no longer maintained; we're delighted to be able to offer 852 Prospect a new home as an integrated collection within the AO3. Our coders have set up a redirect from the original domain to the stories' new URLs, to help preserve the validity of old links, rec lists, bookmarks, etc. Because the redirects will be set up to go to the version of each work imported with 852 Prospect, if you have a duplicate on the Archive which has comments / kudos you want to keep, we suggest you keep both versions for now (if you delete the one imported with 852 Prospect, then the redirect will break). Down the line, we’re planning to implement a way of merging two copies of the same work, so you'll be able to keep the redirects and the comments and kudos. If you don't care to keep the comments/kudos of both works, you can ask Open Doors to reset the redirect to point toward the pre-existing copy on AO3, and then delete the imported copy. To do so, please contact Open Doors with your AO3 account name, your account name on 852 Prospect, and links to both the 852 Prospect URL, and the AO3 URL of the fanwork designated for the redirect. Most of the newly imported works are not yet visible to people who aren't logged in with an AO3 account. If you're looking for The Sentinel fic on AO3 that was newly imported as part of 852 Prospect, please search for it while logged into AO3. You can also request an AO3 account by contacting Open Doors or using this page. If you're the author of newly imported stories, you can use the ‘edit works’ function to set them all to 'unrestricted' at once (if you wish) after you've claimed them. For help editing your works, please contact Support. For more information about what happens with imported works, click here for Open Doors' tutorial on automated imports, or here to contact Open Doors. Please note: If you choose to orphan your works, you will want to check them over first and edit out any remaining identifying data. And if you want to post new stories to the 852 Prospect collection, you are welcome to do so! The collection will remain open to new entries, but will be moderated according to 852 Prospect’s guidelines. Several of the OTW founders are Sentinel fans, and many org volunteers count The Sentinel among their beloved fandoms. We're thrilled to be able to continue preserving and protecting fanworks which are otherwise at risk of disappearing from the internet, and we're doubly thrilled to be rescuing an archive to which many of us have a longstanding personal connection! Hooray for Jim and Blair, Carolyn, Simon and Rafe and Henri, Megan, Naomi, and the whole city of Cascade finding a safe new home. *Support Our Sentinel was a 1997 effort by fans to keep the show on the air when it was facing cancellation. The effort succeeded, garnering fans an 8-episode season four which brought fan favorite Blair Sandburg back to life! Mirrored from an original post on AO3 News. News topic tags: Open Doors CommitteeMessage: AnnouncementProject: Open Doors [Less] |
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Posted
13 days
ago
by
C. Ryan Smith
While in some places fanfic writers are getting arrested, in others the concern is instead about how fans could be ruining pop culture. "Mr. Rushfield laments that fan culture is set in its ways and does not want to be challenged. I think this ... [More] is an oversimplification...Yes of course, some fans will never be happy. Some fans say and do things I find shocking and disrespectful, but I think that this is a very small minority...To think that this subset of fans is the driving force behind any artistic decisions, is not giving enough credit to writers and producers in entertainment." Fandom activities can also lead to a new vision of culture. As a post on Amazing Stories pointed out, fannish activism may also serve wider social causes. "I often see proponents of greater diversity in the media tarred with a certain brush—it’s the brush that paints them as self-absorbed, hysterical, wannabe victims who cannot take a moment to step outside their bubble and understand the cold, hard truth of how the world works. Those who employ this brush see themselves as realists...Female protagonists can’t possibly sell in great enough numbers, they say. There isn’t enough of a market to make the character gay, they say. I understand you’re upset, they say, but you have to look beyond your (petty, juvenile) concerns and deal with the fact that the characters are going to be white." On the flip side, fans also need to take a look at their own creations when it comes to social impact. Blogger Luz Delfondo takes fanfiction to task on its contributions to rape culture. "What’s really exciting about fandom from a feminist point of view is that it is predominantly female. The people who are talking back to fictional media with their own takes on their favorite stories are women. This is a great opportunity to transform patriarchal, sex-negative stories told using the male gaze (which is the majority of media, sadly) into stories that represent our points of view...However, all too often, the same biases that come up over and over again in fictional media are also replicated in fandom." What cultural effects do you see fans having? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans. We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: Fannish PracticesActivismFanfiction Message: News of Note [Less] |
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Posted
15 days
ago
by
Claudia Rebaza
NYU's student newspaper decided to feature fanfiction with a particularly local angle -- fanfiction set on its campus. "Remember when you were waiting for your acceptance letter? Whether NYU was your dream school or just your safety, you’d ... [More] catch yourself longing for the city, dreaming of the day when you’d leave your home for the magic of New York...You weren’t the only one dreaming. In fact, some would-be students have dedicated hundreds of pages to their NYU-centric fantasies. So focused are these writers’ efforts that NYU Fanfiction has swelled into its own thriving—if slightly inaccurate—genre." Australia's The Monthly article on erotic fan fiction nights is somewhat inaccurate as well. Author Linda Jaivin says, "My three co-readers had chosen to write about real people, a subgenre of fanfic that got its start along with the first boy bands." She also speculates that her concern regarding derivative works might be age related. "I raised the question of copyright and fanfic with Eddie Sharp, host of the erotic fan-fiction nights. He dismissed my concerns: “I can’t think of anyone my age” – he’s 30 – “who would be upset.” He characterised the “attitude shift” towards copyright as “a generational thing”. People have apparently been reading about fanfiction at 50,000 feet. Following a feature in American Airlines, Choose Your Own Adventure, KLM's inflight magazine, Holland Herald also featured a story on it and both had an OTW connection. In the former, board member emeritus Francesca Coppa attempted to clarify the ethos of fanfiction writing, something which was expressed much better in the latter piece. "For [writing workshop founder Lisa Friedman], fan fiction is a ‘marginalised’ genre in its infancy, comparable to the graphic novel before it found widespread acceptance via the publication of Art Spiegelman’s 1991 Holocaust memoir Maus. “In any case,” she observes, “it’s kind of amazing how much skill it takes to work within someone else’s parameters, to attune oneself so acutely in matters of style and character.” Joanne Harris agrees with the latter point, and draws a comparison to the traditions of fine art: “All young artists used to copy the Old Masters before they were allowed to develop their own style, and fan fiction is the modern equivalent,” she says." What unexpected places have you found fanfiction in? Write about it in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans. We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. News topic tags: Intellectual PropertyFanfiction OTW SightingsMessage: News of Note [Less] |
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Posted
17 days
ago
by
Curtis Jefferson
The Organization for Transformative Works was pleased to learn that one of our projects, the Archive of Our Own, has been named among the '50 Best Websites 2013' by TIME magazine staff. We are excited to be included in this list and in the company
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of a number of other great websites.
We would like to extend a thank you to OTW members whose generosity has helped to support the continued development of the AO3 and to AO3 users who provide the content that helps make it one of the 'Best Websites'. We look forward to continuing to build the AO3 to make it even better in the years to come. News topic tags: OTW SightingsMessage: Media MentionsProject: Archive of Our Own [Less] |
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Posted
19 days
ago
by
Curtis Jefferson
We would like to thank everyone who responded to our initial call for Tag Wranglers, AO3 Documentation Volunteers, and Communications Staff. The AO3 Documentation Lead and Communications Chairs are reviewing applications and should be contacting
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people within the next two weeks.
Today, we're excited to announce the opening of applications for: Support Staff - Applications due May 12 Tag Wrangler Volunteer (reopening) - Applications accepted on an ongoing basis (role may be temporarily closed based on level of interest)We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available. All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist volunteers@transformativeworks.org in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us. Note: We are working on a set of Volunteering Frequently Asked Questions that we hope to have posted within the next few weeks. If you have any questions about volunteering for the OTW, please let us know. Support Staff The Support Committee handles communication between users and the various teams involved with the Archive of Our Own. We receive questions and ideas about all aspects of the Archive from users. The Support team helps to answer questions about using the Archive, diagnosing issues, documenting bugs for the coders to address, getting the most out of features like skins or challenges, passing on questions about tags to the wranglers, documenting requests for new or improved features, or getting answers about general policy. If you like to interact with a wide variety of people through email and answer their questions, if you're familiar with the Archive, and you like finding the answers to issues, you might enjoy working as Support staff! To come join us, fill out the Support job description and application form. Applications are due May 12 Tag Wrangler Volunteer The Tag Wranglers are responsible for keeping the hundreds of thousands of tags on AO3 in some kind of order! We choose which form of a fandom title appears on the Media pages, as well as all the character, relationship, and additional tags which appear in the filters and the auto-complete. We link tags together to make all the works and bookmarks on the archive easier to browse and search (so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for, whether that’s alternate universes with Cloud Strife, Steve/Tony and tentacles, or g-rated Rose/Kanaya fluff!) If you like organizing, bringing order to chaos, excuses to fact-check your favorite fandom canons, or you just get a kick out of seeing all the wacky and wonderful terms fans come up with, you might enjoy tag wrangling! To join our team, click through to the Tag Wrangler job description and application form. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis News topic tags: Support CommitteeTag Wrangling CommitteeVolunteers & RecruitingMessage: Volunteering [Less] |
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