Go then, gunslinger; there are other worlds than these: Seanan ponders Amazon Worlds.

I will be watching developments avidly. So far, none of the properties involved in the program are "mine" (I don't watch/read/play/write in those fandoms). But I expect this to change over time. Either I'll get hooked on one of the currently-involved worlds, or some of 'my' worlds will join the program.

Fanfic is a huge, collaborative, interactive way for people to be a part of the stories that they love, and I worry that Amazon Worlds is a big step, not toward monetizing fanfic, but toward mainstreaming it in a way that will sap many of the qualities that make it so important. The minute I can say "sorry, this fanfic over here is licensed, and yours is not, so cut it the fuck out," there is a problem. People need to be unafraid to write their stories, the way they want to write them, and learn in the process.

WORD.

What you're saying here is right in line with what I have been thinking, and what many of my friends have been thinking and saying.

Thank you for saying it. On some kind of atavistic level, it feels good to hear these ideas articulated by someone whose work I so enjoy. :-)

From what I can see this allows you to publish in Kindle format only and readers will have to buy copies in order to read them. I could see this being off-putting to some authors not to mention new readers. I also worry a little about who decides what makes "poor customer experience", they seem to suggest that bad formatting would be more important than bad writing.

I understand much better now. Thanks!

I've been following this with some substantial interest. Leaving aside my personal feelings about fanfic (which can be summed up as "meh"--I think it's legally questionable and also basically harmless), it's interesting to watch Amazon essentially convert a bunch of "closed world properties" into "open world properties" and then essentially crowd-source it. I'll be interested to see 1. how successful this is, 2. how successful the "fanfic" writers are (although it's hard to call it that when they're essentially now producing a licensed work, because SOMEBODY--that being Amazon--holds the license.)

That being said, I would never, ever touch it with a 300000 foot pole, even IF I was a fanfic writer with a big reader base in one of the properties Amazon is now licensing. Here's why, and please don't anyone take this as legal advice: this is my fear based on the wording of what I've read, as a legally educated person. I'm not a copyright lawyer. I'm not an entertainment lawyer and I haven't actually gone through an actual Amazon Worlds contract. But, still. I wouldn't do it and I think people should hear why.

This is why:

Quoting their current "Worlds for Authors" blerb: (Source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_375976362_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1001197431&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0QP6MMXDHAV7CD2QNVNB&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=1558872522&pf_rd_i=1001197421)

"Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.
Kindle Worlds is a creative community where Worlds grow with each new story. 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."

That probably doesn't sound that bad to most people. But I'm a lawyer. It sounds horrible to me. Here's why it sounds horrible to me. (continued in a comment to my own post. Like most legal professionals I'm wordier than anyone needs to be and please bear with me)

1. Given that they fail to define "what the copyright term" is I'm assuming they mean the one generally used in the United States when another term is not stipulated. That's 70 years after the death of the author. (source: http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm) They may mean something else, I plan to at some point to get into the fine print (I haven't yet, so if someone else has and can correct me on some of this, I'll stand corrected.)

2. So, immediately after stressing that you the writer own the copyright to your purely original characters, setting, events, ect that you create out of your wonderful head at the time that you create them out of your wonderful head, Amazon says that once you submit it for publication via Amazon Worlds, *they* now take the copyright.

3. They then make a point of telling you that you cannot use those characters, settings, events, ect outside of the licensed world. So. The original copyright holder of the "world" can go "That's a fantastic idea" and work it into an official work. Other "fanfic" (I say this in quotes because at this point it's licensed and not really fanfic anymore as I would define the term) writers can use it in that licensed world. But you couldn't use it in ANOTHER licensed world. In other words, you can't go pumping out "Find-replace" variants for every World Amazon offers, and insofar as that goes, I don't think that's overly problematic.

But I think it could be very, very problematic for the aspiring writer in the long run.

But let us say that you had a really nifty idea that you originally worked out via, say, a Vampire Diaries story. This is what I, personally, consider the true value of fanfiction--as an idea generation system. Let us say that five years have gone by and over time you're still mulling over this idea, only now you've generated an entire original work around it--you've taken out the Vampire Diaries elements, and by any standard, it's now a purely original work, generated by you. Yes, of course, someone who is familiar with Vampire Diaries may read your story and go "ah, this reminds me of this other character" but, frankly, that's hardly unusual (and i find it unobjectionable personally: I'm of the "all writers are magpies collecting shiny things they like and building it into an awesome new nest" mindset). You spend a year working on a draft. You have something that's exciting and new and cool and you want to publish it. This obviously happens. I can think of dozens of examples right off the top of my head wherein the author has either admitted the work began as fanfiction or I can make a highly educated guess that it did.

I don't think you'd be able to publish your new, totally original work, because of those overlapping elements.

Why: When you published the Vampire Diaries story where you were first tinkering with the idea, you gave Amazon copyright over all the original material therein that could theoretically BE copyrighted (as in all the stuff you didn't borrow from Vampire Diaries.) Now, later, you've dropped all the Vampire Diaries material and you want to publish it as a purely original work but Amazon STILL HOLDS THE COPYRIGHT on all those ideas that are still central to your original story.

Meaning it's theoretically possible you could get hit with copyright infringement BY AMAZON in a purely original work for some ideas you used in a fanfiction work they published five years ago. Or you could be locked into using Amazon as your publisher, since, well, they hold the rights already. And that's not a good negotiating position to be in, I promise you.

I don't know that this would happen. But i see where it could in the language, and I don't think that's good for genre fiction. Not at all.

I share your concerns, and have a few related additional concerns.

1) How is the decision made at Amazon which works should or should not have a derivative works license? On the other side of the coin, down the road will there start to be fan pressure on all creators to issue such a license, whether or not Amazon feels like paying them a legitimate amount for it (which, let's face it, they almost certainly won't feel like doing given their track record)? In other words, will creators who refuse to work with Amazon Worlds eventually be vilified for it, even if they already have a friendly derivative/transformative works policy or have at least never objected to people writing fic up until now? Will fans begin to feel they have a right to monetize fanfiction, which a creator is then a jerk for denying?

2) Does Amazon have the right to the ideas in the fanfiction, does the creator, or both? Does the author of the fanfiction, realistically rather than what the contract might currently state, have any legal claim on rights to their work (such as the OCs you mentioned), or do they all vanish into the work for hire concept in play here?

3) What about comics? Fan comics are awesome, will there be support for them? If there is, what IP void will the actual images fall into, as opposed to the story concepts and ideas, are they still works for hire, and will use of the unique designs still be available to the original creator? Will Amazon Worlds licenses that don't support comics make it easier to shut down fan comics for those properties?

4) What about credit? If someone creates an amazing new idea, and the original creator can just take it, will the person who came up with the idea be credited in any way for their contribution? What will be the protocol, there, both legally and in terms of just plain good manners?

Incidentally, we do have a pretty fair policy on fanfiction, I think. I tried to come up with one, anyway. Fans cannot monetize the fic, and it is not canon, but they're free and even encouraged to write it and we've provided unlimited hosting for it on our forums. We ask that they post excerpts and links to the story in fanfic communities outside the board, rather than just posting the whole story, because in theory that brings people into the home fan community. Poe and I don't read the fic, and we have a "just in case" clause for overlap that lets Poe use any of the ideas posted because they might actually be something he was already planning (this is the same in the freeform RPG we also host, which is basically all OC fanfiction).

I thought all that was pretty friendly and encouraging, while still protecting the ever-growing worlds Poe writes, but I'm worried that suddenly we're going to seem mean and overly limiting because we don't want fans monetizing the fanfiction. It's not a matter of being stingy, either, it's a matter of not wanting to end up with Star Wars. Licensed derivative works are to some extent canon even if there are fifty foot tall glowing red disclaimers saying otherwise. Then when the creator steps in and tackles the same subject... well, you can get Episode 1 (even if the creator does a much better job than that, which I'd hope they would, there can still be disgruntled fans as a result of conflicting in-universe data). Fans are not dumb, they know the difference between fanon and canon, but monetizing the work blurs that line, and emotions run high when someone messes with your playground... even if that someone is the person who originally built it.

As someone who enjoys reading some fanfic now and then and as one of the people that keep one of the archives ticking, thank you.

I'm really glad to see someone pointing at the not-insignificant potential for Amazon's next move to be a truckload of C&D letters for all the archives out there. Most of the commentary I've seen on this issue has related to the horrific licensing agreement (which, fair, merits discussion), but when all is said and done, that is something that's only going to affect people who opt in and use the service. Whereas a crackdown on unlicensed fanfic is going to affect the whole community, whether they buy into the endeavor or not. Of course, one would hope that Amazon realizes kicking up a hullabaloo like that among fandom will completely scuttle any minimal chance they have of getting this thing off the ground. But that might be giving them too much credit. ;-)

I actually don't expect to see a flock of C&D letters ensuing from Amazon, save perhaps in the case of Kindle Worlds' contributors who leave their pre-existing works up on open archives while at the same time marketing those works through Kindle Worlds.

The thing is, it's a truism in litigation that you only want to ask questions -- or file lawsuits -- where you have a damned good idea what the witness will say or how the court will rule. And given (a) the fairly narrow slice of the fanfic world in which Kindle Worlds is actually competing, (b) the fact that the legal landscape surrounding fanfic is much, much murkier than is generally acknowledged, and (c) that nowadays, if Amazon *did* try to shut down a major archive, they might very well find themselves in court with the Organization for Transformative Works on the other side....

....Amazon could not remotely guarantee that it would actually win.

This is also part of the reason that Big Corporate Media hasn't tried to push that border -- not only have the smarter folks in B.C.M. realized that non-commercialized fanfic mostly serves as free promotional material rather than a drain on sales, nobody really wants to litigate the test case, because nobody really wants to find out what would happen if fanficcers won. It's much, much safer for both sides to leave the gray area gray.

The thing which got my attention: the launch properties belong to Alloy Entertainment. I can't decide whether this smacks of market research experiment, a breakdown in their ghost writing system, or both.

which is a subsidiary of Warner Brother's.

The "Amazon Worlds" reminds me of the Star Trek and Star Wars tie-in books, only much more open to participation.

but works like those, those authors are generally handpicked by whomever to create in those worlds. they're not just random people such as ourselves.

Once again, you are an awesome person, saying pretty much what I have been thinking (and occasionally saying to other people).

Thank you.

(I wish Amazon would come up with programming code for designating a "co-royalty-receiver" of some sort -- indie authors could cut their artists in for a percentage, for instance. Co-authors could each get their cut directly deposited and not dependent on one or the other. And an indie shared-world series could split out the world-creator's cut...)

I like the idea of being able to write and make money off fanfics in an official format, but the terms Amazon has come up with are vague and a little ominous. Currenly it sounds like anything you add to your chosen World becomes property of The Collective and can be used by the license holder and other fic authors without credit or compensation. Maybe Amazon will fine tune their rules to make them a little more author-friendly and to be blunt there probably isn't a lot of chance that anyone would want to use your stuff, but... it still makes me leery. There have been a few posts from respected authors urging caution and I'd recommend people really do their research and consider the ramifications before they agree. If they're happy with it, though, more power to 'em: money is still money.

I've also seen some really... interesting interpretations from the fanfic side of things. While I can understand some of the concerns expressed- to a degree- like you said: fan artists have been doing this sort of thing for years without profaning their art or selling their souls to suckle at the corporate teat. It'd be nice if people who paint pictures with words could be afforded some of the same rights. The concern over licensed vs. unlicensed fics has been used as a threat, too: "if you agree with this then all free fics will disappear forever." I'm not sure that's how it'll work out, though. I'm assuming it will be more or less the same way it is now: as long as someone isn't trying to monetize their fics, companies will turn a blind eye towards them. Even if there are licensed fics available for profit. There are so MANY MANY fics out there already that it would be impossible to stop them all.

It does make me wonder what would happen if Amazon did try to do something and made examples of a couple of authors. They'd be within their rights and maybe if Kindle Worlds doesn't take off as well as they hope it will they could be desperate enough to make a grab like this (which would at least bring attention back to them), but I still feel like it would be more trouble than it's worth. Probably more costly, too. Which doesn't mean they won't try it anyway, I'm just not sure how well something like that would succeed. You'd need to prove a significant loss of income and for that you'd have to prove there was a significant income in the first palce. I'm sure the more legally-minded could explain all the intricacies of how it could be possible, but for now I'm not willing to label it a significant concern.

I'm not interested in taking part in Kindle Worlds, but I'll be really interested to watch how it develops and if they add a property I'm comfortable writing in I might give it a try just to see what happens (provided their legal mumbo jumbo would allow me to monetize some fics and leave others for free). I also want to see if any other publishers come up with a similar scheme of their own. This is either the start of something big or the setup for a punchline. Time will tell.

Actually, to the extent that I understand the legal framework under which Kindle Worlds is operating, I'm not sure it would be Amazon that would be going after perceived competitors. Non-compliant KW contributors, maybe -- if you uploaded a fic to Kindle Worlds and didn't take it down from AO3, you might get an admonishing email from Amazon's oversight people. But that's a fairly narrow contractual matter, and doesn't touch the issue of noncommercial fanfic at all.

By contrast, if anyone were going to go after whole archives, commercial or noncommercial, I would think it would have to be the licensor (in this case, Alloy) as opposed to the licensee (Amazon). The parallel example: if the host/operator of a Star Trek archive were going to get a C&D letter, it would come from the lawyers at CBS/Paramount, not the lawyers at Pocket Books.

Which has some interesting implications given that Alloy is now under the Warner umbrella...and Warner's lawyers do have experience with large fanfic communities under their belts (cf. Harry Potter, for instance). This is yet another reason why I suspect that Kindle Worlds is unlikely to end up rocking as many boats as some folk think it will.

Thanks for linking me to your post. This was a great read.

I saw the Amazon Worlds thing and pondered it a bit. Right now, the licensing doesn't cover a show I watch or am interested in writing about, so I've not really thought seriously about it, but my first reaction was basically your two listed at the top. Then a friend said, Ack, no, FanLibs flashback! and was all, wha? FanLibs?. Still not a clue about that one, but the warning of disaster with a capital 'D' was enough for me to pull back my ear-perked 'hey I could get paid' interest to a more wary 'maybe I should think further about this' consideration.

You bring up a lot of good points -- many I hadn't even thought of. As have many of your commenters, which I must now read in-depth a bit more....

I love fanfic. I love writing it, I love reading it. I've come across so many fantastic authors in various fandoms I would gladly have paid to read, and I've found such freedom creating my stories that I would love to make a few extra bucks to give myself more time to write. But I don't want either of those things to ultimately take away the freedom of rolling around in these universes, with these characters, in whatever state of necessary escape I need in that moment.

I believe I will continue with my wary consideration and watch what unfolds.

"But what I haven't seen much of is acknowledgement that fanfic is a way for marginalized people to take control of stories that are so often aimed at a sort of safely privileged able-bodied straight male whiteness, engage with them, and fall more deeply in love for that engagement."

This is such an eloquent way of putting it. And unfortunately, this is the reason why I often enjoy fanfic more than the actual source material. Especially when we are talking about the superhero genre (which is my FAVORITE genre when written well)

I do wonder how this Amazon Worlds program is going to go over and I hope that Amazon doesn't decide to target unlicensed fanfic archives. Though I do think that if they did, they would have their work cut out for them. I mean, if I remember correctly, fanfics in the early days were shared via email lists and I think that would be very difficult to police and I could absolutely see fans going back to that.

Some of us are old enough to remember when we had to use this stuff called 'paper'. Fics were typed directly onto it, copied and distributed either with fan group newsletters or collected together in bound, fan made magazines called 'Fanzines'.

This. These are EXACTLY my problems with the whole thing.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. And yes, indeed we do all deserve a little porn every once in a while.

Great post. Fanfiction is definitely a way for marginalized people to tell their own stories, because of the lack of gatekeepers; Kindle Worlds introduces gatekeepers. Will they be the kind of gatekeepers who, for marketability reasons, refuse to let through stories about marginalized people? I doubt it, but it is worth pointing out as a way this could all go wrong.

In fact, that's a good example of how this whole thing looks to me. I can see a large number of things that might go horribly wrong. Will any given potential problem actually occur? Probably not. Will something bad happen? My money is on no, but only because almost all the fans I know are smart enough to avoid this kind of trap, and that includes the nineteen-year-old fangirls who need to pay for college. If this takes off, there are enough potential issues that I'm almost certain something will go wrong.

I'm finding some important things difficult to articulate. You can see what I've already said about it on my DW post and my LJ post (the comments are different). There are also several relevant links in the metanews 29 May linkspam and metanews 26 May supplement, in case you haven't seen them yet.

Personally, reading the discussions has changed my opinion of publishing, as an aspiring author. Previously, I had been thinking that I would look for a traditional publisher, and that, even if I didn't, my works would be sold on Amazon. I had thought that publishing had risks and unscrupulous people might chew me up and spit me out if I weren't careful. Now, however, I think they would chew me up and spit me out regardless of my degree of care. Regardless of increased difficulty or decreased pay, I'm absolutely not going to deal with a traditional publisher or with Amazon. (Best laid plans, mice, men, I know.) I don't suppose everyone else's assessment of the risks and rewards will be the same as mine, but that is mine.

"Oh, sorry, your archive is outside the bounds of our derivative works licensing, here is your C&D."***

This is what scares me. As per your footnote, it's something that copyright holders could do already. It's just that the vast majority of them don't, which is lovely of them because I personally don't want to stop writing fanfic just yet. But the threat's always there and IMHO only likely to get bigger if this Amazon World thing goes ahead.

Yeah, there's a lot of porn. But don't we all deserve a little porn every once in a while?

Yes. Yes, we do.

It is refreshing to see someone else discussing the possible value of the idea of Amazon Worlds. I've seen a lot of authors wanting to watch it go down in fiery flames. Some believed it would interrupt the path of fan-fic writer to author. Yet, if you were getting paid to write your fan-fic, wouldn't that be the same thing? Others were discussing the bad terms. And after reading the kind lawyer's assessment on here, I see even more of why they are concerned.

But it might inspire other companies to allow more people to legitimately play in their pools. And there are a lot of us who have a favorite pool we would love to be invited to play in! Up until now, that has been a privileged offered to a rare few. And it would also allow short story writers to be able to join in the fun instead of full-length novels all the time. Another bonus is the readers could expect a certain level of expertise in writing right out of the gate. Less time would be wasted hunting for the gems.

And I can't lie. I'm working on a quick writing guide for fan-fiction writers because of this move. Strike while the iron is hot and all. ;)

But if you are fond of the X-men, well, I needed to learn how to write a decent romance scene and used that world to practice in. After getting looked at by 3 betas and 3 published authors, I think it went from "Yay! It doesn't suck!" to "Wow, um, this is pretty good." It isn't Emma Frost but I'd be happy to share. ;)