#post plus discourse

(It can actually also be weaponized into getting art theft and automated copy sites taken down, if you can trick them into hosting something related to Disney. There are multiple news articles, Reddit threads and media coverage of this happening.)

Anne Rice sued multiple people for creating fanfiction of her content.

A RPF writer managed to take an Omegaverse fanfiction to court and managed to get all the way through legal proceedings before having it dismissed because Omegaverse wasn't a trademarked or patented article.

Every single day upwards of 100 people are issued DMCA notices against transformative works and fanworks.

Sites like AO3 use charitable drives to help fund our legal protection. Tumblr and the third party they're using to facilitate Post+ are actively contradicting each other and are both expressly stating that not only will we be left to fend for ourselves if we're slapped with a copyright strike; but they can fine us for any losses they make for acting as a facilitator.

It is not as cut and clear as you're trying to make it out to be, and it is a legal minefield waiting to explode. All fanwork sites that offer monetization are.

Please don't try to laugh off the actual risks that are currently being presented. We're not making a big deal out of nothing.

Of course there are risks! I guess I'm just saying this isn't new. Adding monetization into the mix here isn't going to suddenly make companies any more vigilant at looking into this stuff, and I certainly wasn't trying to imply it didn't happen.

- Anne Rice made it very clear she didn't want fanfiction being written or posted. Whether or not I agree with her take as an author, she legally can't tell people not to do that - I repeat, unless you are trying to pretend you wrote Anne Rice's novels, fanfiction is considered a derivative work. And the Anne Rice case happened before fair dealing came into copyright, if I remember correctly. fanfiction.net just caved to avoid the legal crap and wouldn't allow any Rice fics to be posted.

- Disney is a fucked up company regardless, and what they do with their time is all the power to them. I repeat, again: derivative works fall under fair dealing, and they can waste all the money they want. I would also assume Disney fans understand the risk going into monetizing their fanworks, and would proceed accordingly. The daycare case is likely (I don't know the case) because they took an existing piece of licensed Disney art and reproduced it on a larger scale. That is illegal, because you're taking something that someone else made and making an exact copy. If, however, the daycare drew their own Disney princesses and put it on the wall, that's a derivative work.