Joy, I don't understand. It seems these days people make fan content specifically to make money and wouldn't make it otherwise. How do I stop myself from being rude and saying "well, what did you think was gonna happen?" to the next youtube community post I see stating they won't be posting edits anymore due to demonitization? I'm sure some of them mean well, but it really feels like people feel entitled to be paid for their fan work that they could potentially be sued for these days. Am I the one that's wrong? Is thinking that fan works should be made in your spare time purely for the love of it cynical of me?
I think the landscape of fandom has shifted so much over the last five to ten years that a lot of people, especially younger fans, don’t understand the precarious legal foothold fandom has. A large part of this is that fandom became more mainstream around about the same time as “monetize your hobbies!” hustle culture. Fandom is a hobby; ergo, you can earn a living from it.
Except not really, because while many people’s views toward fandom have changed, the legalities of fanwork haven’t. Oh, some big time creators might embrace fan art (hey, free marketing!) but they still can’t let you earn money from it. Which doesn’t mean some people don’t, it just means we cannot be seen to be making money from fan content. That’s what keeps our work and our community safe. It’s bullshit, I fully believe that it is, but it’s also the reality of the situation and that’s how fandom survives. It might feel mainstream, but we’re still the very much the kid busking on the corner of a conglomerate’s doorstep.
And for some people, fandom is just truly a hobby, and they have zero interest in monetizing it and that’s fine, more power to them. But I’m also never going to turn around and say people should never earn money from fandom. For one thing, it’d make me a raging hypocrite as I have accepted donations for fic when we couldn’t afford groceries. Fandom kept us afloat when all other lifelines fell through. Fandom has and always will support and take care of our own. What I do think, however, is that fan creators need to be aware of the legalities of what they’re doing and be much smarter about how they tag, title, and promote things, especially on places like YouTube, where big companies spend unimaginable amounts of time and money scanning videos for copyright content. (NB: this does not mean copyright is evil. Copyright is often the only thing protecting the work of small-time creators against big creators from stealing their work without compensation. Looking at you, #Disney Must Pay.)
So do I think people are entitled from wanting to earn money from fan content? No. Do I think a lot of younger fandom creators have lost the understanding of fandom from a legal aspect? Absolutely. Many of them grew up with fandom as a norm. It is permanent to them. They never woke up one day to find all their content gone over night because the server got hit with a cease and desist letter from a litigious creator. So without that context, it’s jarring when it does happen. And it’s very easy for a lot of us old-timers (I say, while my 70 year old SW fandom friends pat me on the head like a toddler) to roll our eyes because, of course, you cannot monetize fandom. But I think it’s more important for us to go hey, yeah, that’s been happening since paper print fanzines, shit sucks... but here’s how you build a supportive community anyway...
tl;dr: the cultural perception of fandom has changed, but not the legalities of it, which is confusing to a lot of younger folks who have all been told repeatedly to monetize their hobbies, so I don’t blame them for being pissed and confused when they do just that and get hit with a copyright strike from YT.
