Having seen a lot more about this app, some more things have come to light. The consensus is
the app is not hosting the fics itself
(which is unsurprising because it costs to host data and I’m sure they want to keep as much of their profits as they can)
it’s more like an AO3 reader, with text hosted on AO3 being displayed on the app
for this reason the app does not violate the letter of copyright law
the monetisation is supposedly for the coding of the app, not the fic itself
What this doesn’t change:
Writers have no control/consent over their full works, which they own the copyrights to, being displayed on the app. Legally there’s nothing to be done but ethically it’s unacceptable to display the entire untransformed product of someone else’s effort and creativity, without asking them, for your own financial gain.
The app is glitchy at best and shady at worst in its practices. People using the app have been signed up to premium without wanting to be, and can’t get out of it. People have used their AO3 credentials to log in to this third-party app, the security of which is unknown. Worryingly, warnings on fics are being left off, author’s notes (with additional warnings) are nowhere to be found, and writers who have orphaned works to make them anonymous have those works showing up under their usernames on the app. (Read the notes on this post for details of all this).
The app is built on shoulders of the work of unpaid AO3 volunteers and writers. It is profoundly unfair to monetise an app that relies on their work. Firstly the hosting of the fic is something that donators to AO3 gladly pay for. Secondly the code for producing stats, bookmarks, kudos and the rest of AO3 is created by hours of volunteer work. Thirdly, needless to say the fanfic itself is being written through hours of unpaid work. What I’m saying is, none of this content belongs to the app’s creator, but they’re the only one being paid for it. If the developer truly feels they deserve payment for their app’s coding I encourage them to keep trying to monetise the app’s code while removing everything they didn’t create or find consent to use. I would like to see it.
To the people saying, “it’s fanfic, it’s all pretty much theft anyway, you’ve got no leg to stand on!”
Fanfic on AO3 is transformative. It’s posted to be read for free without ads, and it transforms the original work. Legally and ethically this is its leg to stand on. If this app developer transformed AO3 writers’ work in the same way that AO3 writers transform canon (i.e. same characters, sometimes same universe, sometimes plot parallels, occasional references to canon lines), at that point we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. As it is, this is a wholly different scenario. There is no parallel here that provides an excuse for this app.
To the people saying “it’s like pirating a movie, most people on here are all for that!”
It’s taking something that was already completely free and unpaid, and running ads under it/offering premium ways to consume it. Entirely different question to that of movie piracy.
To the people saying, “what does it matter? It’s all still there on AO3. The app is just providing a service that people must want if they’re paying for it. And apps like this have been around for a while and things are only just kicking off about them. So what?”
I think this matters because volunteers’ and writers’ gifts to fandom shouldn’t be monetised for someone else’s gain. I think this matters because writers are being treated by this app, and apps like it, as a money-making industry rather than individuals devoting unpaid time and passion to writing with freedom. I think it matters because fandom created an award-winning space to share work for free, and that space is being garnished with glitches and ads before being essentially sold back to the people who already owned it. I think it matters because in a society like ours, things don’t stay free easily. It’s something you can’t take for granted, something you have to fight for.
Going forward, it’s possible for writers to:
Set your fics to only be seen by AO3 users who are logged in, which stops them from being able to be viewed on the app, but also stops any guests to AO3 from being able to see them too. EDIT: it’s possible that setting your fics to private won’t hide them on the app from users who’ve logged in on the app with their AO3 details (link to tweet). there’s no way of knowing what percentage of the app’s users have done this.
Put a notice at the top of your fic - not in the author’s notes, in the fic itself - saying you don’t consent to your work being shared on monetised fanfic apps. This won’t stop them being shared, but it may give users of the app a sense of the shadiness and exploitation of the app they’re using.
Carry on as you were. There’s no moral obligation to be outraged by this and if you don’t care, cool. Please allow those of us who do care the space to talk about it without insisting it doesn’t matter.
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