Why do you have this aggressive stance against paid fanfiction? I've seen the dislike for it make brief rounds on Tumblr for the last few years, but I've never seen a creator openly insult people for it before. Is it really that bad? And what sets it apart from paid fan art? Not disagreeing at all. I've never understood the difference and nobody wants to explain why it's problematic. Anyone with this opinion usually jumps to the conclusion on the spot that I'm pro paid fic for asking but I'm not. It's not as common knowledge as they think. No hate, I come in peace hoping someone will finally explain. Thank you if you answer!
Fanfic lives in a legal grey area under copyright law. It counts as a derivative work of someone else’s IP, whether or not something is labeled as ‘derivative’ depends on fair use, so like: how transformative it is, how much of the OG lore you use, and whether it’s commercial or noncommercial. (That’s the big one)
So the moment money changes hands, we’re not in a cozy grey zone anymore… we’re in illegal copyright territory.
Now, that doesn’t automatically mean “you will go to jail” but it does make it much harder to argue fair use and makes you a target for copyright takedowns & lawsuits.
That includes things like commission posts based on someone else’s IP (“3k words for $20”)
Look, I get it, everyone has bills. You have a hobby and you wanna make a profit from it. But you don’t own the characters or worlds you’re getting paid to write.
Side note: I’m not saying this to protect people running fanfic grifts from the consequences of their choices. Imma be real with you partner, I don’t give two shits what y’all do in y’all’s free time.
I’m hostile about this because I’m worried about the collateral damage some doofus can cause to fandom as a whole all because you paid them a hundred bucks to write your blorbo getting their back cracked open by a 60 year old.
If ‘fanfic for profit’ catches on and enough high-profile fanfic grifters pop up the simplest solution for IP holders will be to crack down HARD, enforcing tos on ALL platforms.
(That doesn’t mean every company will do this, but they can, and some have already shown they’re willing to act aggressively against for profit fanworks)
And yall if that happens, it’s not just Dragon Age fic we lose. It’s everything. Every fandom, every archive, every little niche ship. (Omg people hate dragon age as it is imagine if it was responsible for the death of all fanfic)
The legal grey area stays tolerable as long as fanfic is noncommercial. The more normalized monetization becomes, the more tempting it is for IP holders to slam the door shut for good.
“What about fanart?”
What about it? Most of our copyright framework was written in a world of books, so a lot of the vocabulary centers written word.
“But fan artists get to make money?”
Yes, they do. If you wanna join them then pick up some markers and start drawing. Idk what else to tell you. (I don’t understand this immediate finger pointing to fanartist whenever this subject comes up? Like, leave them alone.)
“It’s not faaaaiiiir.”
Tell me about it bambino. Your feelings about this are valid, and I’m not going to sit here and claim I think any different than you. But until companies like EA, Disney, or Toei re structure ther copyright laws and allow commercial fanworks of their IPs we’re stuck playing inside the rules that exist, not the ones we wish we had.
Why am I and other fanfic authors so stern about this? Because we understand the consequences.
During covid fanfiction got pulled into the spotlight. Tons of new readers arrived who had no idea about fandom etiquette or the legal tightrope fanworks walk. And with them came people who didn’t see community or creativity, they saw a business model. It’s up to each individual community to squash shit like this when we see it.
Part of what makes fanfiction so extraordinary is that it’s free. It’s a gift economy built on a shared love for our hyperfixations. People write because they want to, not because they’re chasing profit, meeting patreon goals, or bowing down to ‘for profit’ algorithms. The exchange for writing fanfiction is enthusiasm, and community, not money.
The moment profit becomes the dominant incentive, the culture ends. It stops being about passion and becomes about extraction. Once money enters the space, people who don’t care about the fandom or the craft will descend like vultures and strip-mine it for quick cash. They always do. They aren’t here to love these characters they’re here to commodify them. And in the proces, they will destroy the ecosystem that made fanfiction what it is in the first place.
So, yeah! 🙃