I hesitate to join in on the file-sharing discourse, but it’s been weighing on my mind. It is a complex, nuanced issue, and there is no way everyone in a fandom will ever agree on it. However, a few thoughts: I support file-sharing in general. The fandom has gone through a number of waves where important and popular fics and fic-sharing sites disappear. I completely understand and support the need and desire to save and restore stories. I’m part of a few of these Facebook groups myself! However, I also think, if you’re a reader, that it is worth thinking deeply about the risks fanfic writers still face. The double-standard that exists in porn also exists in fanfiction: a lot of people might be a little embarassed to admit they watch (or in this case, read) it, but everyone knows that tons of people do, and that there is a huge demand for it. But people who make or perform in porn (or in this case, write fanfic, especially NSFW, slash, or controversial fanfic) face a much higher level of stigma, societal scrutiny, and, in some cases, discrimination than most readers face. And in some countries, people still face imprisonment for writing certain kinds of content. This stigma is part of why I hesitated, first to write and then to post my fanfiction, and why I feel guarded about sharing too much about my personal identity. We live in a strange age of the internet, in which there is an increasingly long and deep paper trail behind every single one of us, but in which there do not yet exist legal protections around all of this abundant personal information. I was previously involved in a legal situation several years ago (I was badly injured in a car crash) in which I had to refrain completely from all personal social media posts for three years while the case went on. Any innocent comment I made on the internet or a social media platform could have been twisted and used against me in court. That period of time (which was fraught and frankly terrible) is thankfully behind me, but it forever changed the way that I think about the internet and social media. We live in a beautiful bubble of squee and flailing, a community of fellow fans who get it. But the thought of the pages of extremely graphic sex between Harry Potter characters that I’ve written falling into the hands of my neighbors or my co-workers or a jury, people who at the least would express judgment and scorn, and at the most could make choices with enormous consequences about my life or what I deserve, fills my heart with cold dread. When I first thought about posting NSFW fanfiction, I thought:
Could I be doxed?
If I were doxed, could I lose my job?
If I were doxed, would it sever my relationships with family members?
Would my fic being out in the open and associated with me threaten or change my romantic relationship?
If any of my accounts can be linked to any of personal accounts and I end up in any kind of legal situation again, could it be used against me to shame or discredit me in a public forum?
If I were to die unexpectedly, would my fanfiction surface and color my legacy for the people in my life?
If I ever end up getting original work published, and especially if I opt to write YA, could the fact that I shared erotic fanfiction create unforeseen wrinkles?
All of this to say, here are just a few reasons I could imagine a writer might want to remove a fic from circulation:
They are in a custody battle and are afraid of losing their children.
They have some other legal situation going on in which it could be used against them.
They wrote it as a teenager or young adult and do not want it hanging over their adult lives.
They got doxed and any time anyone can find any content linked to the username that they were doxed from, it has an immediate negative impact on their personal life.
They now find the fic problematic (glorifying abuse, homophobia, racism, etc.), want to recant, and don’t want to be associated with it anymore.
They have gotten an original work (or a modified fic) published and removing all of their fanfiction is part of their contract.
Yes, of course, it is derivative work, and so by ever sharing it we as writers forfeit legal copyright and a certain amount of control. Yes, the internet is a wilderness. Yes, once something is in circulation, it is impossible to remove it completely. And of course any fanfiction author takes the risk that anything they choose to put out into the ether will probably never be able to be scrubbed completely clean from it. All of these things are of course true.
But also, if an author has explicitly requested in their notes that a work not be posted or shared in other places, or if an author explicitly requests that their works be removed from a file-sharing group, I believe that removing the work is the respectful thing to do. And beyond matters of respect, it is worth considering that if an author is asking you not to share or to remove a fic, they probably have a very good reason for doing so, one that could possibly have an enormous impact on their personal life.
I don’t think that there is one right answer here! But: food for thought.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
