Here's a roundup of stories about fannish technology that may be of interest to fans:

• Last week the Electronic Frontier Foundation posted about a recent U.S. court decision on the legality of online music storage. While noting that the court upheld penalties for businesses who don't respond to valid takedown notices, the EFF concluded that "Overall, we were glad to see the Court get it right that music locker services fall safely within the DMCA’s safe harbors, which Congress designed to foster innovation on the Internet. MP3tunes and all the music locker services that have followed it give music fans more options for storing and listening to the music they already own, helping realize the promise of that innovation."
• While music fans have been adopting online music storage, many fanfic readers have been adopting eReaders to store and access their fannish materials. A recent survey by Nielsen concluded: "Looking at the data by gender underlines key changes in the eReader category. Sixty-one percent of all eReader owners are now female, compared to a mere 46 percent in Q3 2010." Most significant is the growth in users 55 and older who now account for 30% of the eReader market compared to owning a much smaller percentage of similar technology such as smartphones and tablets. The AO3 has been proactive in the inclusion of easy downloading formats for text content, which is not only a convenience for fans but enhances accessibility for all users.

If you're part of music fandoms or have long used eReaders to access fanfic, why not contribute your experiences to Fanlore? Additions to the site are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here’s a roundup of stories about how companies are looking at fan-made videos that might be of interest:

• Rebecca Tushnet, chair of the OTW's Legal Committee, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal's Tech Diary column on the growing atmosphere of acceptance of video mashups and the marketing possibilities they present for companies and their products. She noted, however, that acceptance is coming more quickly from the film and television industries than the music industry. This suggests that fans making music vids are likely to continue having to assert and defend the "fair use" status of their work.
• Another recent news item highlighted an example of the phenomenon Tushnet discussed, when Variety explored the responses of copyright holders to fan use of their material. In this case, the article cites the positive attitude of Hasbro to the many mashups of My Little Pony done by a group of mostly male fans referred to as "bronies." While Hasbro's attitude is made clear, there's no mention of how the music copyright holders see the use of their songs in these "trackjacking" videos. Also lacking from the article is any acknowledgement that this type of fan video has a historical context, or that it falls creatively close to a tradition of work by primarily female fans.

If you're part of the My Little Pony fandom, create trackjacking videos, or know any stories you can share to help preserve our history related to these topics, why not create some posts on Fanlore? Fanlore is open to contributions by all fans for any and all fandoms.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Here are a couple of recent stories we think are of interest to fans using video streaming sites:

• One videomaker recounts how her video became part of YouTube's advertising program. YouTube's Content ID software identified the source materials and music she used and matched up ads based on what it found to run with her video. While she stated that she thought the ads were a good fit — they were for her favorite shows — she acknowledged that not everyone whose work had been made part of the advertising program would have the same reaction. Fans have been unhappy in the past with similar retroactive commercialization of their work done without notice or consent, including banner ads. Fan video on YouTube and elsewhere is also a frequent target of copyright holders, who take action such as deleting audio tracks while leaving the video intact or removing videos entirely.
• Fans utilizing online streaming sites to share videos may also be affected by legislation submitted in the U.S. Congress which could make it a felony to reproduce copyrighted content online. The proposal doesn't stop at restricting the legality of posting content — it would include restrictions on embedding links to copyrighted video. A post made on GamePolitics took a good look at the legal implications of the bill as it's currently written and how it could affect gamers and machinima creators in particular.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about you can submit it in four easy ways: comment on the most recent Link Roundup on transformativeworks.org, LJ, DW, or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

The OTW has been working with Australian fans and lawyers - including founding board member Cathy Cupitt - to submit comments protesting Australia's attempts to censor the Internet. Under the plan, Australia's two largest ISPs, Telstra and Optus (along with two smaller ISPs, itExtreme and Webshield) would create a secret list of blacklisted sites without any review or accountability.

As Cupitt notes in her comment, fan sites can be "particularly vulnerable to inappropriate filtering, classification, and censorship." Cupitt's comment also notes that fanfiction, for example, represents "a reinvigorated and growing art scene, bringing new ideas to explorations of important topics such as ability, gender and race," and that the kind of discourse and interaction that happens on fan sites is valuable. Legal academic Kim Weatherall also discusses the special risks filtering poses to fans and to sites hosting user-submitted content in her comment. The commission is posting comments publicly here.