Here's a roundup of age of fandom stories in the news that might be of interest to fans:

• Anyone still in any doubt that fanworks, particularly fanfiction, has broken through as an activity and genre of writing need only look at the variety of sources producing stories on it within the past year. In the last month the Wall Street Journal was added to the list, posting a feature on fanfiction itself which cited OTW board member Naomi Novik and Legal chair Rebecca Tushnet, a video interview with the feature story's writer about her piece, a spotlight on former fanfic writer Cassandra Clare, and a blog post with fanfic samples. The blog post, strangely, avoided linking to any of the actual stories or to Fanfiction.net, Twitter, Tumblr, or LiveJournal, though it did link to the AO3 and Wattpad.
• Wattpad itself made news recently because of its venture capital fundraising, but an article in Gigaom noted its importance in fanfiction circles: "[Venture capitalist] Andrew Chung said he believes that Wattpad can transform the world of writing and publishing in the same way that YouTube has transformed the world of video. Although the five-year-old company only has 15 employees, Chung said Wattpad has produced 'an absolutely phenomenal amount of growth' with very little investment so far."
• Tumblr may not be much of a fanfiction archive, but it is certainly a hotbed of fanart and fannish activity in general. Editor-in-Chief Chris Mohney created a list of the ten most popular user-generated tags, four of which represented music fandoms, one the series Legend of Korra, and two that represented Loki and its actor, Tom Hiddleston.
• The success of The Avengers was what led Deseret News to declare the rise of an increasingly prominent moviegoing demographic: young female fans, "who will stay up and pay up to see their heroines and heartthrobs come to life on the big screen — even at midnight, even on a school night. Their devotion takes a number of forms, from costumes to conventions to their own creative twists on the stories they so cherish." The article went on to briefly detail fannish history, its fanworks, various fans, and mentioned "Filmmaker Hansi Oppenheimer [sic] is in the midst of making a documentary on this community, said 'you kind of expect people to be kind of geeky and they're not, they have jobs and families.' Oppenheimer is intrigued by how 'passionate (fans [sic] fiction writers) are about the stories they're telling.'"

If you're a Legend of Korra fan, an Avengers fan, a fanfiction writer or have favorite fanworks you'd like to see cited, why not write about them in Fanlore? Additions 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 media use stories that might be of interest to fans:

• The French model three strikes law against those downloading copyrighted content has been delayed in the U.S. -- for now. "The proposed Copyright Alerts system has been delayed to an unspecified date. Often referred to as “Six Strikes and You’re Out,” the policy was supposed to have been implemented in July 2012. Under it, Internet service providers like Time Warner and Verizon would voluntarily punish their customers who repeatedly use peer-to-peer filesharing software to illegally download copyrighted material." So far the French law has reduced illegal downloading but hasn't boosted media sales the way its sponsors wanted.
• Speaking of downloading, more U.S. fans will run into online restrictions in 2012. C|Net wrote about Verizon and Comcast enacting data caps. "The sad reality is that while it's a great market penetration strategy, unlimited data is simply not a sustainable economic model," said Guy Rosen, CEO of Onavo, a wireless application that helps people control data usage. "Supply is limited by the laws of physics and demand is simply exploding. Verizon's statement adds to AT&T's throttling debacle of earlier this year, ushering us into a future where all data has a price tag. It's now clear that operators will find any loophole they can to eradicate grandfathered unlimited contracts." Most of the heavy use is blamed on "video, particularly high-definition video. Services like Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube account for huge amounts of traffic on the network."
• Meanwhile one particularly popular video was taken down from YouTube temporarily due to copyright claims. "Rickrolling is the practice of promising a victim one link but directing them instead to Rick Astley’s 1987 music video, 'Never Gonna Give You Up,' instead." The takedown was particularly odd given the longevity of rickrolling and how "On April Fools' Day in 2008, [YouTube itself] rickrolled viewers by redirecting every video on the front page to Astley’s video." The video was later restored with no explanation.
• Lastly, major league baseball is sponsoring social media nights at its games. The events "vary from ballpark to ballpark, but some aspects are fairly consistent. The Cubs offered specially priced tickets and put together contests for their online fans. They encouraged their Twitter followers to use the hashtag (hash)CubsSocial to mark their tweets throughout the night. Other teams "hold in-game scavenger hunts that award autographed memorabilia or team apparel, and some clubs put together contests that result in upgraded tickets for their online followers." Other teams follow people's special events and surprise them with gift packs at the stadiums. "It's about fan engagement and the ability then to be able to enter into that discussion, and not being too corporate, but helping lead and participate in that conversation," Nationals chief operating officer Andy Feffer said. "Why? Because the social media platform is now an access point — to the club, to the players, to promotions, to ticket sales, to the story that's being told. And the story really lives now in the social media world."

If you're a baseball fan, or follow copyright issues, why not contribute to Fanlore? Additions 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.

The Futures of Entertainment conference was held at MIT over November 11-13 and several panels dealt with fan topics. Videos of conference panels are now available. One was of "Collaboration? Emerging Models for Audiences to Participate in Entertainment Decision-Making". The panelists were Jamin Warren, whose interest is in video games, Seung Bak whose business streams international films, and C. Lee Harrington, a sociologist who has studied soap opera fans and is focusing on aging audiences.

• The panel began by discussing how fans are influencing corporate decision makers, starting with the case of the Hoover corporation to partner with soap fans to protest the cancellation of All My Children. They also touched on fan subbing communities, and how foreign content such as Korean dramas or telenovelas from Latin America have language barriers to their distribution. Bak said that 80% of his site's content is subtitled through crowd sourcing. This led into a discussion of content creation tools being given to video game communities.
• There is more of a focus on international audiences for products that are flops in their home countries since they may become popular in other locations and to other audiences. Bak said that although 80% of his site's content was Korean in origin, his audience of users is only around 30% Asian, with 15% being Hispanic, 15% African American and 30% Caucasian. Harrington mentioned that age may be a factor in content reception since older audiences do not generally see participation as part of their role as media consumers. Warren agreed, noting that games need to be marketed based on what people like to do with the games, rather than their demographics.
• Another topic broached was how credit is given to participants outside the business model. Warren cited Defense of the Ancients and the complications for games in how the copyright law applies to them, as well as their team-based authorship. There was then a discussion about fan-curation experts, and different paths for fans to follow, whether to professional work or simple play. Warren mentioned that professionals also need to be able to balance their creative work and their need to work for clients. The panel concluded by circling the issue of how valuable audience contributions can be solicited and rewarded.
• An example of solicitation and rewards to an audience can be seen in the Worldbuilder experiment announced by Angry Robot. "In January, when we publish...Empire State, we’ll be inviting fan creators everywhere to visit...and create their own works of art based in the Empire State universe. These creations can then be uploaded to a dedicated website, and distributed under a Creative Commons license. The best of these will be featured in a number of “Best of” anthologies (with most of the proceeds going to the creators)."

If you are part of a gaming or a fansub community, or in a soap opera fandom, why not contribute to Fanlore? Additions 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 on fan relations with entertainment industries that might be of interest to fans:

• The Social Media Examiner did a video interview with Carri Bugbee about fan fiction and social media as a brand issue for creators. She was unfamiliar with fan fiction when she began tweeting as the Mad Men character Peggy Olson, so she seemed unaware there was a particular term for what she and the other characters do, RPG. She agreed that some people believed that the RPG was a campaign by AMC, Mad Men's network, especially as Twitter was not well known at the time. She explained though that she was more a fan of Twitter than Mad Men so that her participation was more of a social experiment. However, AMC's response was to suspend the Twitter accounts of the RPG participants only a week after they began tweeting together. She described angry fan reaction, and how the accounts were restored in 24 hours with the request that participants should contact AMC's digital marketing department. Her takeaway for companies is that if they don't manage their characters across the web, that others would and the results might not be what the brands would want. The way she approached her participation was to avoid doing anything she wouldn't do if she were getting paid for the job. The interviewer suggested that fan activities were a boon for brands as they were free advertising, but Bugbee warned that fans could not necessarily be co-opted and might be doing things brands didn't like, so they should be bribed with attention and goodies from the brand owners. She concluded that given the usual marketing costs, these expenses would "be nothing."
• In a guest post at AllThingsD titled Music for Nothing and the Fans for Free a venture capitalist concluded that "When the dust finally settles between the artists, labels, and distribution companies, everyone will finally realize fans are more valuable than recorded music. As traditional monetization models for recorded music sales slowly fade away, new monetization methods centered on the fan will emerge."

If you're part of Mad Men or a music fandom, why not contribute to Fanlore? Additions 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.