The Links Roundup posts are getting a new name! The Communications Committee has been using the #OTWFannews hashtag for them at Twitter for a while as it's a more distinctive name for the series and a clearer name for their content. OTW Fannews is meant to be a selective look at discussions of fandom, and issues affecting fans, in both traditional and non-traditional media venues. It also includes interviews where OTW staffers and volunteers have taken part, or discussions of the organization appear.

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

• CNN's Geek Out! blog ran an excerpt from Rob Salkowitz's book on the commercial side of pop culture. "Many of today’s best online comic and fantasy-genre news sites and discussion groups were started by, and remain powered by, women. Today, there are increasing numbers of proud girl geeks of all ages; I count myself fortunate to be married to one. Crowds at conventions and even some comics stores now reflect a much more equal gender balance. As for the comics industry itself, not so much." He concluded that the future of comics was likely to favor women. "Typically, female comics fans who speak out on this issue from a feminist perspective are roundly and rudely shouted down, sometimes from the podium. It’s hard to imagine a more self-defeating strategy for the long-run health of the industry. Women today are the loudest and most compelling voices in fandom; young girls are making some of the most popular self-published comics. Decades from now, Twilight will be fondly remembered (or ironically inflected) nostalgia for millions of middle-aged women, some of whom will be able to look back on the shared communal experience of sleeping out for days at Comic-Con and having had the time of their young lives."
• Tracey Sinclair at Fanboy Unleashed wrote about a recent round of geek credential checking and declared "There seems increasingly to be the idea that there is some level of arcane knowledge required to be a ‘proper’ geek, but only, of course, if you have a vagina. Nobody’s calling the guy dressed as Thor a fake – hell, it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t spell Thor, nobody would think to question that he belonged there. But there is still an ingrained suspicion that girls aren’t really geeks – or, if they are, they should look a certain way, and dress a certain way. Dare not to fit into a category you had no input in defining, and you’re a ‘fake’." Writing for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Aisha Sultan makes it clear that this treatment is not limited to geek fandoms or to adult women.
• Certainly women tend to get little support from content creation companies. While Ashley Eckstein's Her Universe company provides a stereotypically feminine product -- fashionable clothes -- her observation of the sexism behind the dearth of such material was all business. "'I think we are now starting to wake up and say 'no, we don’t want to deal with this anymore' and if we do speak up, people will listen and it’s becoming more accepted to like sci-fi from a social standpoint,' said Eckstein. 'We finally opened our mouths.'...According to Eckstein, a number of companies told her that female fans just aren't interested in and don't buy science fiction and similarly themed merchandise...'We said we'll prove you wrong,' asserted the actress, 'and we did.'"
• Some people seem to feel that if they can't stop the presence of women, they can stop voices supporting them from being heard. The Daily Dot reported that Sam Killerman's Gamers Against Bigotry website was hacked. "Where 1,500 people once pledged to curb their sexist, racist, Ableist, and homophobic language during gaming, hackers have inserted NSFW images like Goatse. Killerman said he’s been unable to restore the pledge page permanently, but users are continuing to sign it in the gaps between takedowns." Fortunately, panels at conventions are a little harder to disrupt, such as the Sexism in Anime Fandom panel at Otakon (no transcript available).

If you've been a woman in fandom, share your experiences at Fanlore! Contributions 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. 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 legal news stories that might be of interest to fans:

• Some good news on the net neutrality front is that The Netherlands and Chile are the first two countries that have enacted "firm net neutrality laws" which are designed to prevent "ISPs from blocking or slowing down different types of internet traffic. It also stops ISPs from charging extra to access specific websites or services."
• Less happy is the case of Braindeadly, a British World of Warcraft commentator, who discovered he will no longer be able to do his commentaries because "when he signed a contract with Machinima, the video game network on YouTube, he signed for life." His is not the first such case. "In an interview with the Daily Dot last year, Household Hacker manager Justin Matthew said YouTubers, especially the younger ones, get taken advantage more often than not when it comes to fine print in contracts...'Some YouTubers overlook the fine print because they are so happy to be signed and I think some people could have gotten a better deal if they had a manager.'"
• Of course some people with managers still run into legal trouble as in the case of artist Richard Prince, who is fighting a legal ruling of over copyright infringement. Prince's legal team is arguing that his work is transformative and thus fair use. "'What the court missed unfortunately in the trial court level with Richard Prince,' Rutledge says, was 'the work that he has made using imagery including some from Patrick Cariou's photographs says something different, something new.'" The case is one to watch because "[i]t's rare for fair use lawsuits in the visual arts world to get to court at all, and that's why everyone is watching the outcome in Cariou v. Prince." That includes "the search engine Google, which filed its own friend of the court brief in the case. In order to help you find what you're looking for on the Internet, Google has to copy a lot of copyrighted material — without commenting on it at all. Google's lawyers say a narrower reading of fair use could be 'dangerous' to the company's business model."
• For artists and crafters concerned about copyright infringement in regards to their artwork, a free booklet titled Know Your Rights is available from Interweave.com, an art and craft media company. While the company writes from the standpoint of preventing copyright infringement of its own works, it does address specific questions that craft hobbyists and resellers sometimes ask, such as the crafter's own copyright or use of images on social media sites such as Pinterest. Registration is required to download it.

If you're a fannnish crafter, World of Warcraft player or interested in net neutrality and copyright matters, 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 fanfic in the spotlight that might be of interest to fans:

While newspapers across the globe have featured stories over the past decade on local authors with fanfiction pasts (or presents), the case of former Twilight fanfic, Fifty Shades of Grey has sparked considerable media coverage over the past month, prompting discussion in a variety of areas and hundreds of news stories and blog posts.

• Some of the early discussion focused on the apparently surprising idea that women like to read erotica, which sent at least one journalist into a panic. Fortunately, the stories prompted some people not surprised by this amazing news to discuss the business of erotica publishing and promote the genre, or "debunk sexist stereotypes about women and technology" by noting how "the removal of the gatekeepers of publishing has huge implications for publishing; but it also has huge implications for gender equality. The women in Twilight fandom who formed their own publishing houses followed in the footsteps of pioneering female-run digital publishers like Samhain, Ellora’s Cave, and Torquere Press, who founded their businesses as romance writers and fans. The success of each of these digital publishers proves that women can not only be their own gatekeepers, but that they have the technical skills to thrive in the process."
• Other takes suggested that "what’s really groundbreaking about this book and future film – [is] the mainstreaming of fetish. The popularity of this novel has made it okay to talk about erotica as a real literary genre and admit to our own desire to see more than just two types of sex- the vanilla and the grotesque." Others counter that the book's real appeal is that it's a Cinderella story in a cynical age. In Fanfic as Iconography, a romance blogger looks not at the genre but the archetypes in the book and finds herself "[t]hinking about how this giant hit might offer a different model for alpha heroes, I wondered what else romance writers, agents and publishers might learn from it."
• Paid Content's question about how the novel's success "raises interesting questions about crowdsourcing and copyright" suggested that fan fiction's often collaborative, communal process is in contrast to the single author model of professional remuneration. Author Jami Gold, a former fanfic writer herself, echoed this ethical rather than legal concern. "Without its association with Twilight, the story wouldn’t have received 20,000 reviews (on fanfiction.net) and gained those fans to begin with...She then had her fans, from back when the story was free, buy up copies...and post hundreds of reviews all over the internet. Boom. Instant best-seller...And all she had to do was use someone else’s characters and fanatical fandom ties to get there." This discussion was further explored in a series of posts on Dear Author, including one featuring Rebecca Tushnet from OTW's Legal Committee. Some authors, such as Jim Butcher (who cites Mercedes Lackey's earlier action) has decided "fanfiction is to be licensed as derivative, noncommercial fiction under the Creative Commons (CC) umbrella" with the intention being that "You can’t make money from fanfic based on Jim’s work" and requesting that fans utilize a CC disclaimer on their work.
• Other stories focused on changes in the publishing industry, both the ones leading up to Grey's marketing success, and what will likely follow given the visible successes of self-published authors. "Ethical objections of fan fiction aficionados over James’s alleged appropriation of copyrighted material, and her breach of fan fiction writers’ most sacred tenet — Thou Shalt Not Publish For Profit — have been drowned out in the rush to find the next “mommy porn” contender in online media outlets once considered outlaw territory and beneath contempt by legit publishers." A recent post at publisher Tor asked if "America may be ready for traditionally published works of fan fiction?" but this is clearly an international matter. "“With the smallest of publishers able to release an e-book to a worldwide audience, hits hit bigger, faster, and simultaneously around the world.”
• Finally, some articles sought to trace the origins of the book's success, which has moved from a publishing coup to a film sale, with coverage of the book appearing as an alternate cover story to The Hunger Games. While one might question "why fan fiction’s stigma persists" given its ubiquity, perhaps fittingly, the latest news is that Grey will soon have its own derivative works: a parody derived from tweets will be making its way into print soon. And at least one online site has offered recipes tied to the book.

If you are a Twilight fan or create fan works why not write about it 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 stories on intellectual property issues that might be of interest to fans:

• Last month Crunchyroll.com reported that in a countrywide effort, police in Japan "arrested 30 people on suspicion of using file-sharing software" calling it "the largest simultaneous enforcement by the Japanese police against illegal uploaders ever." Tech entrepreneur Andy Baio concluded that young voters may be key to changing the criminalization of remix culture, and dubbed the current efforts against "piracy" as a new Prohibition. Certainly industries that have a stranglehold on entertainment distribution are able to keep increasing costs to fans and the effects are not limited to the young. A pop music critic writing about the rising cost of rock fandom noted "I’d love to continue the path I’ve been following since early adolescence, when my full membership in the rock-lover’s club began. But I’m just not sure I can afford it anymore."
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently filed exemption requests to the DMCA which "asked for legal protections for artists and critics who use excerpts from DVDs or downloading services to create new, remixed works." These exemptions build on and expand exemptions that EFF won last year. "In drafting the requests, EFF had the invaluable assistance of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Organization for Transformative Works."
• A post at TorrentFreak discovered illegal downloading being done by employees at major studios such as Sony, Universal, and FOX. "We aren’t the only ones to come up with the idea of revealing the BitTorrent habits of copyright advocates. Yesterday, the Dutch blog Geenstijl exposed how someone at the local music royalty collecting agency Buma/Stemra downloaded a copy of the TV-show Entourage and video game Battlefield 3." The company's response suggested that their IP-addresses were spoofed, an unlikely but welcome explanation since "if it’s so easy to spoof an IP-address, then accused file-sharers can use this same defense against copyright holders."
• To those interested in learning more about these issues some recent book reviews noted fans' stake in the discussion. The Times Higher Education in the UK discussed Fan Fiction and Copyright: Outsider Works and Intellectual Property Protection (citing the OTW's Rebecca Tushnet) and The Learned Fangirl reviewed Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back.

If you are interested in intellectual property issues such as fair use and the DMCA 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.