• Even while fanfic writer Bianca Bernardino is seeing her work turned into film, another author is turning to fanfic of her own work. As L.J. Smith explained last year, "[E]ven though I have written the entire series, I don’t own anything about The Vampire Diaries. And from now on, the books will be written by an anonymous ghostwriter, just as Stefan’s Diaries are. It will say 'Created by L. J. Smith' on the cover, but I am not allowed even to change a word in the ghostwriter’s book." Instead, Smith has released the first of a series through Amazon's Kindle Worlds.
• J.K. Rowling's changing views on relationships in Harry Potter led to articles across the Internet, from The Washington Post to The Wire recording fan reaction. But blogger Lucy Softich reminded readers that "it doesn't change anything." "It was also really interesting when she told us Dumbledore was gay, but it didn’t really affect the story. It didn’t add subtext that wasn’t already there, or validate any arguments. Authors decide how to write their books, yes, but once they’re published, they can’t change anything...Fanfiction, on the other hand, can do anything. It can take the smallest interaction between characters, and turn it into a shipping war. It can take the merest hints, and create new and unexpected plot-twists. It can highlight things everyone else overlooked. And unlike books, its not permanent."
• While more people trying out fanfiction are pleasantly surprised by the experience, Emma Cueto at Bustle suggests that the real problem is that too many people don't understand what it is. "Look at the book (and movie) The Hours, which was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Isn’t it just meta-fanfic where the book that inspired the fan fiction is also part of the story?...It just happens to be very well done and rooted in a literary great, so no one bothered to notice. Then there are shows like Once Upon a Time that put a new spin on fairy tales, or Sleepy Hollow and Dracula that grew out of classic novels...Don’t tell me that isn’t just fan fiction with a budget."
• Kendra Mack at Open Source focused on the importance of participation in fanwork communities. "But female fans have long participated in (and led) fan communities before this RW shift, remixing and making new meanings from fictional texts. Henry Jenkins has written about the influence of television fan fiction writers in the 1980s, many of whom were women...This practice of fan refocalization continues today with shows like Adventure Time, a (personal favorite) cartoon with two male character leads that has many fans creating derivative fiction and art focused on the secondary female characters. The show also received positive fan reaction and high ratings after airing an episode in which the gender of all the characters are reversed, not to mention a slew of fan art and fiction involving the gender-swapped heroines."

What fanwork transitions do you think should be remembered? Write about them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. 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.

Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of February! The Events Calendar can be found on the OTW website

• XenaCon, The official Xena Convention, is a "must attend" for any Xena fan! Meet fellow fans and special guests in Burbank, CA February 7-9

  More about Xena: Warrior Princess on Fanlore

• Popular and American Culture Studies: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow With a mission to "promote innovative and nontraditional academic movement in Humanities and Social Sciences celebrating America’s cultural heritages," The Southwest Popular/American Culture Association's 35th conference will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico February 19-22nd.
• Like slash? Then Escapade is where you want to be February 28th-March 2nd! Escapade has been celebrating slash for over two decades! The fan designed convention and includes an art show, dealer's room, panels, a zine library and a songvid show.

  More about Escapade on Fanlore

We have four calls for papers for coming up in the next month!

• Call for Papers: Twitter, Celebrity and online public identity

  Contact and submissions to: Sarah Thomas skt [at] aber.ac.uk

  The ongoing adoption of Twitter as a tool for communication, broadcasting and interaction has meant that the social media platform has emerged as a significant site for re-thinking some of the key relationships between celebrity, performance and the presentation of the self. This CFP seeks short articles for Celebrity Studies Journal Forum section that explore Twitter and its usage beyond its status as a ‘new’ platform (that positions its singular significance through comparison with traditional representational media).

  The special issue of the journal will incorporate the style and ethos of Twitter in the submissions: Abstracts should be 140 words and are due on February 28.

  The short articles should begin with reference to a specific Tweet that sparks the analysis within the rest of the article. The final word count for the article will be between 750 and 1,500 words, depending on the number of accepted submissions.

• Call For Papers: New Directions in Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes

  The BBC "Sherlock" is now one of the most commercially and critically successful series of all time. This one-day symposium focuses on the series to look back at its roots in Conan Doyle’s stories, and examines its treatment of a range of issues including race, gender, terrorism, and international relations.

  The fruits of this symposium will lead to the publication of a special journal issue dedicated to the series. Please email your 200-word abstract for a 20-minute presentation and 50-word biography to ue_tom at hotmail.com by February 28.

  More about Sherlock on Fanlore

• CFP: FanPhenomena: Fan Studies & Fandom

  The Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (Popcaanz) is devoted to the scholarly understanding of everyday cultures. Proposals for both panels and individual papers are now being accepted for all aspects of Fan Studies, including, but not limited to, the following areas: Fan Fiction, Fan/Creator interaction, Diversity in Fandom, The Internet and Fandom.

• CFP: Fan Phenomena: Rocky Horror Picture Show

  Now accepting abstracts to be considered for a new book Fan Phenomena: The Rocky Horror Picture Show from Intellect Press. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Fan Phenomena) title will examine the film’s fan culture, its essential role in creating the midnight movie, audience participation, and cult film cultures, as well as other areas of influence and social impact. Abstracts, along with CV or resume, are due March, 3rd 2014 and should be 300 words long.

  More about The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Fanlore

The Events Calendar is here to inform and connect fans about upcoming fan events both face to face and online! We are always open to submissions by anyone with news of an event. Events come in many categories such as Academic Events, Fan Gatherings, Legal Events, OTW Events, Announcements of fanwork fests and challenges, or Technology Events taking place around the world and online. New ideas and categories are encouraged! If you know about any upcoming fan events please let us know!

• Forbes was one of many sites discussing YouTube's crackdown on fans who use video game footage to review or discuss games. "So at the same time as two major console makers are integrating video sharing into their systems, YouTube is cracking down on the video game community. Of course, YouTube’s response to this is vague and unhelpful...Now a number of video game publishers such as Ubisoft, Paradox Interactive and Capcom have stated publicly that people should fight the copyright claims, understanding full well the win-win situation for all involved."
• On another front, booksellers are censoring erotica writers. "Some U.K.-based ebook retailers responded with public apologies, and WHSmith went so far as to shut down its website altogether, releasing a statement saying that it would reopen 'once all self-published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available.' The response in the U.S. was somewhat more muted, but most of the retailers mentioned in the piece, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble, began quietly pulling hundreds of titles from their online shelves." The reasons why were never stated. "'I'd get an email from them saying, 'We found the following books in violation of our content guidelines,' she recalls. 'But they wouldn't tell me why. There were no specifics.'"
• If copyright or censorship fears weren't enough, apparently the study of erotic fiction is being targeted by some government cost-cutters. "The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded $914,000 to help fund The Popular Romance Project since 2010, an ongoing study that explores 'the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs, and internet fan fiction.'...The grants are highlighted in the 2013 'Wastebook,' an annual report ...that highlights taxpayer-subsidized programs that...are questionable or unnecessary, especially during a time when lawmakers are viciously debating spending levels and how to trim the nation’s $17 trillion debt."
• Meanwhile Slate's Future Tense blog looked at How Artificial Intelligence Might Monetize Fan Fiction. "A fan fiction writer e-publishes a story he wrote using the main characters, a vegan vampire who runs a butcher shop and a werewolf who turns into a plumber at full moon. His book sells millions of downloads, too. Did the fan fiction writer do anything prohibited by law? Not necessarily. As U.S. copyright law anticipates only human authors, it is reasonable to read it as providing no copyright protection to authors that are not human. The fan fiction writer can use the Super Potter Brothers characters as much as he wants; they’re in the public domain. Anyone can use them and make money from them, including the movie studios."

What fandom takedown cases have you seen? Write about them on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. 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.

On December 26, 2013, a U.S. Federal Court issued a ruling about copyright protection in Sherlock Holmes and the Sherlock Holmes stories. The court held that all elements of the Holmes canon that were first introduced before 1923 -- including the characters of Holmes and Watson -- are in the public domain.

As background: In most of the world, copyright protection has expired in all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon. This means that in most of the world, Sherlock Holmes, and all of Conan Doyle's stories, are in the public domain and anyone can use them without getting permission. But in the United States, thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, the last ten Sherlock Holmes stories -- those that were first published after 1923 -- are still protected by copyright. Those copyrights are owned by a company called The Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. (the "CDE.") The CDE has licensed that copyright to a number of creators who have made recent adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, including Warner Brothers (for the Downey films), CBS-TV (for Elementary), and WGBH (the U.S. distributor of BBC Sherlock). It has also sent "cease and desist" letters to others who have sought to make commercial adaptations of the Canon -- and those letters haven't necessarily distinguished between adaptations of the works still in copyright and those on whom copyright has expired.

One of those "cease and desist" letters went to Leslie Klinger, a Holmes expert and the author of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, who together with author Laurie R. King was preparing to publish an anthology of stories inspired by the Holmes Canon. Klinger fired back, bringing a lawsuit against the CDE, seeking declaratory judgment and claiming the copyright had expired on all of the story elements that Klinger and King wanted to include in the anthology.

Now, the court has issued a ruling in Klinger's case. The Court’s ruling states, in brief, that all characters and story elements first introduced before 1923 -- including the characters of Holmes and Watson -- are in the public domain, and creators are free to use them without licensing them from the Conan Doyle Estate. The Court cautioned that copyright law still protects elements that appear exclusively in the ten post-1922 stories by Conan Doyle (those that remain in copyright). The CDE has stated that it's considering appealing the ruling, so it's possible that the ruling isn't the final judicial word on this matter.

In the meantime, what does this ruling mean for U.S. fans of Sherlock Holmes? The case is a victory for Klinger and great news for those who want to commercialize Holmes adaptations, but its impact on fans is, largely, an indirect one. Fans have always relied on fair use principles to support the creation of fanworks. That's still true for most fanworks related to Holmes--copyright not only still protects the post-1923 works, but also (obviously) the sources for many Holmes fandoms, such as the Warner Brothers Holmes, Elementary, and BBC Sherlock. But the fact that the original-recipe Holmes and Watson are in the public domain is still good for fandom: Since most of the traits of Holmes and Watson, and most of the stories, were introduced before 1923, fan creators will seldom have to wonder whether their Doyle Canon fanworks are fair use. And beyond that, it means that the CDE will have a harder time trying to charge licensing fees to commercial adapters of Holmes and Watson. This makes it easier for commercial adaptations to flourish, so in the future, that may mean more Holmes fandoms to draw from!

The case also has broader implications for U.S. copyright in serialized works. Many now-famous characters were introduced in series that started in the early 20th century, but continued for decades or more after then. This ruling establishes the principle that all of those characters have the public domain more quickly than some had originally thought: once copyright protection expires in the works where those characters were thoroughly introduced, those characters enter the public domain--even if some works featuring those characters (and any new facts about them introduced in the new works) remain protected. This is true not only for Holmes, but also a number of other characters introduced early in the 20th century, such as G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot...and, notably, Disney's Mickey Mouse.

For more on this case, and to get a copy of the court's full ruling, see http://free-sherlock.com/.