Here's a roundup of troubling issues that might be of interest to fans:

• Last week, the OTW posted a news alert to fanfic writers and podfic makers about a contest for fanfic recordings being held at ComicCon. Our post pointed out troubling aspects of the contract fans would be required to sign, which led to additional discussion of the terms and contest by other fans. One was semaphore-drivethru on Tumblr who concluded "This, guys, is why you should always, always read a contract/release before signing. There is no length of contract on this, so I’m assuming it’s in perpetuity. There’s no language at all to protect you, either. Just an agreement for you to give them everything for a chance at a twenty minute recording. If you feel it’s a worthwhile trade, an opportunity with[sic] taking, then go for it. But be aware that in no reputable publishing circles would a contract like this be considered reasonable." Since then, it's been announced that Random House will be extending the contest to the upcoming Star Wars Celebration VI in Orlando next month. We urge those fans to also do a careful read through if they're considering entering their material.
• Fanwork contests in general have proliferated wildly through many fandoms and media properties. In many cases the contests are just a form of spotlight on fan work and there is an absence of contracts or, for that matter, prizes. However the fact that legal rights and financial rewards are now on offer in many places sheds a particularly troubling light on the longstanding problem of fanworks plagiarism. Many fans have at some time found their fanworks reposted with credit to them removed or left unclear, or have had their fanworks slightly altered and presented as someone else's work. The rise of frequent contests has now also led to fans having their work entered in those contests without their knowledge. Given that professional publications of all kinds have had plagiarism scandals of their own makes it seem unlikely that the plagiarists will come to light due to careful research by the contest hosts.
• Also on a front closer to home, a recent complaint was circulating on Tumblr involving an ad being shown to an AO3 user who was reading at the archive. The reader assumed that the ads were coming from the Archive of Our Own. We want to clarify that this is not the case, as the AO3 does not host ads. Rather the problem likely stemmed from the user's own browser, which may have been infected with malware to produce the ad content. If users encounter a problem like this, please report it to the AO3's Support team. We would appreciate it if fans could signal boost this information.

If you've experienced plagiarism or have perspectives to share about fans and fandom, 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. 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 fan gathering stories that might be of interest to fans:

• The Wooly Mammoth Theater Company blog posted that fans "aren’t just connoisseurs of a given body of work. Whether dressing up for San Diego Comic-Con, reading fanfiction at the Archive of Our Own, or just proclaiming the awesomeness of a given movie, book, or TV show, fans’ allegedly geeky pursuits are all directed towards the same endpoint: community." Fandom is a place where individual friendships develop over shared interests and "everyone has a voice on the Internet."
• Larry Nemecek at Trekland Supplemental takes a bad experience as a way to relate to fandom of the past and what it's lead to. "'[S]uffering for your art'—or your passion!—was one of the very issues that had just cropped up this weekend in a reunion of our ‘80s-era Houston 'first fandom': namely, whether today’s digital-savvy, media-soaked fans appreciate what that first wave of relentless and oft-ridiculed Trekkies accomplished. Or, to be fair, whether they even can appreciate how much it took...so that not only was Kirk transplanted to the big screen, but with a groundswell that allowed offshoots like Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer and even 'alt-Kirk' to blossom. And, along the way, gave root to a movement that defined just what a modern 'media franchise' and its fandom could look like."
• Robert Greenberger at ComicMix reviews Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture by Rob Salkowitz and muses over the evolution of comics fandom as "the rise of video games and infusion of Manga/Anime helped change popular culture and they began gravitating to San Diego to hawk their wares." While finding the book misses the mark, Greenberger concludes that "the book’s most interesting chapters are its final ones as he explores where the market is in 2011-2012 and the trends that may push it in one of four directions: Ghost World (collapse of the direct market, Hollywood moves away from superheroes), Endless Summer (the status quo only more), Infinite Crisis (diehard, aging fans and no one else), and The Expanding Multiverse (new technologies and new ideas grow the business in fresh ways)."
• Tambay at Shadow and Act discusses increasing the connection between fans of black independent cinema and creators, and commenters cite the importance of community: "S&A's comment section is reminiscent of a family reunion...Fights ensue and stratchline are etched in the sand, but that's what lovers do. And they're not limited to 140 characters. Essentially, S&A is unique in that it has a host of family members/commenters who bring a wealth of insight and information not normally seen on discussion boards. Granted, their pages are filled with tidbits of tantalizing information on Cinema Of The African Diaspora, however, I've come to believe many return to this place of enlightenment because they know there will be folks just like them, dropping by to see who's in the comment section and what they are doing."

If you're a movie buff, a longtime Trek fan or a con goer, 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 about pros playing inside the fandom sandbox that might be of interest to fans:

• Dubbed the "world's very first (and only) Science Fiction Football Musical Comedy!" Packer Fans From Outer Space recently ran in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Geared to a hometown audience with its "songs about love, Wisconsin traditions and our historic football rivalry, including 'You Gotta Hate the Bears' and 'Winning is the Only Thing,'" it still provided insiderish/crossover/genre-hopping fannishness that lots of non-Wisconsinites could recognize.
• Not far away, Canadian Charles Ross performed a one-man show in Adrian, Michigan that was insiderish only to people who had never seen Star Wars (is there anyone left?) “It’s basically me onstage — with no costumes, sets, props or real talent — me, onstage, retelling the original, bad hair, 1970s-1980s ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, basically using my own body and my own impressions,” Ross said. His obsession with the saga came from a source many fan creators can relate to -- wanting to know what comes next. As a child he saw a double feature of the first two Star Wars films made. “But [my father] didn’t tell me that it wasn’t the end of the story. I was convinced that the sort-of lame tone left over at the end of ‘Empire Strikes Back’ was the way the story actually ended. And I was like, ‘What a bummer of a story!’"
• Sony Music decided to employ fan fiction to promote the band One Direction. They partnered with a Wattpad writer who created a five-chapter eBook about the band members "designed to coordinate with the video for the band’s single, 'What Makes You Beautiful.'" Fans then spread links to the books and video. The marketing effort is among the finalists for the GennY Award which "recognizes best practices of those who have applied new and innovative techniques to connect and communicate with youth." The winner will be announced at a conference focusing on youth marketing.
• Then there are some creators who are writing their own fanfic. One that was widely circulated was a story about Lost co-producer Damen Lindelof writing Mad Men fan fiction as fictional sci-fi writer Ken Cosgrove. Another frequently republished story was about romance novelist Diane Story writing Britney Spears RPF, made all the more notable given that she is the aunt of Britney's former husband, Kevin Federline. Story also "created a contest on her website where the winner can win an actual wedding invitation from Spears and Federline's 2004 wedding." And finally, Booktrib hosted an article on fan fiction that discussed Vampire Diaries actor Matt Davis writing fanfic on Twitter: "His crazy, sometimes smutty interpretation of the show he resides on is without a doubt the talk of the community. If the actors can write an alternate universe based on original content, why shouldn’t the fans?"

If you are a fan of Vampire Diaries, Britney Spears, Mad Men or One Direction, why not write about it on 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 about women in fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• An urgent call is going out to any female fan artists in the New York City area! The PBS program Off Book did a piece on fan artists on May 2. "The fan art community is one of the most creative and active online. Taking pop culture stories and icons as its starting point, the fan community extends those characters into new adventures, unexpected relationships, bizarre remixes, and even as the source material for beautiful art. Limited only by the imagination of the artist, the fan art world is full of surprises and brilliance." Apparently it is also "limited only" by the gender of the fan artist in the show's eyes, as not a single woman appeared to speak despite some of their fan art being shown. Super-wiki owner missyjack protested the exclusion of female artists on the YouTube post, and received a request from a show representative to gather the names of fans willing to be interviewed. If you're a female fan artist in NYC who would be willing to take part and broaden this representation of fan artists, comment at her blog.
• Also infuriating to many female fans was the representation of female audience members by MovieFone with regards to the new Marvel movie release, The Avengers. More than one female fan protested the representation of women as passive audience members dragged to the film simply to please boyfriends. The Discriminating Fangirl wrote "Instead of writing an intelligent guide to the movies for people who aren’t already fans" the article included "idiotic, sexist stereotypes." She summed up the problem with "Yes, because every girl going to see The Avengers is a giggling twit who’s obsessed with being pretty, watching inane rom coms, and who never got over high school. That’s insulting both to fangirls AND to girls who dig rom coms, because it...downplays womens’ intelligence and their taste in films. If girls like it, it must be fluff." She added that "superhero genre stuff AND romance genre stuff...[are] two interests [that] are not mutually exclusive."
• By comparison the just-completed ROFLcon III, a "State of the Web Union" conference held in Cambridge, Massachussetts, had a panel on Fangirl Culture alongside other panels on internet memes and supercuts ("those densely packed, tightly edited video compilations that usually hone in on an idiosyncratic film or television trope"). The Fangirl panel "brought together several fanfic creators-slash-experts, who discussed the increasingly mainstream visibility of fanfic, as well as the bad rap it sometimes gets — despite the fact that most of us grew up daydreaming ourselves into the lives of our favorite characters." It also spawned a related online article about the origins of vidding.

If you are a female creator of fanworks, you can help correct the media assumption that there are only one or two of you out here. 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.