News
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April 2013 Newsletter, Volume 68
I. DONATIONS & VOLUNTEERS ARE COMING!
There were two huge pieces of news for the OTW this month: the success of its membership drive and its new volunteer recruitment system. Development & Membership received more than 2,054 individual donations totaling US$53,243.99 over the 3-9 April drive period. Thank you to everyone who participated! (See the thank-you post for more about the drive.)
We would also like to say a huge "thank you" to the mods, writers, and bidders of http://ao3auction.tumblr.com, an independently organized fan auction benefiting the OTW. The auction recently closed with an amazing pledge total of US$16,729! For tax reasons, the OTW cannot officially endorse third-party fundraisers — that's why we didn't promote the auction while it was still going on. However, we're extremely grateful when fans choose to put on such events. Aside from the money they raise, it means a lot to all the OTW staff and volunteers to see our fellow fans making such a wonderful show of support for our work. Thank you.
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Join Support for a Chat!
Hi! Support here, again! In fact, Support is always here--when you submit a ticket through the Support and Feedback form we'll respond as soon as possible to register your feature suggestion, pass your bug report on to our coders, or do our best to help you out with a problem. However, when it comes to explaining how to do things or why something doesn't seem to be working right, the formal back-and-forth emails of a Support request aren't always ideal.
After receiving positive reviews of our previous chats in November and February, we're continuing on with Open Chat sessions with the Support Staff in our public chat room (the link will be made available on the day of the chat). We will be there this coming Saturday, May 04, 2013 at 16:00:00 UTC lasting through this Sunday, May 05, 2013 at 04:00:00 UTC. Members of Support will be available to interact with you one-on-one in live chat. See what time that is where you live. We are going to try to have future sessions at different times to make sure we eventually cover all time zones. If you can't make it to this one, keep an eye out for the next!
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Archive of Our Own Newsletter - March/April 2013
March and April were busy busy busy months for the Archive. Our output included, among other things, a new header, an updated roadmap, and our annual April Showers promotion, a joint effort between Fanlore and the AO3 to highlight the fandoms you love!
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OTW Fannews: Giving people what they want
Slate wrote about how badly the DMCA affects accessibility of technology from ebooks to online videos. "[P]ublishers, video programmers, and other copyright owners lock down digital content with digital rights management technology designed to limit users’ ability to access, copy, and adapt copyrighted works to specific circumstances. And copyright owners frequently fail to account for the need to adapt DRM-encumbered works to make them accessible to people with disabilities.
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OTW Events Calendar for May
Welcome to our Events Calendar roundup for the month of May! The Events Calendar can be found on the OTW website and is open to submissions by anyone with news of an event. These can be viewed by event-type, such as Academic Events, Fan Gatherings, Legal Events, OTW Events, or Technology Events taking place around the world.
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MISTI-Con, Harry Potter convention hosted by The Group Who Shall Not Be Named (the New York City Harry Potter Meetup) in cooperation with Ray "The Dark Lord Bartender" Smith and the Margate Hotel, will be held in Laconia, New Hampsire, USA from 9-13 May 2013. The convention will feature panels, programs, academic presentations, exhibits, wizard rock performances, and much more.
Read and Share about MISTI-Con on Fanlore -
Vidukon, a United Kingdom-based fan-run convention focused on vidding, will be held in Cardiff, Wales on 18-19 May 2013. The con welcomes vids and vidders from all fandoms and features video shows along with workshops, panels, and even a 'Vid Bazaar' where vidders can swap DVDs of their work.
Read and Share about Vidukon on Fanlore -
Celebrating its 31st incarnation, BayCon, the San Francisco Bay area's regional science fiction convention will be held 24-27 May 2013. In honor of this celebration, the program organizers have chosen the theme 'Triskaidekaphobicon' and are planning to explore the darker sides of science fiction and fantasy: phobias, superstitions, thrills, horror, and more. The con features panels, workshops, special guests, meet and greet opportunities, and gaming spaces for fans across the genre.
Read and Share about BayCon on Fanlore - The First Annual Fandom and Neomedia Studies (FANS) Conference will be held in Dallas, TX, on 1 and 2 June 2013. The FANS Conference is hosted and sponsored by A-Kon, the longest continually running anime and manga convention in North America. It will be held at the Dallas Hilton Anatole Hotel. Topics at the conference will include all aspects of being a fan, ranging from being a passive audience member to producing one’s own parafictive or interfictive creations. Neomedia includes both new media, as it is customarily defined, as well as new ways of using and conceptualizing traditional media.
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MISTI-Con, Harry Potter convention hosted by The Group Who Shall Not Be Named (the New York City Harry Potter Meetup) in cooperation with Ray "The Dark Lord Bartender" Smith and the Margate Hotel, will be held in Laconia, New Hampsire, USA from 9-13 May 2013. The convention will feature panels, programs, academic presentations, exhibits, wizard rock performances, and much more.
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Strategic Planning Report #2: Volunteers & Recruiting Committee
The Strategic Planning Committee is pleased to announce that we have completed our second committee report, which is on the Volunteers & Recruiting Committee.
You can download the report as a PDF here:
https://transformativeworks.org/strategicplanning/reports/volcom -
OTW Fannews: Fanfiction, where can you find it?
College newspapers are a constant source of stories on fanfiction, but The Varsity tried to take a more comprehensive look at the practice, noting that "fan fiction predates the Internet. In fact, amateur press associations, which first flourished in the early decades of the 20th century, provided a way for aspiring writers to put together and share their own magazines and works of fiction. A distribution manager or official editor would collect the magazines and letter publications and send them to other members of the association. In the 1930s, fans of science fiction magazines printed their own mimeographed or hectographed works which contained their own reviews, printed fiction, and even art."
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Canadian Copyright Law Q&A - Part 3
This is the last in a series of Q&A posts with Graham Reynolds, a Canadian copyright scholar from Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Q&A focuses on Bill C-11, which went into effect near the end of 2012 and made some significant changes to Canada's Copyright Act, some of which influence the way fanworks are treated under Canadian law. The first post, in which Graham answered questions about the general contours of the law and about the law of "fair dealing", is available here. The second post, in which Graham answered questions about the probable effect of the law on fanfiction, fanart, and fanvids, is available here.
Today, Graham addresses Canadian "moral rights," trade-mark rights, and rights of personality; and what the new law means for fanwork creators outside of Canada. Graham explains that creators of noncommercial fanworks may face challenges under Canada's moral rights law, which encompasses rights to integrity and attribution. Creators of non-commercial fanworks are less likely to face problems from Canadian trade-mark laws, but the answer regarding rights of personality is more complicated. Graham also explains that the law may have some impact on fans who are located outside Canada, because the law applies to some Internet activities.
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Spotlight on Development & Membership
Having completed our most successful drive in OTW history, we'd like to spotlight the work of our Development & Membership Committee ("DevMem"). Among its many accomplishments in 2012, DevMem held two successful membership drives in April and October. The success of these drives, coupled with recurring donations, brought the total raised in 2012 to $90,600. Without the dedication and talent of the DevMem committee members, 2012 would not have been a record-setting year in fundraising. We were able to do a Q+A with two members of DevMem, Aja and Lesann, in the weeks before this drive despite their busy schedules!
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OTW Fannews: What fanworks do
Spectacle: The Music Video is "the first museum exhibition to celebrate the art and history of the music video...the exhibition reveals the enormous influence music videos have had on contemporary culture over the past 35 years." Included in the exhibition are fan videos -- Killa and T. Jonesy's vid "Closer" and Luminosity's vid "Vogue". The exhibit opened on April 2 at the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC and continues until June 16.