News
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AO3: Fanart on the horizon!
Now that the Archive of Our Own is humming along on new, more powerful servers (thank you, fandom!), members of the Archive team have begun fleshing out a list of concrete and not-so-concrete tasks needed to make fanart hosting a reality!
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Links Roundup for 17 March 2011
We're highlighting two recent news items that are of interest to fans — one encouraging, and one less so.
- White House wants new copyright law crackdown
The White House has issued a white paper from the office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, proposing new digital intellectual property laws. Included in the proposals is making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony, paired with an expansion of wiretapping powers that would allow enforcement agencies to eavesdrop on private communications in order to investigate suspected copyright violations, something previously only allowed for serious crimes, such as suspected terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction.
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Voting now open! Name the AO3 servers!
It's time to name the AO3 servers! We had a whole host of wonderful nominations, and our nominations committee have spent many hours collating them and whittling them down to a shortlist. We're excited by the fannish diversity represented in this range of names.
Voting will be open until 22 March 2011, and we'll announce the winners shortly thereafter.
Feel free to campaign for your favorites -- everyone is welcome to vote! Cast your ballot at transformativeworks.org.
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TWC No. 6 released [History issue]
(Note: We are aware of the DOI links not working. We are on it.)
March 15, 2011, sees the release of a special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, guest edited by Nancy Reagin and Anne Rubenstein, focusing on the intersection of history and fandom. The title of the special issue, "Fan Works and Fan Communities in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," refers to Walter Benjamin's famous 1935 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Benjamin's essay placed ordinary people's engagement with mass-produced culture in a historical context, and that was also the goal of this special guest-edited issue. TWC No. 6 is available here.
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A Week in the Life of a Tag Wrangler
Written by Franzeska Dickson
Tag wranglers are our biggest pool of volunteers, with over 100 wranglers around the world working to organise the Archive's 100,000+ tags. The wranglers put in a varying amount of work, each wrangler deciding for themselves how much time they can dedicate to wrangling. We now profile a week in the life of one of our... more dedicated wranglers...
Monday: Look at all those fandoms without wranglers. How is InuYasha still missing a wrangler?! I’d better do some emergency wrangling before it gets any more out of control. That’s funny: these character names aren’t in Japanese order. Or are they? Maybe the original manga uses names in a weird order. I’d better go look at Wikipedia...
5 hours later:
Damnit.
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Still flying: Firefly fans' creativity transcends cancellation
Actor Nathan Fillion, who played Capt. Malcolm Reynolds in the 2002 television series Firefly and its sequel film, Serenity, said in a recent interview: "If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet." Following this remark, Firefly fans swiftly moved into action, launching a Web site and Facebook page to gauge fan support for funding a buyout. Almost 12,000 fans responded, pledging more than one million U.S.
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A Fannish Field Trip - Spotlight on the FCPP, Part of Open Doors
Fan darksnowfalling recently took a day-long field trip to visit some of the archived Kirk/Spock zines included in the Fan Culture Preservation Project (FCPP), and generously shared the experience here, on their LiveJournal.
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Ley de Derechos de Autor revisada sigue siendo fuente de preocupación para los fans españoles
Escrito por Tanaqui, con reportes adicionales por hele
Los propietarios de sitios de fans acusados de infracción a los derechos de autor o a una marca comercial (trademark) pueden haber obtenido alguna protección adicional limitada en la versión más reciente de la nuevas leyes de propiedad intelectual de España, pero algunos grupos de defensa argumentan que la nueva ley es innecesariamente restrictiva y otros, que da origen a procedimientos engorrosos que no protegerán a los titulares de los derechos en cuestión.
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La révision de la loi sur le copyright continue d'inquiéter les fans espagnols
Écrit par Tanaqui, avec le concours de hele.
(Remarque: la majorité des liens mènent vers des pages en espagnol.)
Les propriétaires de sites de fans espagnols accusés de violation de copyright pourraient avoir obtenu davantage de protection, même si elle reste limitée, grâce à la nouvelle version de la nouvelle loi espagnole sur la propriété intellectuelle; mais certains groupes contestent, argumentant que la nouvelle loi est inutilement restrictive et d'autres que cela crée des procédures interminables qui ne protègeront pas les propriétaires des droits.
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Revised copyright law continues to provide major concerns for Spanish fans
Written by Tanaqui, with additional reporting by hele
(Please note that many of the links lead to web pages in Spanish.)
Owners of fansites accused of copyright or trademark infringement may have gained some limited extra protection in the latest version of Spain’s new intellectual property laws, but some advocacy groups argue the new law is unnecessarily restrictive and others that it creates cumbersome procedures that won’t protect rights holders.