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fairestcat:
pvoberstein:
razzybean
commented on razzybean’s post
“ao3 fundraiser thoughts”
You’re just regurgitating what’s in the article. The incentive to use YouTube is that it has a monopoly as a video platform. There are a lot of WRITING platforms I can post to. I don’t NEED AO3, but they NEED writers. So, yes your comparison is apples to oranges. They can say they’re non-profit b/c they deny the creator the ability to earn money but they DO profit off of the backs of writers. That’s facts.
You haven’t convinced me at all it’s mutually beneficial if I can post to ff.net, LJ, wordpress… anywhere. I didn’t even post to AO3 until recently & it’s not at all my fav platform to do so. I receive no incentive from posting there. Zero. However, they benefit in being able to maintain their site b/c people want to read fanfic. But, yeah, sure tell me - a content creator - I’m getting something out of posting there, lol. I’m very much not. My readers are.
And anyway, you contradicted yourself. You can’t call it mutually beneficial and then say AO3 isn’t like YouTube, which you admitted [YT] is mutually beneficial for users b/c it makes a profit. So, is AO3 mutually beneficial or not? It can’t be, b/c as you just stated, YouTube pays its creators… and AO3 can’t b/c legal reasons yet can still raise donations off of its userbase w/o having to truly (financially) reward the content creators that keep the platform going.
Okay, first offrazzybean, this is actually important: AO3 does not profit because THE ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS IS A NON-PROFIT. That’s facts. Look up the definition of profit, it does not describe what the OTW does with money. Hell, look up the OTW’s registration as a 501©3) nonprofit:
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.
That includes things like legal aid, running Fanlore, etc., but those are besides the point here. Anyways, let’s keep going:
I don’t NEED AO3, but they NEED writers.
But that’s not exploitation! It’s like saying a blood bank NEEDS blood donors, and must somehow be unfairly exploiting them when they hold a fundraiser. Sure, blood banks wouldn’t exist without all those donors giving blood for zero compensation, but that doesn’t mean the Red Cross is somehow exploiting them like the villains of Das Kapital. It’s acting as an intermediary to advance a common goal. In the case of a blood bank - taking blood from donors and distributing it to recipients. In the case of OTW, taking fanworks from creators and distributing them to readers.
I receive no incentive from posting there. Zero. […] But, yeah, sure tell me - a content creator - I’m getting something out of posting there, lol. I’m very much not.
I mean, pretty much by definition you do get something out of posting there, otherwise you wouldn’t. This is Microeconomics 101. You receive readership and a steady content host, both of which I’m guessing you find desirable, particularly if you’re looking to post content other platforms might frown upon (i.e.: NSFW or Anne Rice fanfics). We could all go back to the 90s when everyone was hosting fanfics on sites held together with HTML and string and couldn’t be found without a webring, but nobody seems to want that. If you didn’t use AO3, you wouldn’t get all those warm-and-fuzzy kudos and hits and comments. I mean, you could get them on FFN on LJ, but the fact that you post to AO3 kind of tips your hand that you’re getting something on AO3 that you don’t get on either of those sites.
You can’t call it mutually beneficial and then say AO3 isn’t like YouTube, which you admitted [YT] is mutually beneficial for users b/c it makes a profit. So, is AO3 mutually beneficial or not?
… there are different kinds of mutual benefit? On YouTube, content creators get some of the same benefits as an author posting to AO3 (a secure platform, audience), and also some they don’t - namely a cut of the ad revenue. YouTube benefits by taking a much larger share of the ad revenue, but is also much stricter about what kind of content they can host. That’s why it’s much easier to get a copyright takedown on YouYube than on AO3. If I’m making $20K a month using Disney’s intellectual property, you’re damn right the House of Mouse is going to come after me, with DMCA and all the other tools at its disposal.
AO3 users don’t get the benefit of making a profit - but as previously established, AO3 isn’t making a profit, either. The OTW benefits by advancing the goal it was created to do - serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. That’s why it has hundreds of people who volunteer for zero monetary compensation.
The benefits are more intangible (nobody’s bank account is going up), but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If authors didn’t derive any utility from posting to the Archive, they just… wouldn’t.
I will never stop being fascinated by the generational shift that happened in the last decade from “fandom is a gift economy” to “[AO3] deny the creator the ability to earn money.”
And the thing is, the OTW, by advocating so strongly for the legality of fanworks helped spur that shift. Newer, younger writers are coming into fandom and saying, “well, if fanfic is legal, why can’t I make money off of it?”
You can argue about how essential a part of fair use the “non-commercial” aspect is, but it’s pretty damn important to the big media corporations who have considerably more money than any individual author OR the OTW as a whole, and don’t take kindly to what they see as other people profiting off their property.
fairestcat:
pvoberstein:
razzybean
commented on razzybean’s post
“ao3 fundraiser thoughts”
You’re just regurgitating what’s in the article. The incentive to use YouTube is that it has a monopoly as a video platform. There are a lot of WRITING platforms I can post to. I don’t NEED AO3, but they NEED writers. So, yes your comparison is apples to oranges. They can say they’re non-profit b/c they deny the creator the ability to earn money but they DO profit off of the backs of writers. That’s facts.
You haven’t convinced me at all it’s mutually beneficial if I can post to ff.net, LJ, wordpress… anywhere. I didn’t even post to AO3 until recently & it’s not at all my fav platform to do so. I receive no incentive from posting there. Zero. However, they benefit in being able to maintain their site b/c people want to read fanfic. But, yeah, sure tell me - a content creator - I’m getting something out of posting there, lol. I’m very much not. My readers are.
And anyway, you contradicted yourself. You can’t call it mutually beneficial and then say AO3 isn’t like YouTube, which you admitted [YT] is mutually beneficial for users b/c it makes a profit. So, is AO3 mutually beneficial or not? It can’t be, b/c as you just stated, YouTube pays its creators… and AO3 can’t b/c legal reasons yet can still raise donations off of its userbase w/o having to truly (financially) reward the content creators that keep the platform going.
Okay, first off
razzybean, this is actually important: AO3 does not profit because THE ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS IS A NON-PROFIT. That’s facts. Look up the definition of profit, it does not describe what the OTW does with money. Hell, look up the OTW’s registration as a 501©3) nonprofit:The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.
That includes things like legal aid, running Fanlore, etc., but those are besides the point here. Anyways, let’s keep going:
I don’t NEED AO3, but they NEED writers.
But that’s not exploitation! It’s like saying a blood bank NEEDS blood donors, and must somehow be unfairly exploiting them when they hold a fundraiser. Sure, blood banks wouldn’t exist without all those donors giving blood for zero compensation, but that doesn’t mean the Red Cross is somehow exploiting them like the villains of Das Kapital. It’s acting as an intermediary to advance a common goal. In the case of a blood bank - taking blood from donors and distributing it to recipients. In the case of OTW, taking fanworks from creators and distributing them to readers.
I receive no incentive from posting there. Zero. […] But, yeah, sure tell me - a content creator - I’m getting something out of posting there, lol. I’m very much not.
I mean, pretty much by definition you do get something out of posting there, otherwise you wouldn’t. This is Microeconomics 101. You receive readership and a steady content host, both of which I’m guessing you find desirable, particularly if you’re looking to post content other platforms might frown upon (i.e.: NSFW or Anne Rice fanfics). We could all go back to the 90s when everyone was hosting fanfics on sites held together with HTML and string and couldn’t be found without a webring, but nobody seems to want that. If you didn’t use AO3, you wouldn’t get all those warm-and-fuzzy kudos and hits and comments. I mean, you could get them on FFN on LJ, but the fact that you post to AO3 kind of tips your hand that you’re getting something on AO3 that you don’t get on either of those sites.
You can’t call it mutually beneficial and then say AO3 isn’t like YouTube, which you admitted [YT] is mutually beneficial for users b/c it makes a profit. So, is AO3 mutually beneficial or not?
… there are different kinds of mutual benefit? On YouTube, content creators get some of the same benefits as an author posting to AO3 (a secure platform, audience), and also some they don’t - namely a cut of the ad revenue. YouTube benefits by taking a much larger share of the ad revenue, but is also much stricter about what kind of content they can host. That’s why it’s much easier to get a copyright takedown on YouYube than on AO3. If I’m making $20K a month using Disney’s intellectual property, you’re damn right the House of Mouse is going to come after me, with DMCA and all the other tools at its disposal.
AO3 users don’t get the benefit of making a profit - but as previously established, AO3 isn’t making a profit, either. The OTW benefits by advancing the goal it was created to do - serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. That’s why it has hundreds of people who volunteer for zero monetary compensation.
The benefits are more intangible (nobody’s bank account is going up), but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If authors didn’t derive any utility from posting to the Archive, they just… wouldn’t.
I will never stop being fascinated by the generational shift that happened in the last decade from “fandom is a gift economy” to “[AO3] deny the creator the ability to earn money.”
And the thing is, the OTW, by advocating so strongly for the legality of fanworks helped spur that shift. Newer, younger writers are coming into fandom and saying, “well, if fanfic is legal, why can’t I make money off of it?”
You can argue about how essential a part of fair use the “non-commercial” aspect is, but it’s pretty damn important to the big media corporations who have considerably more money than any individual author OR the OTW as a whole, and don’t take kindly to what they see as other people profiting off their property.
