Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books
Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books
Several popular shops, which clearly violated Etsy's terms of use and IP laws, were deleted after 404 Media reached out for comment.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/7150449
Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books
Etsy sellers are turning free fanfiction into printed and bound physical books, and listing them for sale on online marketplaces for more than $100 per book. It’s a problem that’s rattling the authors of those fanfics, as well as their fans and readers.
Several sellers, easily found on Etsy and very popular, each with hundreds of five-star reviews, are selling copies of fanfiction taken from sites like Archive of Our Own (Ao3) and reselling them as bound books. The average price of these bound copies is around $149. Some sellers claim that they’re simply covering the cost of materials, while others just sell the books, usually with the fanfiction writers’ Ao3 username on the cover.
Ah yes, handcrafted stolen fanfiction. Exactly what I shop Etsy for. More seriously, I feel for the fanfiction authors. Not only is someone profiting off your work, but this is the kind of thing that gets the attention of copyright holders that fanfiction authors generally don't want.
So like normal stealing without putting a LLM in between? Classy.
Nature is healing. 😌
I kinda understand the pain of those fanfic writers who sent time to write those stories. But book printing and binding for small numbers of print is really expensive. And I'm sure a lot of book lovers would love to have physical versions of their favorite works. So I am sure the situation will continue until things change in the publishing industry.
Down the chats of the official Fanlore discord server lately (of which I have been in for the past few months), they've been discussing this kind of transgression alongside the HP fanfic debacle (specifically, the Manacled one, of which upon its reworked professional release by its fanfic author gained enough controversy within and outside the fandom that it warranted for a wiki article on its own).
Also, one editor has suggested using "illegal fic binding" in place of the term "illegal "fanbinding" as the latter connotes the non-profit work with a for-profit tone in a negative way. Another has noted that het (in other words, F/M) fanfics sell much more than other pairing-centered ones, and attract more outsiders willing to buy that much for an illegal fic-binded copy, in disrespect to those original authors; throw the franchise copyright shenanigans in, and there we have the entire panfandom world at a crossroads battlefield against those recklessly profiteering for the sake of it.
Also, as a side note, there's also this recently-created wiki article section about said fannish controversy:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Fannish_Bookbinding#Criticism_and_ControversiesI'm wondering if the authors could file DMCA claims against Etsy, for a start ("I used evil to destroy evil").
Beyond that, I feel the problem is mostly that these binding people do not get permission to transfer medium in the first place, and then make it worse by selling the printed copies? A fanfic author themself should be legally able to print and bind their own story on their own (they both hold the copyright and are costing the materials) or pay someone else to do it (they hold the copyright and they grant a one-use license to the binder).
It'd be interesting to officiate the OTW to see what do they think of this, since they have held quite some anti-author positions in the last few years such as the idea that other people can profit off people's fanfiction but the authors themselves can't even have an online tip jar.
Some people are going to get suuuued.