Jun
1st
2020
Digital Books · 1:34pm Jun 1st, 2020
Do you like collecting stories but prefer digital versions?
Do you use something other than a Kindle or prefer not to deal with Amazon?
All my stories, pony or furry, are available in multiple formats (including Kindle) from Smashwords
Smashwords not only provide choice, they also give a fairer proportion of profits to the author. Ever see those Amazon special discounts? Those discounts are taken off the seller's share! Amazon always retains its full cut. Supposedly it gives buyers incentive to purchase more, but to those of us who only sell a handful of books, it's just money lost. So, please support me and other authors by buying from Smashwords.
Thanks. I had forgotten that I have a Smashwords account.
It's a shame (but not unsurprising) to hear that about Amazon.
Unfortunately, given my financial situation, I only ever pay for non-physical stories on Humble Bundle Inc. and StoryBundle and, even then, I'm reticent to do so and wind up only buying if the price works out to no more than $1 per eBook with a synopsis that hooks me... ideally, I like enough of them that I can hit 50¢ each. (Yes, my valuations are skewed by having already accumulated far too many things I've not read, not even counting bookmarked fanfiction, and having access to 50¢ print copies at the local library's surplus bin and $2-6 at the local used book stores.)
Heck, I've been procrastinating using the Baen eStore gift certificate someone gave me for over a year because it'd be a waste to spend it on something I then find at the used book store and collect physically anyway.
I ask this with completely genuine curiosity and no amount of snark: What is the legality of selling fanfiction like that? I would love to know about the nuances and the limitations.
5274129
Fanfiction is a bit of a grey legal area, but basically speaking, as long as you don't make a ton of money and don't tread on the company's toes., you'll be fine. You might be surprised at the number of people making some money on their stories in one form or another. Think of the dealer rooms at pony conventions – technically speaking, all that merchandise is based on Hasbro's intellectual property too but they are almost never bothered by the company's legal department. The sole exception that I can recall is of some sexually themed dakimakuras of trademarked characters. Non-sexual ones have never been affected though.
5274388
Thanks for the quick reply, and the introspection! Funny thing, I've been to Anime Boston several times now and had never considered the booth vendors and their potential infringement, although that's a quite different thing. For some reason, it's always seemed to me like fanfiction stood out from other fanworks, in terms of notability and, I suppose, profit? I could just be looking at it the wrong way, though!
5274454
Well, it depends on whether the items being sold by the vendors at the anime cons are officially-licensed products or not. There are vendors who specialize in importing merchandise from Japan for sale here in the US, so it's not necessarily a given that everything in the dealer's den constitutes an infringement. Same with pony merchandise -- a vendor selling Funko pony figurines, for instance, is legally in the clear, since Funko is licensed by Hasbro to make pony figures; a vendor making their own 3-D printed figures of ponies, on the other hand (or hoof) would not be, unless they had secured a license from Hasbro to make them.
As for fanart and fanfiction -- technically, strictly according to the black letter of the law, it all constitutes an infringement of trademark and/or copyright if you don't have the IP holder's permission. If I draw you a picture of Twilight Sparkle without Hasbro's permission, then as a strict technicality, I'm infringing on Hasbro's intellectual property rights, and they can sue me for it if they choose to do so. (There are certain legal carve-outs for "fair use" circumstances such as critical review or educational purposes, but that's a whole other can of worms in itself, and there's no telling how many lawyers have spent how many billable hours trying to nail that particular piece of Jello to the wall...)
The question -- and the "grey area" that fanworks exist in -- isn't so much whether they are infringements and they can sue you, so much as it is to what extent the IP holder in question is prepared to tolerate them, and whether or not they consider it worth coming after you for it. This is largely a judgement call on the IP holder's part, by weighing various criteria such as:
#1: How likely is it that the average person might be misled or confused into thinking that this is an "official" product released by, or endorsed by, my company?
#2: Could this significantly damage my brand or intellectual property's reputation if it was assumed to be an official product or endorsement?
#3: Could this significantly cut into the sales and profitability of my own merchandise?
#4: Could failing to take action against this jeopardize my trademarks and cause me to lose control of them?
Generally speaking, IP holders like Hasbro recognize that the people who create and consume fanworks are typically the most devoted fans of the show; if anything, they're probably more likely to buy as much of the official merchandise as they can get their hands on, watch every episode of the show, and promote it to their friends. They also recognize that, on the whole, the amount of money being made by any particular artist or author is pretty small, and probably wouldn't even cover their legal team's lunch bill, so going after every fanwork out there would just end up costing them a lot of money with no realistic prospect of recovering even a fraction of it -- and worse, widespread legal action against every fan-artist and author out there would end up antagonizing the very fan base they're relying on to keep the franchise profitable in the first place. So, to the extent that fanworks serve as free advertising and help keep the fanbase engaged, IP holders will often decide that it's in the best interest of the franchise to ignore them as long as they don't jeopardize their own trademarks or harm the property's image in the eyes of the general public.
So, what it generally boils down to is that as long as you're not falsely representing your product as being officially-licensed merchandise, you're not misappropriating their IP in order to promote a controversial agenda or product that could cause the company a PR headache, and you're not mass-marketing your fanworks in the same retail channels as the official merchandise, they probably won't bother you about it. They have much bigger fish to fry; they're far more interested in pursuing someone who's mass-producing plastic figures by the tens of thousands and deliberately confusing people into thinking that their "Pony Pony" figures are official My Little Pony merchandise than they are in going after someone who's selling a few dozen copies of a print-on-demand book that doesn't even mention the words "My Little Pony" on the cover.
5275421
5274454
While Equestron has given the long version of what I was too lazy to write, to be fair on one point, when I said "all" the merchandise, I meant all the fan-made merchandise.
And one added point – copyright laws vary from country to country. Some don't even believe in copyright!
5275421
5275628
Thanks for the clarifications! It all makes much more sense to me, now.