So the other day I was wondering if it is legal to set up a Patreon Account for your fanfiction. In case you don't know Patreon is a service which allows people to sign up to give you a small amount of money when you do something. So I decided to email the help desk at Patreon and I finaly got a response.

Super short answer:

As long as the creations are hosted on another site (Youtube, Tumblr, etc) and simply embedded on Patreon, you can post/embed whatever creation you want.

Rewards are a different story. You may not give out copyrighted material as official rewards unless you secure proper licenses to do so.

They included a far more in depth answer as well, but the jist of it is, yes, yes we can have a Patreon account for fanfiction. The money is technically a gift/donation and not a transaction which means you are not violating copywrite by selling someone else's IP. Howeaver, if you start making money off your fanfic and Hasbro notices and objects Patreon WILL deactivate our account. But other then that, it seems ok. So looks like we can make a little change on the side writing horse words. Awesome!

4074545
Or we could report Patreon users to Hasbro and laugh about it.

:)

4074545 I'm just gonna say this:

Personally, I would feel kind of like a rat if I tried to profit off of fanfiction. If you wanna profit, create your own world and sell it as a book. That way, you deserve it. Profiting from fanfic just feels wrong on so many levels.

4074555 tell that to 50 shades of Grey.

4074545

Reminds me of the good ol' days in the late 90s when webmasters would ask for donations to cover server costs.

4074555 Did you know that the last 3 or so Sherlock Holms books are actually fanfiction? Sir Doyal actually killed off Holmes in the official last book, and angry fans revived him in a sequel. Oh, the million or so Star Wars novels are largely fanfiction works. I personally would feel bad about making money off of main universe fic featuring the mane 6, but I have no problems with profiting off of my own AU's stories. Not that I necessarily will, it's interesting to know that we can.

4074556

To be fair, at least the author did actually change the names and remove the vampire stuff, so technically the two works are unrelated and do not milk the same fanbase. Can't say the same about every ponyfic writer that tries to make money off their stuff though...

In my opinion, using ponyfics to make money is disgusting, but everyone is free to do as they desire.

4074555
Second?

4074562

Did you know that the last 3 or so Sherlock Holms books are actually fanfiction? Sir Doyal actually killed off Holmes in the official last book, and angry fans revived him in a sequel.

Just saying: If it was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it is de facto not a fanfic. Fanfiction has to be written by a fan who presumably is not the original creator. And as you acknowledged, he himself wasn't a fan at this point.

You're basically right about Star Wars and other licensed novels, but still this is going into "everyone is doing it so it must be okay" territory which honestly just makes me feel dirty. (Also, for the sake of any legal questions, I must point out that the Star Wars novels and other licensed tie ins are usually endorsed by the creator. A hypothetical pony fanfic backed by Patreon would not be)

4074574 I may have worded my sentence poorly. I meant to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made the first half of the series, and the last half are collected fanworks which were published back in the day. Fafiction used to be incredibly popular. Look into the history of fanworks and you will find many authors who made money doing it.

I personally have no source of income, and it would be nice to get some change from people willing to part with like 50 cents for a chapter of horse words. But I also have scocial qualms with charging for my art. That feels wrong to me. I like to write to tell tales, frankly I find the idea of money to be retarded. Howeaver, by definition, if everyone is doing something that makes it a moral action. Morality is just a scocial construct after all.

4074576
You might end up ruining the writing for yourself.

I know when people tell me what to write it can spoil it for me, and having money being placed on the table would suck a lot of the joy I have for writing out of the work.

Just me though. Personally I'm against the patreon thing being used for copyrighted stuff, but its gotten me a lot of shit in the past.

4074580 Yeah, im probably not gonna do it. But still, here is the definitive answer, you CAN do it if you want.

4074586
I could go out and smoke until my lungs fall out too.

I could put my balls in a microwave.

I could go to Nevada and hire a prostitute.

You can do many things you shouldn't.

4074592 You have the physical capability to eject your lungs utilizing cigarettes as a catalyst? HOLY SHIT! I can only assume you know this from having done it before, and somehow survived. That is amazing! You must be able to regenerate your lungs, since you have the capability to do it again! Dude go to a hospital and show a doctor that shit! You could save so many lives!

4074596
You cheeky fucka.

4074599 I get 25 cents per cheeky response I make. Nothing personal, just business :P

Its been said many times already. No pay-to-view fanfiction. No one cares if someone is paid and gives the same rewards to non subscribers.

4074545 Thank you for checking into this for us. This is what I suspected. It is not "illegal, ZOMG," and will not single-handedly bring down FiMFiction. As for the ethical issue, well--I don't think very many people disagree with artists drawing ponies for commission and charging for it, or brony musicians writing songs and charging money for albums, or animations which do have to be sustained by donations, or the creators couldn't afford to do them. Brony "analysts," many of them, have their hats out on Patreon simply for their opinions on the show. I would like to hear a really good, compelling argument as to why fanfiction is different, especially from the art and animation, which is closer to the source medium, or the plushies, which could be said to infringe on something Hasbro actually sells and/or licenses. Unless you think that all of those things should be free, I don't see why fanfaction should be.

Would I do it? Probably not: I think most of my work is in the spirit of the original. I try to make my work close and in character. I add value, but I'm not sure I transform enough for me to consider it truly its own work. But if I used the nucleus of the plot of one of the Equestria Girls fics I've written, where it has nothing to do with the plot of EG or Rainbow Rocks, and where I've done most of the world building, and if the characters were substantially changed and not just find/replaced Rarity, Applejack, etc., if it were legitimately its own YA novel by the time I was done with it, I'm not sure I would feel bad about it.

The other ethical issue is the extent to which early readers, editors, commentators and reviewers have contributed to making that work what it is. If those people all volunteered that input and labor with no thought of gain, I'm not sure it's right to use their work and assistance without giving back somehow. And that is what publishers count on. They want works which have a giant following already.

If anyone is interested in the Fifty Shades phenomenon, I'm doing a review of Fifty Shades of Neigh, which is a parody of Fifty Shades of Gray. I can't link to it because of the NSFW material, but it's on Rage Reviews. And trust me, Fifty Shades is pretty freaking close to Twilight, including the characters' mannerisms and parallel scenes. It doesn't copy the plot, but then, there isn't a plot: it's almost totally about what we'd call clop.

If Twilight's fandom is creating works that are then being turned into novels and earning their creators big bucks, and the source material is such crap, and considering how much work an author would have to do to re-write ponies as humans for a romance or adventure novel with a unique plot, I'm going to cheer on the first Brony who cracks that market and makes big money. Brony fandom is every bit as good as Twilight fandom and deserves to have the same success.

4074565 And as I said above, Fifty Shades TOTALLY milks the same fanbase. The publishers count on it.

4074574 Conan Doyle also flat out said to someone who'd written a spinoff Sherlock, which he'd read, "it is not bad, and if you changed the names, I do not see why you should not publish it." There's a HUGE tradition of Sherlock fanfic. There was a recent legal ruling that the character is now in the public domain. It is both legal and we have it from the creator himself that he was ok with it.

4074576

I may have worded my sentence poorly. I meant to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made the first half of the series, and the last half are collected fanworks which were published back in the day

I think we have some confusion over what "last half" is referring to. I took the phrase to mean the novels Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear plus the short story collections Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes--IE all the stuff written after Holmes "died." Which, no, those aren't fanfiction, they were authored by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, every word.

I'm not denying that Holmes fanfics exist and were published. Heck, I have some of those published fanfic volumes. I just am not sure which volumes you're talking about, or if we're using the same definition of "fanfiction."

4074638 See above.

4074545

Artists with some infamy throughout fandoms profit through drawing other people's IP often enough, through Patreon, Paypal, Conventions, ect. I've seen quite a bit of stuff at cons which was quite fun to look at, and bringing new ideas to the table -- such as shipping Captain Pichard and Riker together, which was novel to a 15 year old at the time. It's a riot, but... if I was driven to do that, I'd rather create my own ideas for money, as it just feels wrong to take something people love created by someone else that's bringing people together (and they're tacitly allowing the fandom to create stuff and bring new ideas to the table for everyone to enjoy), then profiting off it. That's one of the many, many, many (did I mention many?) reasons why things like SOPA pop up every now and then.

"Donation" or not, it's up to you. I personally wouldn't do it, but that's just me. Many of us are more or less creating out of passion for the series and the fandom itself (and a desire to grow and experiment as a creator)... once money enters the picture, all kinds of issues can pop up (legal, ethical, ect.) and I'd rather steer clear of that all together. Some creators can distance themselves from this with the "Fair Use" argument, but it's best to be careful when using that because I've seen many artists who draw porn calling it "parody" when, in reality... it would likely just be called porn and exploiting the brand in court, the artist capitalizing on people's love at the time for the product.

Do what you like, just be careful while doing it, and best of luck.

4074662 Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per Cent Solution, The West End Horror, and The Canary Trainer--all of which are excellent. There are lots more, but those happen to be my favorites.

EDIT: And you can't get around the fact that Conan Doyle said it was fine with him--and that Stephenie Meyer said it was fine with her.

4074673 Like I said, I never denied that published fanfiction existed and is sometimes endorsed.

It still kinda feels ratty to me to profit off an MLP fanfic though. For lots of reasons that I'm not sure I want to go into.

4074681 And the gritty feeling that it's not ethical is perfectly understandable. Many people share this view. But also--see above--I'm not sure that profiting from fanfic is much different from profiting from fan art, etc. I wouldn't personally do it, and I do pay for good art. I've commissioned plushies. But I'm not sure the reasoning behind this is entirely logical.

4074666 Nah. SOPA pops up because Sony, Disney, etc., are outrageous greedhogs who have been shoving the extent and length of copyright ownership and control for years. SOPA, as it was written, was a huge overreach. It deserved to be stopped.

4074692

Won't contradict that, and I definitely won't disagree that it wasn't too big for it's own good (thereby defeating itself through public outcry). However, I will stand by my idea that profiting off another's IP likely contributes to one of many elements in the development of these ideas.

4074545
Told you so

4074629 This is the exact same thing that I thought of when I read the original post, too. Fans are profiting off of pony stuff like crazy in every other area, so I don't see why fanfiction should be treated any differently. It's not like by definition fanfiction has more love and dedication put into it than fanart, fanimation, or what have you. (Case in point, the many MANY horrid fics we've read.)

Now, would I do it? That's very debatable. I just don't know what trying to profit off of it would do to my writing process. If I did it would be purely under a "donate if you really want to" thing, because I would despise feeling like I have to make my writing go certain ways to appeal to people that give me money. I want to tell the story that I've imagined, and let it evolve organically as it has this whole time. First and foremost it is my story, my baby so to speak, and my first obligation is to appeal to my desires for it, and just be happy that others love it too. Now, if I started a story under a commission to help someone with an idea and not so much ability, that's entirely different, like commissioned artwork. But for the stories I come up with, that's how I feel.

4074545 If you want to get paid, write a book. Profiting off of someone else's creation to the extent of fanfiction just isn't cool.

4075738 Looks like somepony needs to go tell all of the MLp annalists, artists, and animators out there this too then.

4075751 That's different. Analysts are often reviewing the show, which is a valid occupation. Artists use representations. Animators sit more in a muddy water with fanfiction authors, but if they don't do it for profit then there's no problem. There's no problem with writing fanfiction, but there is with profiting off of it. It's basically theft, because you didn't create the characters or places which are under copyright and trademark, meaning you need permission to use the character for anything that isn't covered by Fair Use, including profit off of said Characters, Locations, etc.

4077265 Actually? Actually, no. It is not theft. There are a lot of legal complexities here, but you're not seeing them. And you might consider which fan artists have received C & Ds: White Dove, for example, and Jan Animations. And a LOT of "analysts" have their material taken down, even though some of it is within fair use. (And some of it, like reaction videos, almost certainly isn't. ) The appearance of the ponies is definitely trademarked, so art is in just as shady of an area as fanfic, if not more so. My point is that in many fandoms, fanfic is considered to be the one lone thing that must never be sold, and this is neither legally nor logically consistent. I suspect it comes from the perceived value of fanfic, but it doesn't make sense.

Anyway, FimFiction's actual policy seems to be that open access fanfic with a voluntary donation button is all right. What it does to your standing in the community is another thing.

4077265 What if a work use entirely OCs but is set within an existing universe? Like almost every Star Wars novel ever published? Most of them are "fan fics" aka not official Star Wars lore. If I wrote a story about an OC Pony in RL NYC, I am just borrowing the race right? Is that wrong? If it is well whose going to get on people's cases for using dragons? Or Gremlins. Or goblins. Hell a goblin is the mascot of Pathfinder Inc, technically they own the long eared, big headed, small bodied goblin variety. Dose that mean I cant use such a creature in a story? No.

4077566 I know it isn't actually defined as theft. It's a big old grey area. It both is and isn't, which is why Copyright Laws and Trademark Laws make things a pain in the ass. But I think the intrinsic value of a fanfic is this: you could harm a large community in doing so, and it's out of self preservation instinct. Fanfiction communities tend to be large. And while the same can be said about animation and art communities, the wannabe writers are usually the most prolific, if not the largest subgroup. One fuckup can have ripples that destroy a large part of produced content with relative ease if the parent company is inclined to do so.
It may also have to do with the sheer amount of disturbing porn that fandoms tend to produce in the written form.

4078152 If Lucas cared enough about that shit, he could have easily had C&D's sent out and stuff taken down. Its his copyright and trademark. He is the creator, and thus holds the final say in any decision. Most people would actually be very happy to have their work given great publicity, and don't care. I mean, Star Wars is a huge part of Sci-Fi culture. Lucas can and will ride that wave for the rest of his life. Why would he give a shit if anyone makes something for a small profit when he makes an assload off of royalties from thousands and thousands of officially licensed products?
But then there's the others like Viacom and Hasbro, whose execs are either greedy or aren't letting the public in on some bad quarters in business. But all you need to do to appease the giant is secure the license, because they like their rules. But using something like dragons or goblins as a counter is extremely weak. These monsters have been a part of stories since before your first ancestor was a sperm cell. They're public domain, and everyone has every right to use them, simply because they've always been in the public domain and any rollback on that would be impossible today.
It's all about picking your battles. I'd play it safe, and not try to make a profit because, as a creative, it doesn't feel very creative! And as a sane person, I don't want to see someone go down with a C&D happy company because they didn't assess the battlefield, and I certainly don't want any ripples coming at the rest of us.

4080768 Your statement is full of common misconceptions.

4080786 Since you're the expert, why don't you explain it to us.

4080803

I hope you have $5,000 dollars.