everything but the girl

Amazon is working with WB to publish (read: sell) fanfiction from the Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars and Vampire Diaries 'verses. And they said that more "worlds" will be announced soon. 

Basically, fanfic writers will be able to sell their fics - formatted for Kindle - via Amazon, and the restrictions are not as massive as you'd think!

No crossovers. 

No excessive product placement for non-show brands. 

No porn. 

But here's the thing about porn! Amazon says they don't allow porn to be sold on their site, so as long as your fic content is no more explicit than anything that's on Amazon's site today (see: 50 Shades and anything in the erotica category) then it won't run afoul of Amazon's content restrictions - and if they say it does, then the Internet will stand behind you as if you were a Nutella fan barred from celebrating its wonderful tastiness. 

HOWEVER, each World Licensor will be providing "Content Guidelines" for their specific 'verse - and I can't find those anywhere. THAT might make a significant impact on what types of fanfic one can and cannot sell, but until we've had a chance to look through them, we can't determine the specifics. 

I don't think it's realistic to be concerned that the existence of Kindle Worlds will mean that tv show/film/book creators will stamp out freely given fics. At this point, Kindle Worlds will only accept things over 5000 words, anyway, and the longstanding laches issue that protects fics posted elsewhere and given away will still hold. 

However, it does mean that people who write in the fandoms covered by Kindle Worlds and sell ebooks of those stories outside of the Kindle license may find themselves dealing with cease & desist letters. But there was always a chance they would because of the commercial aspect of that action. 

Also, this will leave fandom with a lot of questions on issues other than legality be on fan-created gift culture, commissions, fundraising for charity, or even the ability of pro writers to write in other universes> 

Does this further "legitimize" fan creativity (which I think has long been a pretty legit hobby), will it just create an additional outlet for story distribution, and what other fandoms will WB add? 

I wouldn't be shocked if they bring Tomorrow People into this as the show launches in the fall, but what about things that are ending their runs like Nikita, or shows with massive fanbases and almost a decade of fan creativity, like the behemoth that is Supernatural?

Oh, and here't the royalty-related info: 

• Amazon Publishing will pay royalties to the rights holder for the World (we call them World Licensors) and to the Fic Author. Fic Author's standard royalty rate for works of at least 10,000 words will be 35% of net revenue.


• In addition, with the launch of Kindle Worlds, Amazon Publishing will pilot an experimental new program for particularly short works (between 5,000 and 10,000 words). For these short stories—typically priced under one dollar—Amazon will pay the royalties for the World Licensor and will pay authors a digital royalty of 20% of net revenue. The lower royalty for these shorter works is due to significantly higher fixed costs per digital copy (for example, credit-card fees) when prices for the entire class of content will likely be under one dollar.

I'm a bit late on this, but I've been so offline since the news broke that she'd passed away. I wanted to get this all down in some form, and I'm skipping the obvious inclusions like Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher, from the Billy Elliot musical, and you can find awesome playlists by Brits in places like The Guardian and NME. But here's my (all pop, no punk, lots of Red Wedge supporters) list: 

Style Council (wow, everything but start with one that mentioned her): Life At a Top People's Health Farm

Blow Monkeys: Out With Her

Aztec Camera: Good Morning Britain 

Elvis Costello: Shipbuilding (about the Falklands) and here's a gorgeous cover by Hue & Cry (oh, Patrick, I still swoon). Also their 1987 smash Labour of Love, where they harken back to Maggie as EdMin and get splashed with milk, a lot.  

I once used The Housemartins' Five Get Overexcited in a Doctor Who vid, and matched up their line about Thatcher ("she just hasn't a heart") to Yvonne, who did; also check out their 1987 song Build. 

And some words from Tracey Thorn of Everything But the Girl, and their songs Native Land and The Night I Heard Caruso Sing

I have to end this with a 1987 piece I remember reading in Smash Hits at the time, where their Tom Hibbert interviewed Maggie Thatcher. The Guardian reprinted it yesterday, and it's a must read look 25+ years back in time. 

astolat:

andthenisay:

i’d just like to take this brief time to remind everyone who asserts that the internet is full of leeches who pirate and steal hollywood’s “property” and don’t think that there needs to be a new business model for the way hollywood funds and markets film that a relatively small fandom of a relatively small show is about to raise 2 million dollars in 24 hours just because a cast they used to love asked for their help.

so much this

It marks a sea change in the interaction between creators (who are, re TV and film (and music) usually not the copyright-holders, or who have licensed away their ability to use the works they have created) and fans. 

I've seen some concern about WB's role in this, and various industry websites say that WB is handling distribution & things related to that (the way 20th Century Fox did for Lucasfilm, or Disney did for PIXAR initially) as well as legal clearance issues (via their legal department). No, it's not an "indie" in the way we traditionally think of them, but many indies get picked up by studios at film festivals & events and distributed by majors; for this film, since WB owns the IP per whatever agreements they have from 2003/2004 with Rob Thomas, that structure was put into place ahead of time. 

Fascinating discussion of the studio process, as well as the "ethics of using Kickstarter for something distributed by a major company" went on last night between Leverage's John Rogers and AtlanticWire's Richard Lawson (among others) who wrote something that I thought was frankly ridiculous yesterday (no, kickstarter is not for charities and nobody is saying the VM film is one; most backers are pre-buying a product they will receive and a few people are buying a chance to be in a film, which is their choice to do with their money). 

The idea that those who back at the DVD level are being double-charged for the product is, imnsho, incorrect as cartoonist Gordon McAlmin discussed - and he also reminded me that "It's worth noting here that Kickstarter prohibits financial rewards including ownership and financial returns." As someone who saw Avengers twelve times in theaters, and paid for it ten times (two were sneak previews) was I deca-charged? If I was, was I totally okay with that? Or did I pay for something ten times, that I received ten times?

For those who think that the VM kickstarter is a bad use of their money, or who aren't interested, that's their call. Nothing wrong/problematic with coming to that decision. But acting (as mansplainer Richard Lawson did)  like your view is the only correct or appropriate one by saying things like, "My gut still finds all the upfront money talk to be a bit unrefined, let's say. Art should exist for art's sake..." will cause a lot of people in the entertainment industry, and in the fandom for any show, film, book, comic, music or sports team, to laugh at you. 

The irony of this is, the VM Kickstarter was announced a few hours before we learned there would be a new Pope, and was fully funded just after his first prayers in Rome. Remember the days when the Pope and the church and the aristocracy were the primary Patrons of Art, and the riff-raff's theatricalities were at risk of shut-downs by The Powers That Be because of Indecency and such? 

Now, we all know, anyone can create art, and because of the internet and the democratization of funding, anyone can support art - whether it's on ETSY or via a Kickstarter to bring a much-fanned-about story to the movies. 

Isn't that awesome? 

Perfect Day: A "Hunger Games Highlights Showcase" Trailer

The skeleton found in a Greyfriars carpark is that of Richard III, killed in the Battle of Bosworth. 

Back in 2008 there was a discussion on HPfGU about "published" fanfic (some of that discussion ended up in Bookshop's I'm Done Explaining Why Fanfic Is Okay LJ post & comments thereto), and I rambled a bit about whether Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time qualified as fanfic of Shakespeare's Richard III. In a pithy way, it may be, but it's more that it looks at the same source material, the historical record, and comes to a different storyline, set of characters and, in fact, conclusion. 

As was pointed out to me at the time, Shakespeare puts Richard as Duke of Gloucester in a battle when he's eight years old, exaggerates his failings and blames him for the deaths of the princes when it was more likely an action by the Tudors and their supporters, because in Shakespeare's time, and world, the support of Queen Elizabeth was vital to his success. He was much better off lauding her grandfather and belittling the man Henry VII had deposed. 

From the City of York's website, regarding Richard's plans for after his death, and what actually happened....

Richard even planned to be buried at York Minster, a radical ambition as English monarchs were traditionally interred at Westminster Abbey.  He planned to build an enormous chantry chapel at the Minster where 100 additional chaplains would pray for his soul.

York looked to Richard to help it at a time of economic decline, and actively championed his short reign. The city sent troops to support his cause, including 80 dispatched to support him after Henry Tudor’s invasion.  They were too late and the Tudor era had begun.

‘King Richard, late mercifully reigning over us, was through great treason . . . piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this city,’ reported the mayor’s serjeant of the mace a day after Richard’s death at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485. 

So today the news heralds the disclosure that RIchard III's skeleton was found in a carpark, and I'll hope to make a trek there the next time I'm in the UK, as well as to wherever they set as his final resting place. Will he be brought to York, or to Westminster? Does the Queen make this decision?  

What will the confirmation of this discovery do for his reputation and place in history? Inquiring Ricardians want to know, and want to shape and impact the discussion.