Here’s a roundup of stories about fandom under pressure that might be of interest to fans:
- In some of the latest takedown actions from the past month a fan offering free high-resolution downloads of his artwork for video game Fallout was contacted by a law firm representing the game owner Bethesda, issuing a cease and desist for his website. The artist replied in detail to the charges and has so far refused to turn his domain name over to the company, although he did remove links to the posters.
- Popular website TV Tropes removed fanfiction recommendations on their site after encountering problems with Google’s Ad Sense which required them to remove “mature and adult content” from the site. Aside from the issue of advertiser control of content, however, others were upset about what it meant for their use of the site. As one poster commented “The problem, as I see it, is that the admins have destroyed countless hours of our work. I don’t demand that pages be restored onto this particular server, but I do demand that the source material (pages as they existed pre-cut) be made available in some fashion, so that those who want can host it elsewhere.”
- In many places, online access to content isn’t affected by advertisers or corporate owners, but by governments. For example, Vietnamese authorities have recently mandated that Internet companies assist in online censorship. Among the provisions of a proposed decree, “Internet users ‘are strictly prohibited’ from providing fictitious personal data” which will prohibit all forms of anonymous blogging and discussion. Personal blogs will have to publicize the name and contact information of the individual responsible and will be held personally liable for all the published content on their blogs.
- On the other hand at least one sports blogger is alarmed at the possibility that team owners might put important decisions in fans’ hands. “As counter-intuitive as it sounds, as much as the Sixers should care about making the fans happy, they shouldn’t care about what those fans want on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a devastating losing streak. When they ask what the fans think about their roster, it isn’t hip, catchy, or new-media savvy. It’s insulting.” Instead the blogger suggests, “continue to ask us what we think of a new lighting scheme, insist on our thoughts about a moose for a mascot, and call our home phones to ask how to make better use of ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Sixers.’ Those are the some of the best elements of a new fan-owner partnership.”
If you have news of legal actions against fans or content takedowns, why not write about it on Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.
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