Every month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.

In the News

This June, the OTW joined several of our allies in signing a letter opposing the NO FAKES Act of 2026 in its current form. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), which led the coalition, stressed that while they share concerns about harmful AI-generated replicas, the bill as currently proposed would harness the already-flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice-and-takedown system to target protected expression.

The NO FAKES Act would create a heckler’s veto over lawful expression and entrench the abuses of DMCA notice-and-takedown in vast new areas of speech. Protected satire, parody, commentary, and news would come down first, with speakers vindicated only if they fight back and, because platforms would face steep penalties for guessing wrong on contested constitutional questions, the predictable result would be over-removal and self-censorship.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) further explained how this could play out:

The bill offers no protection for a platform’s judgment about an often difficult question—whether a particular piece of content is satire, parody, commentary, or news. Any platform that guesses wrong faces penalties of up to $750,000 per work.

Fans who are concerned about the NO FAKES Act can use this tool provided by EFF to take action and make their concerns known. OTW Legal will continue to monitor this and other bills globally that could affect fans or fannish activities.

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) has released Issue No. 48, a special issue on Disability and Fandom, guest edited by Olivia Johnston Riley and Lauren Rouse. Their editorial on the issue—with an introduction to the articles, reviews, and symposiums—discussed the unique perspectives and challenges posed by the intersection of fan studies and disability, some of which include methodology, presentation, and how the limitations of both of these should be addressed in terms of academic review in both this issue and in other academic pursuits.

There are all kinds of disability in fandom, but fan studies has not prepared itself to recognize or grapple with disability even within its own accepted borders, suggesting the field could begin redressing its internalized ableism by examining the current limitations on its methods and theories.

The scholars in this special issue prove the applicability of disability approaches to fan studies, especially demonstrating how online fan activities are neither disembodied nor secondary to disability interests. The apparent immateriality of digital fan practices can actually work to widen disability studies’ focus and better grasp the invisible operations of the ideology of ableism and the resistant strategies of disabled fans.

This issue is fully accessible to the public, as are previous issues. Feel free to peruse and register if can be found here.

OTW Tips

Did you know that the AO3 Documentation committee published a new Statistics FAQ? If you’re curious about what kind of statistics AO3 tracks and what they mean, be sure to check it out. The FAQ has information on the subscriptions page, kudos, hits, and more!

We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.