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

The Organization for Transformative Works has become a Chamber of Progress partner, joining their network as a nonprofit deeply interested in internet freedom and user privacy. As long-time collaborators, they have jointly opposed internet censorship and age-verification bills and lawsuits in the U.S., such as KOSA and NetChoice v. Brown.

In March 2026, they joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of digital rights organizations in submitting an amicus brief in Emmerich Newspapers v. Particle Media, urging the court to preserve copyright protections for linking to and embedding content on the internet. EFF summarized the case:

Emmerich Newspapers is calling for the court to subject some of the internet’s most fundamental and useful functions—linking and embedding—to staggering new potential liability. For nearly two decades, a pragmatic interpretation of the Copyright Act’s public display right, known as the “server test,” has allowed the internet to flourish. …

Rejecting the server test would make the common act of embedding links a legally fraught activity, discouraging its use except by the well-resourced, the reckless, and the ignorant. That, in turn, would significantly diminish the internet’s utility as a tool for the creation and dissemination of knowledge—a result at odds with copyright law’s Constitutional purpose “to Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

The result was a victory: earlier this September, the court ruled that embedding links is legal.

To learn more about the OTW’s legal work, visit the website page for our Legal Advocacy project and check out their news posts!

A new project positions sports fandom as a promising antidote to social challenges, including social isolation and partisan hostility. The Fandom and Social Connection Initiative hopes to understand how sports fandom can be leveraged to help people thrive.

Live games give people a reason to gather. Shared teams make conversation easier. Seasons create rhythm and continuity. For many people, especially men, sports provide a low-pressure excuse to reach out, spend time together, and maintain relationships.

The Initiative’s early research is encouraging:

Our experimental work finds that shared co-fandom can reduce partisan animosity at least as effectively as shared religion, race, socio-economic status, or hometown. It increases openness to interacting with political outgroups, and reduces hostile behavior toward counter-partisans. Shared fandom is one of the rare identities that can soften political division without requiring people to change their views.

Last year, a host of international scholars added to the growing body of research on sports fandom in Transformative Works and Cultures’ (TWC) eponymous special issue, Sports Fandoms. You can read the full issue—along with their newly released general issue and more—on TWC’s website.

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