Posts in Intellectual Property
Five Things Stacey Lantagne Said
Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today’s post is with Stacey Lantagne, who volunteers as member of OTW’s Legal Advocacy project. It’s posted today to highlight the celebration of Copyright Week. How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does? As a volunteer for the Legal Committee, I work on behalf of OTW’s mission to protect and nurture fanworks as a legitimate creative… Read more
This Week in Fandom, Volume 118
Welcome to This Week in Fandom, the OTW’s roundup of things which are happening! Before we start, we’ve got a bit of a “Monday paper” edition today after the madness of SDCC, so I wanted to mention that we accept suggestions for this roundup. Just contact Communications with a story you think we should cover. Submitting something doesn’t guarantee that we’ll include it, but we welcome all submissions! There’s a new book coming out about music fangirls, reports an article from Vice. The book, called Fangirls: Scenes From Modern Music Culture, is written by Vice music writer Hannah Ewens, and is “based on hundreds of… Read more
The EU Digital Single Market Directive–What it Means (and Doesn’t Mean!)
On March 26, by a pretty slim margin, the European Parliament passed the un-amended Digital Single Market Directive. This directive includes the fan-unfriendly provisions known as Articles 11 and 13 (now re-numbered to 15 and 17, but otherwise unchanged), which we have written about before in this space. We won’t sugarcoat it—it’s bad news—but it isn’t the end of the world. Nonprofit platforms like the AO3 will not be affected, and there are provisions designed to protect some of the sites and fan activities you (and we!) love. A lot remains to be seen. Here’s a close look at what the law means and what… Read more
EU Copyright Update–And What You Can Do!
Copyright lawmaking efforts continue in the EU, and we want to keep you informed. Our last post on this topic contained some good news. Our news this time is less good–the European Parliament is now considering a revised version of Article 13 that still contains fan-unfriendly provisions. This proposal only applies to for-profit sites, so the AO3 is still safe, but sites like YouTube and Tumblr are not–and there is still time to fight. Here’s what the proposal means and what you can do!
Happy Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week!
When you create or enjoy a fanwork, whether you know it or not, you are usually relying on the laws of fair use and fair dealing. These laws–known as fair use in some countries (including the U.S.) and fair dealing in others (including Canada and the U.K.)–are what allow fans to make and post fanworks based on pre-existing copyrighted work without being copyright infringers. Every year, organizations across the Internet celebrate this set of laws and all of the wonderful creativity they promote.