#don't paywall your fanworks and it'll all be smooth sailing

[author-morgan]

This why we have AO3, they're constantly trying to fight for fanfiction to exist on their own. Writers have presented people with lawsuits because they don't like what people are writing about and tumblr has decided okay, its fine, monetize your work. Even with Kofis, you're playing with fire. That's why I extremely dislike authors who put works behind paetron. If it's not original content that you created by you, you don't get that right to be like I'm going to make money off of it. Especially with Disney and Nintendo, if you're making money off their properties, they will find out and send a cease and desist letter, telling you, if we catch you again, we will sue you and we don't care if you at McDonald's. People who are jumping into this and not understanding fanfiction's past. Websites would be deleted overnight and thousands of fics lost, has anyone seen fanfiction.net? That's on its last leg, people are talking about it only has 3 or 4 more years left until its deleted. They had major purges of nsfw content, changed their terms of service to appease people who were coming after of them. This is why AO3 exist to protect fanworks and to protect your favorite writers from getting sued out of their asses and people don't get it

T H I S. AO3 is a godsend, especially for fanfic writers, and I hate seeing people drag it for not being 'aesthetically pleasing' like Wattpad. The volunteers at AO3 are doing a lot more to protect us from being taken to court over fanfic than people at Wattpad and Tumblr.

People really have forgotten the roots of fandom and the struggles people endured for us to be able to enjoy fanworks, safely, on various platforms now. The best way to stay safe? Don't paywall your fanworks. And if you do take commissions or advertise 'donations' or participate in Post+ for fanworks, then know the risks you're taking by doing that. And know that it could very well mean the end of Tumblr. I buy into FF.net being on its last leg, but for more reasons beyond copyright. One time I used my login info and was signed into someone else's account, big oof, and support still has not supplied an answer about how that happened. But it's true, FF.net is a prime example of what can happen. FF.net is a hot mess and has been for as long as I've known it existed, they do not even allow fics in second POV (so none of my reader fics ever get posted there) and, gods yes, the purges are notorious (the scary thing? Wattpad is literally following the same model of purging NSFW content —yet they allow NSFW content in their paid stories). People need to be aware of the past and what had to happen for fandom spaces to exist without running the risk of having lawsuits taken out, or you know, getting entire websites taken down. The best way to repay your favorite fandom content creators? R E B L O G. It's free, it's showing support for the creator, and it takes all of 10 seconds to do (maybe a few more if you need to scream or keyboard smash in the tags).

#sierra replies #postplus #god this whole situation is a nightmare #ive met so many good friends on tumblr #and despite the constant complaining #it really is one of the better social media platforms of late #there's no verification or public follower count and the posts are still in order by time of reblog #like do we really want to lose *this* space? #be aware guys #know what's going on #stay safe #and remember #don't paywall your fanworks and it'll all be smooth sailing