Amazon publishing fan fic

[Barty]

The new star trek movies are basically fanfic. They use the characters but split into an alternate timeline so they don't need to stick to canon.

Seems a bit unfair that the fanfic writers get a one time payment and nothing else. What if the books really takes off and become even more popular than the original and get a movie deal etc?

[ApK]

Duplicate post

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Barty

The new star trek movies are basically fanfic.

No. You seem to misunderstand the meaning of the term.

Seems a bit unfair that the fanfic writers get a one time payment and nothing else. What if the books really takes off and become even more popular than the original and get a movie deal etc?

No, they get monthly royalties on every sale, not just one payment. Not sure what would happen if the world owner wanted to make a movie or followup novel or such. Anything about that in the terms?

[BeccaPrice]

If it's considered a work for hire, no they don't get royalties, just the one-time payment.

[JoeD]

When I read the bullet point terms, it sounded like the fanfic authors would get a royalty of all the copies sold via amazon (although net, so who knows how little it may actually be, creative hollywood movie accounting??)

However the original IP owner is granted a license to all the fanfic authors ideas/concepts/characters in the work which I would guess means they can produce their own derivative books/movies/anything without paying the fanfic author a penny. The fanfic author only gets royalties for the ebook they wrote.

I could have misinterpreted it and there may be more to it. I imagine anyone who signs up will get a the full legal spiel sent to them to sign/return.

[Geralt]

I never read a fanfic in my life and I probably never will, so this news about amazon doesn't really affect me in any way.
As for the amazon themselves I am not so sure they will have some big benefit from going along this way.
As for authors I guess it can be argued that the fanfic is good gateway to writing, but eventually readers want some originality. Or from another perspective, a fanfic writer can never be as successful as "just a writer".

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

If it's considered a work for hire, no they don't get royalties, just the one-time payment.

From the first post in this thread, quoting the Amazon press release:

Amazon Publishing will pay royalties to both the rights holders of the Worlds and the author. The standard author’s royalty rate (for works of at least 10,000 words) will be 35% of net revenue. As with all titles from Amazon Publishing, Kindle Worlds will base net revenue off of sales price—rather than the lower, industry standard of wholesale price—and royalties will be paid monthly.

[JAcheson]

Originally Posted by Barty

What if the books really takes off and become even more popular than the original and get a movie deal etc?

I think at that point the fanfic author should get a fair cut of the movie money. On the other hand, the fanfic author should not expect to have any control over the making of the movie.

You won't get to make a Harry Potter movie without J.K. Rowling being in charge of it. The IP owners are not going to give that up, unless they're fools.

[Breid]

I neither write nor read fan fiction, so I am unsure if this is a yippedy doo dah or a big whoop (not) moment

[glos]

Another article from the OTW, sort of a summary of various reactions to amazon's announcement
if you're interested it's here
http://transformativeworks.org/news/...-kindle-worlds