Amazon to Licence Fan Fiction

[Elfwreck]

This isn't so much "authorized fanfic" as "crowdsourcing licensed tie-ins." One commenter at The Passive Voice is one of the 50 authors who'll be showcased to start off the program; the stories are vetted by an editor who decides if they're in line with the "World" being created.

The stories may not go through a standard editing process, but they apparently will be hand-selected, and there's a contract involved, not a clickthrough TOS. Several pro authors have said the terms described look very similar to "work for hire" contracts for licensed tie-ins.

"Fanfiction" is a trendy word in writing circles right now, but it's not what this business program is about. There's no sense that this will allow anything like the creativity and scope that exists in fanfic, and the as-yet-unreleased guidelines for working in each "World" may very well include "no romantic pairings aside from canonical ones" (presumably, they'd provide a list) and "no sexuality beyond a PG-ish rating" (very different from the "no porn" rule.)

It's worth noting that Amazon's KDP platform has a "no pornography" rule, which apparently still allows for a large Erotica category, so whatever Amazon means by "pornography," it doesn't include Selena Kitt's stories.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Some of Amazon's terms aren't author friendly but it is spelled out in plain language.

They're friendly enough considering the writer is leveraging somebody else's IP and audience instead of building their own. (There lie legal dragons.)

Most people doing fanfic are doing it out of love for the material but that love doesn't give them any more proprietary rights over the original material than somebody who is hired to do a STAR WARS or STAR TREK project.

Kindle worlds stories need to be seen as a variant case of work for hire, not a variant case of original fiction writing. Since all fanfic is by definition a derivative work of the original copyright, the "safest" (for the IP owner) legal option is to assign control of the derivative to the owner of the original, in return for the contracted remuneration.

Example: Let's say David Weber sets up a Kindle Worlds playground for his Honorverse and a fanfic story introduces a character with a certain resume and backstory and Weber--who may not have the time or inclination to even sample the resulting stories--later introduces a similar character that gets added to an HBO series based on the series. Without the assignment of rights to Weber, he might be subject to a lawsuit for a share of the video royalties from the wildly successful series. At some point he might find himself trying to prove ownership of his own character.

Faced with those perils, a lot of authors simply refuse to allow or acknowledge any fanfic. And by treating these commercialized fics as work-for-hire, the legal peril is contained.

The writer of the fic who doesn't like the terms has choices; forgo commercialization, recycle the material into a distinctly separate IP, or accept that the owner of the original IP has rights and interests that need protecting.

Tricky stuff.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

This isn't so much "authorized fanfic" as "crowdsourcing licensed tie-ins."

Nice and concise.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

The last week of March I posted this and the next week I posted this! I guess that Amazon may have been testing...and/or maybe an oops?!?

Has anyone found any G. Norman Lippert, James Potter books on Amazon since this new program was announced?

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by JoeD

What's wrong with writing in someone else's world/universe?

what's wrong with writing in our world/universe?

bad books don't turn good just by having naughty dwarves or paranoid robots instead of average disfunctional people in everyday settings...

[QuantumIguana]

If you don't like it, you're free not to buy it.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

what's wrong with writing in our world/universe?

bad books don't turn good just by having naughty dwarves or paranoid robots instead of average disfunctional people in everyday settings...

A good book set in our world may as well be a bad book for those who enjoy reading books about dwarves and paranoid robots. Multiple genres exist because we all have different tastes.

For fans of a certain fantasy author, having a legal way to access fan fiction and allow those fans who do a good job a way to make some money from it, seems like a good idea to me. So long as there's some kind of vetting process to keep total drivel out.

[Elfwreck]

It's possible that the Kindle Worlds program will never connect to works with a single author. All three of the current worlds are works-for-hire owned by Warner Brothers; it's probably harder to get an author to go along with "random people can write in your world without your specific consent each time" than to convince a company to set up editors to oversee tie-in stories.

Kindle Worlds may stick to tv shows and movies, where the copyright owner is the company, not any author who's been involved in creating content for them. There's some sense to that--it's easier to market books related to something with an audience measured in millions than one measured in thousands.

[Penforhire]

The legal questions raised above make me want to write some Mission Impossible fanfic -- "If you or any of your team are caught in a lawsuit the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Kindle Worlds may stick to tv shows and movies, where the copyright owner is the company, not any author who's been involved in creating content for them. There's some sense to that--it's easier to market books related to something with an audience measured in millions than one measured in thousands.

The Digital Reader blogger agrees with you:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...e-in-industry/

It may very well be that the primary target is tie-ins.
That alone would be a pretty good market and revenue stream.

I tend to think (WRPG) game developers should be all over this: their audiences run in the millions, not tens of millions like TV shows, so the economics of trad-pub'ed tie-ins only work for the highest profile Universes (like Halo). Take out the traditional publishers and go, as you said, crowd-sourced (with minimal up-front investment) and there might be profits for all involved at much lower volumes.

I do think there may be room for some single-author IPs in Kindle Worlds, (even self-pub IPs) precisely because of the low volumes. For example, there is the TRUE BLOOD universe. The author is "ending" the series because she's apparently said all she had to say with those characters; fans are ever hungry for more content so rather than ghost any further books she could theoretically just open the milleau and let the fans take over.

I can also see some estates of popular IP authors opening up those universes. The E.E. Smith family, for example, might open up the SKYLARK Universe or the Lensmen world. It would be a lot simpler than trying to ovversee official sequels, prequels, or "illuminations".

[crich70]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If you don't like it, you're free not to buy it.

Good point. And that doesn't just apply to fan fictions of course. That's a very well known (if unwritten) law.

[DuaneAA]

I think everyone is missing the real point.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s I read the first 150 Star Trek tie-in novels. And when they started publishing the Buffy tie-in novels I read the first 30-40.

But after awhile they all started to seem too predictable and stale.

Then I discovered fan fiction and realized what the problem was with the 'published' tie-in books. They were all forced to stay within canon. Meaning the main central characters had to be exactly the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning of the story and weren't allowed any growth. So the better writers started to focus on the 'guest of the week' character because they could grow and change or even die over the course of the book. However that regulated the central characters to a secondary role and they were the whole reason you bought the book. So the 'published' writers were trapped in a catch-22 position.

However in fan fiction, there are no restrictions. If the writer wanted to kill off one of the main characters to explore the impact on the other characters, they could. It meant that the 'verses you loved were suddenly unpredictable, which made every story potentially completely new and exciting.

So, anyway, my point is that I hope the fan fiction stories are allowed to be 'alternate universe' or these new writers are going to be trapped in the same mode as the 'published' writers of these types of tie-in books, which to me means the works are probably going to be predictable and therefore boring.

Duane

[teh603]

Originally Posted by DuaneAA

Back in the 1970s and 1980s I read the first 150 Star Trek tie-in novels. And when they started publishing the Buffy tie-in novels I read the first 30-40.

But after awhile they all started to seem too predictable and stale.

Then I discovered fan fiction and realized what the problem was with the 'published' tie-in books. They were all forced to stay within canon. Meaning the main central characters had to be exactly the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning of the story and weren't allowed any growth. So the better writers started to focus on the 'guest of the week' character because they could grow and change or even die over the course of the book. However that regulated the central characters to a secondary role and they were the whole reason you bought the book. So the 'published' writers were trapped in a catch-22 position.

How would you have felt about "other ship" Star Trek novels? Instead of using the canon crew, what about having something staring the crew of the Constellation, or the Farragut, or another ship? Or even some Klingon or Romulan fic?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by teh603

How would you have felt about "other ship" Star Trek novels? Instead of using the canon crew, what about having something staring the crew of the Constellation, or the Farragut, or another ship? Or even some Klingon or Romulan fic?

Or the crew of the Excalibur?
With a bunch of ex-guest star characters aboard.
Worked out pretty well when they gave it a try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_New_Frontier

First published in 1997 as a serial consisting of four short novels, New Frontier is set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe, but in the wholly unexplored Sector 221-G, home of the recently fallen Thallonian Empire.

Starting the series with a combination of new characters and former Next Generation guest stars, this gave David the opportunity to create his own corner of the Star Trek Universe. Over the years the series has become very popular and critically well-respected to the point that other authors have begun to reference characters and events from the New Frontier continuity, and New Frontier has even been involved in several major crossover events with novels based on the television series (the Gateways, Double Helix, Captain's Table and mirror universe novel series). The series even inspired its own action figure (one of Mackenzie Calhoun), something no Star Trek novel has done before.

Although Peter David has authored nearly all stories in the New Frontier continuity, since he does not own the rights to the series, Pocket Books could theoretically give the series to another author, or even to a rotating series of authors. However, they have shown no indication of doing so, and at last announcement David is scheduled to be the author of any upcoming New Frontier novels.

Doesn't sound too different from the Kindle Worlds deal.
Mr David writes (very well, too) and gets paid for working with (mostly) other people's characters, fans get to experience a different side of one Trek universe, Paramount and Penguin make a few bucks. (And Amazon, too.)

Take out Penguin, insert Alloy-and-Amazon Publishing.

[Bittybye]

I love fanfiction, sure 95% of it is pure garbage but that 5% is wonderful. I've read a lot of fanfiction that eclipse it's source by leaps and bounds.

Plus, don't like how the ending of a book/movie/series, read fanficion. For instance I've mentally replaced Deathly Hollows with a fanfiction that makes more senses, is better written and has less plot holes than DH. Added bonus it didn't pair up the village idiot with my favourite character.

It's free and the world building is already there and if you don't like it you didn't pay a dime for it. I've bought several books that weren't worth the pixels on my ereader.