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mijan**I realize that most of you who are following the FanLib stuff already know all of this. However, I finally took the time to look into the FanLib business model, and all that shit. Suffice to say, I didn't like it. I need to vent. So, if you've already read enough FanLib rants, feel free to skip this post. If you haven't read this stuff, and you love your fandom, seriously, read on...**
By the way, the business phone number for FanLib is listed as (310)777-0323. Also posted on the site was (212) 966-0602, which I think is the parent company. Who has spare cell phone minutes?
So I had been avoiding engaging in the discussion on the FanLib topic. So much has already been said, and I've got too many things going on to engage in my own strings of comments and replies. I've been reading people's posts because this is just one of those fandom issues about which EVERYONE needs to know something, just to know what's going on. I mean, holy fandom mega-leech Batman! My personal conclusion is that they're a bunch of ignorant fuckers who haven't a clue about fandom. The summary list of fics on their site reads like a spoof that real fanfic authors make of badfic. They say want the best of the best, but they're seriously getting the worst of the worst. Their own idiocy will cause them to implode, as the best authors continue to shun then, and the readers grow weary of piss-poor fanfic.
HOWEVER... I just found the link in the post onicarusancalion's LJ, which I should have read in better detail the first time. The link is to the site of FanLib's parent company, here:
http://www.my2centences.com/noflash.html
The parent company is just as pathetic and cheesy as FanLib itself, but... read the FanLib_info.pdf file. You'll find if by following the simple trailcrumbs from the main site. It's just so plain how this is nothing but a blatant marketing ploy, using the fanfic writers. An excellent analysis of this is done by Teresa at "Making Light", located at this link:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009027.html
Other good discussions can be found there, too.
This goes FAR beyond just the fandom wank of it all, and the sheer *headdesk*-you're-an-idiot knee-jerk reaction. This is worthy of daytime drama, only more messed up. Their product is crap, their marketing technique appeals to the lowest common denominator, but their business model is what induces nausea. The "challenges" on the website are tightly controlled tools to get fanfic authors to write specific things, almost like a teacher gives a restrictive writing assignment for an English class. The results are predictable enough to be re-processed by the professionals into something marketable. THAT, my dear Watson, is why they maintained in their TOU that they would have the right to reproduce, in part or full, the stories posted at that site, for the purposes of FanLib and it's affiliates. You still "own" the work, but you can't make money off of it, but they get to play with it as much as they want. And seeing as they've already designed the stories they want you to write, they know what they're getting.
Other notes:
- The website "snitchseeker.com" uses this company's product. How about a boycott?
- Even the PDF file calls their plan "Massive Viral Marketing". What's the vaccine?
- It won't help to simply not register for the site... even visiting makes money for these fuckers, because their revenue comes from hit-counts. Just don't go there. Really. If you want to debate with them, post on your own LJ. Hell, let's make a FanLib-Protest LJ community. We already know that the CEO dude trolls LJ, so he'll come to us. That way, his site doesn't make more money from those of us going there to challenge him.
- Because they want the tightly-controlled stuff, I'm pretty sure that the "if you've been invited, you can post anything you have" policy is only to lure people into their web... said the spider to the fly.
The beautiful thing about fandom is that WE control it. Hand me the whip and handcuffs, my fellow fandom pirates... it's time for us to conclusively put these bastards in their place, and reestablish exactly who owns fandom, why it works the way it works, and how we're running this show. Their business model description says it's a "democratic" system. Well, what they don't understand is that our "society model" in fandom is both capitalist and socialist in nature, but not democratic. LJ polls aside, we don't vote on anything. There are no "leaders". There are understood rules of etiquitte, individuals writing their fanfiction for individual recognition (the capitalist part), and the communal sense of justice and dialogue that grows and shapes the fandom itself outside of the stories (the socialist part). And then, there's one more element... the anarchy. We have no governing body. We as a fandom self-govern, and the instant anyone tries to own us, or control our written work and our creativity, it grates harshly against our instincts of freedom and individualism, as well as our self-determining sense of community. We should make an example of FanLib before anyone else gets it in their heads that this is a good idea. I say we squish them. Pass it on. Make sure nobody goes to the site. Ensure that we make it clear... fandom is OURS.
HOWEVER... I just found the link in the post on
icarusancalion's LJ, which I should have read in better detail the first time. The link is to the site of FanLib's parent company, here:http://www.my2centences.com/noflash.html
The parent company is just as pathetic and cheesy as FanLib itself, but... read the FanLib_info.pdf file. You'll find if by following the simple trailcrumbs from the main site. It's just so plain how this is nothing but a blatant marketing ploy, using the fanfic writers. An excellent analysis of this is done by Teresa at "Making Light", located at this link:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009027.html
Other good discussions can be found there, too.
This goes FAR beyond just the fandom wank of it all, and the sheer *headdesk*-you're-an-idiot knee-jerk reaction. This is worthy of daytime drama, only more messed up. Their product is crap, their marketing technique appeals to the lowest common denominator, but their business model is what induces nausea. The "challenges" on the website are tightly controlled tools to get fanfic authors to write specific things, almost like a teacher gives a restrictive writing assignment for an English class. The results are predictable enough to be re-processed by the professionals into something marketable. THAT, my dear Watson, is why they maintained in their TOU that they would have the right to reproduce, in part or full, the stories posted at that site, for the purposes of FanLib and it's affiliates. You still "own" the work, but you can't make money off of it, but they get to play with it as much as they want. And seeing as they've already designed the stories they want you to write, they know what they're getting.
Other notes:
- The website "snitchseeker.com" uses this company's product. How about a boycott?
- Even the PDF file calls their plan "Massive Viral Marketing". What's the vaccine?
- It won't help to simply not register for the site... even visiting makes money for these fuckers, because their revenue comes from hit-counts. Just don't go there. Really. If you want to debate with them, post on your own LJ. Hell, let's make a FanLib-Protest LJ community. We already know that the CEO dude trolls LJ, so he'll come to us. That way, his site doesn't make more money from those of us going there to challenge him.
- Because they want the tightly-controlled stuff, I'm pretty sure that the "if you've been invited, you can post anything you have" policy is only to lure people into their web... said the spider to the fly.
The beautiful thing about fandom is that WE control it. Hand me the whip and handcuffs, my fellow fandom pirates... it's time for us to conclusively put these bastards in their place, and reestablish exactly who owns fandom, why it works the way it works, and how we're running this show. Their business model description says it's a "democratic" system. Well, what they don't understand is that our "society model" in fandom is both capitalist and socialist in nature, but not democratic. LJ polls aside, we don't vote on anything. There are no "leaders". There are understood rules of etiquitte, individuals writing their fanfiction for individual recognition (the capitalist part), and the communal sense of justice and dialogue that grows and shapes the fandom itself outside of the stories (the socialist part). And then, there's one more element... the anarchy. We have no governing body. We as a fandom self-govern, and the instant anyone tries to own us, or control our written work and our creativity, it grates harshly against our instincts of freedom and individualism, as well as our self-determining sense of community. We should make an example of FanLib before anyone else gets it in their heads that this is a good idea. I say we squish them. Pass it on. Make sure nobody goes to the site. Ensure that we make it clear... fandom is OURS.
By the way, the business phone number for FanLib is listed as (310)777-0323. Also posted on the site was (212) 966-0602, which I think is the parent company. Who has spare cell phone minutes?
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 10:40 pm (UTC)oh fuck, Michelle with a whip and malicious intent... game over!
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Date: 2007-05-28 11:24 pm (UTC)OMG the 212 number returns http://screenplayswanted.blogspot.com/
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Date: 2007-05-28 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-05-28 11:38 pm (UTC)I should have known someone would have already done it. Sweet. I tip my hat in reverence, and acknowledge that I shouldn't try to start playing the game in the fourth inning.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 12:36 am (UTC)I really, really, really want to write a freelance article about FanLib and the controversy that surrounds it, focusing on the discontent that it breeds among the fandom community at large, and send it into legit magazines, speaking as a member of fandom.
While I don't want us to come out from under our rocks and expose the sometimes wonderfully dark underbelly of fandom, I think that what FanLib could possibly do to us is an issue that matters not only to fandom, but speaks to defenders of the first ammendment as well.
But that being said, that while I think FanLib certainly has the means to potentially ruin us, I don't think that FanLib is going to destroy fandom. Not if the writers who actually have talent have anything to say about it. We're a resillient, intelligent and gifted bunch, after all.
I think it may *change* fandom and how fandom is perceived, but fanfic has never exactly been viewed as universally positive. Regardless of FanLib's effect on it, fandom has always evolved to keep up with the times, and has remained an entity in and of itself despite public perception. If ff.net in all it's aweful-ness hasn't changed things that much, I don't see FanLib changing this hobby, either.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 03:58 am (UTC)Might post a list of those links, if anybody seems interested and if authors of such approve.
*goes off to search for anti-Fanlib comms*