What if Tapas made a Fanworks genre?

[KytCordell]

That's always a possibility. I'm just saying that Disney probably isn't going to be suing Tapastic anytime soon lol. As for the app store, I don't know how stringent Apple is about the copyright/fanwork issue. I know they're strict about the mature content issue because people are pearl-clutching about that one.

[nostalgicroxas]

nothing will likely come of it either way because webcomics for the most part don't have enough revenue or meaningful visibility to even matter.

That's highly dependent on many factors. Like I mentioned in passing before, to write fanfic for the Riders of Pern fandom, you had a set of rules you were required to follow to play in that sandbox without the creator of the Pern world coming down on you.
And Disney's acquisition of STAR WARS basically threw out 30~ years of fan community built canon, only to later say "well THESE one's here we approve of, but not these ones", as a way to appease the SW fandom.
And Anne Rice is known to come down with lawyers against anyone who depicts her characters in a way that isn't just right. There's also writers, I think it's JK Rowling among others, who'll come down against fans for trying to include any kind of romantic love outside of cis in their fandom.
Some fandoms, just... have rules of the sandbox. And some of them, their rule is just "don't publish this fanfic anywhere online".

[skicoak]

I'm just saying that Disney probably isn't going to be suing Tapastic anytime soon lol.

It doesn't have to be about aggressive litigation. Disney is slowly choking off intellectual infringement in artist alleys at comic conventions by putting the burden on the promoters to crack down on it. The same tactic could easily apply here since Apple requires site mechanisms for handling these issues.

[nostalgicroxas]

Of note on that topic, it's not just Disney. It's distributor companies like Funimation as well. The only way for Artist Alley to still exist in some cases was to remove them from the main room, where they shared space with the official merchandise sellers. It's happened across pretty much every single convention that is sponsored by Funimation, which is essentially all of the anime ones in the US. And any fanwork found in the main hall is told to be taken down, not sold, and/or removed.

[DogshitJay]

I was a reader for ages (years maybe?) before I even considered becoming a creator here, and still use Tapas as one of my primary reading sites, so I tend to be speaking from that perspective more than as a creator. (plus I think creator concerns have been well documented already). I personally would lose interest in Tapas as a whole if there was a lot of fan-fiction here. It's just not remotely what I come to Tapas for. I don't think fan-fiction is bad or anything, and I read it elsewhere, but it's not in line with how I perceive Tapas as a consumer, and I think it would impact the legitimacy of the site in terms of original works to me. Maybe this isn't the space for a "customer" perspective, but I'm tossing in my two cent as someone who spends a looooooot of cents here.
Essentially, whatever the staff does, I hope it suppresses fanfiction on here.

[silverraven0]

Oh wow, never thought this will turns into a big discussion.

So anyway,

• Should Fanworks genre even be added?

My answer is yes, but when I suggest the genre, I have never thought that they’ll be on the top list, and was subjected to be a side genre (i kind of s*ck at explaining this but I hope you got it?) and thought that a warning will be issued and the ad rev will be locked automatically somehow?

• If added, will it be barred from spotlights in the "Popular" and "Trending" tabs?

Most likely yes, but if they really do made a different tab for fan work, I thought it would be acceptable, thought I believe a lot of creators will be add odds with this idea. But a full staff picked trending and popular with other og works? No.

• If added, will you stay {on Tapas}?

Yes.

• Of note, Tapas has noted that fanworks are not eligible for ad revenue/monetary gains.

Yep, I’ve known it when Michael has stated multiple times In the forum that yes, the support is eligible since there’s nothing really wrong with peoples want to throw money to shows appreciation of the fan work, and I think that’s fair too, but he also stated multiple times that NO, they can’t activate ad revenue, and if they wanted to do an og works, it’s best that they made a separate account for that og works.

The reasons I even suggested to have fan comic and fan fiction as a genre (or shadow genre as it’s called? Idk) because there’s already a lot of fan creation on tapas, amd holy s*it if a lot of peoples didn’t realize they’re fan works and not a real one (and as embarrassing as it sounds, that’s me once upon a time ;v; ), and it was so they could be grouped together.

They’re already there and there’s nothing that can prevent that from happening, so why don’t just put it all together? I thought.

Well, take it with a grain of salt, people. (*´・ｖ・)

[nostalgicroxas]

I agree with you. The fanworks are already here, and for those who don't know the fandom, it'll be handy for those people. And it'll be good for organization.

But I do think having it as a checkbox or secondary genre could work. Maybe as a flag or something, so it's not even part of the genre coding.

[DarJodo]

Tapas has zero tolerance for copyright infringement. Once it is brought to their attention they remove it and the offending account at once. No warning, no appeals process, and probably not much in the way of verification. Apparently you can just say "Hey that is my stuff" and they will take you at your word.

[KytCordell]

I'm not really active in the con scene, so I was not aware of this development. And yes, the same tactic could technically be applied by Apple. In general, allowing fanwork is a bad idea to begin with. If these circumstances you mention are true, then it's an even worse idea than I'd originally believed.

[KytCordell]

It's literally putting a target on the platform and serves as an open admission of liability. The point isn't that the fancomics exist. Non original IP floats around all the time on Youtube and often doesn't get taken down. Other times it's immediately flagged and removed. The point is that making a genre or ANY sort of conscious identifier is Tapastic saying, "here is a box you can check that allows us to know you are in fact infringing copyright."

[KytCordell]

It's not about whether or not it's already "there." It's about liability and acknowledgment and curation. Making it a category is an open admission that you are not only (1) aware that copyright infringing content exists on your platform, (2) you are curating it instead of removing it.

The more attention is drawn to fanwork being non-original, the more likely Tapastic opens itself up to liability and thus has to take measures to ACTIVELY remove the infringing content and possibly ban people.

[DarJodo]

Damn, a lawyer that draws. Whatever is next, a doctor that practices magic on the side?

[KytCordell]

I play a high elf sorceror in DnD, does that count?

[DarJodo]

Oh, fine, you just stand there and make this one feel like an underachiever.

[KytCordell]

Hey, at least you've got a good sense of humor. That's becoming increasingly rare nowadays.

[nostalgicroxas]

So the short of it is, what does Tapas consider itself as.

In lamens terms, an "archive" like Ao3 considers itself and is used to protect fanworks as a whole that are brought under it's umbrella. Or a "search engine", where it has little to no responsibility for what is found through their site -this being obviously not the case.

[skicoak]

Making it a category is an open admission that you are not only (1) aware that copyright infringing content exists on your platform, (2) you are curating it instead of removing it.

Which bothers me so much about the Tapas statement that they'll turn off the ad revenue share for fan works...

It meets both those criteria.

[KytCordell]

That's kind of a stupid thing to announce. They should probably just outright ban fanworks or pretend like it doesn't exist.

[KytCordell]

Tapastic is absolutely not going to qualify as an archive or search engine. It's basically a media production/curation platform. It should either ban fanwork or continue to idly ignore it and pretend it isn't there and remove it if a big IP holder starts making noise.

It doesn't matter what Tapastic "sees" itself as lol. What matters is what evidence will suggest it is. Tapastic doesn't really get an opinion. It's actions and content are what would be evaluated. I mean, technically Pirate Bay could see itself as a peer to peer seed museum. Doubt that's gonna hold up in court though.

[skicoak]

They should probably just outright ban fanworks or pretend like it doesn't exist.

That pretend it doesn't exist ship has sailed ...whatever mechanisms they're using to ban mature content from the app should easily identify copyright and trademark infringements.

A simple search of keywords from the site's search engine just reveled 440-ish Steven Universe fanworks.

And I was hardly trying.