What there is to fear about content owners' embrace of media fandom

[rivkat]

Walled gardens: remix Star Wars freely -- if by "freely" you mean "using only clips we allow, and without 'nudity, pornography, and the like.'" Just guessing, but "the like" wouldn't possibly translate to "the gay," would it?

To the extent that Lucasfilm now officially tolerates "assailing characters or casting them in unexpected lights" and "fiction that expands the 'Star Wars' saga beyond the original storylines," that's great news. But the announced limits on that tolerance disturb me. Perhaps the actual terms of use, when they're available, will assuage my concerns. But I'm not hopeful.

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

You know what scares me? Tell me if I'm wrong. Let's say a lot of fans embrace this, but then there are fans who don't. The fans who don't continue to find more creative means of getting their source material, and they mix with porn or make slash or whatever. I'd think those wild fans would have less of a fair use defense now, because the owner has made clips available specifically for remixing; the studio would now have a stronger argument that there is room for bargaining and that the unlicensed works cut into the studio's revenue by interfering with their promotional schemes.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

As usual, the argument could go either way. The fact that the copyright owner tolerates almost everything might make its remaining restrictions seem more censorious, and thus give the now-feral fan a better transformativeness defense (along with the argument that there's obviously no market harm because the copyright owner has plainly demonstrated unwillingness to enter this particular market). But your version has force as well, and the now-feral fan would have to be willing to fight.

This is why we need a fan-run archive that's willing to fight!