What's the point of a revolution without general copulation?

And a second QOTD

2013-05-20T23:22:29Z

Women read comics and are a driving force behind fandom. I think I could call them the driving force behind fandom and put up a convincing argument. Just think about it: what fandoms have driven America crazy in the last decade? Could anyone dissuade me from saying that they were Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games? "Avatar" may have put butts in theater seats, but you don't hear about it... ever. No one is immersed in the world of "Avatar" except James Cameron and people who enjoy wearing Na'vi Zentai suits. "The Avengers" was pretty darn huge and, if Tumblr is any indication, a whopping portion of the people driving that fandom online do not possess a Y chromosome. Women engage in fandom to levels that men do not. When women get behind something, their sheer numbers and passion force it into the mainstream. That's why you can name the actor who plays that werewolf kid in "Twilight" and probably sing at least the chorus to one Justin Bieber song. What do tween boys like? I have no clue. Sports? Probably sports.

-- Brett White

(as seen on Tumblr, because everything is)

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For those of you upset about fandom migration to Tumblr

2013-05-19T18:48:57Z

No worries, Yahoo just bought it. So we can all expect functionality destroyed and a migration back to journals in short order.

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This thing about Superman's dog

2013-05-07T00:32:36Z

is everything beautiful about fandom.

(via rivkat)

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AO3 is one of Time's 50 best websites of 2013

2013-05-06T19:01:53Z

here. So cute!

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Oh yikes

2013-05-06T07:48:51Z

So all over Tumblr I'd seen these references to something that happened at a New Jersey SPN convention, involving Jensen Ackles somehow doing/saying something homophobic, but I couldn't figure out the specifics. Someone finally posted the details to Fandom Wank. Although I should warn, it isn't wanky at all - it's just awful and depressing.

Edit: And now I'm not sure the FW post is entirely accurate - it's possible it confused two different people. FW links to this at the end, but there's also this post, from someone else.

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Sherlock BBC

2013-04-25T09:19:10Z

Wait ... so, what happened?

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More on that disappearing fourth wall

2013-04-23T07:55:58Z

CBS is now posting fanart for Person of Interest. How very Teen Wolf of you, CBS.

*Of course, CBS is skipping, umm, those images.

**I don't think? they necessarily got permission from the artists? But they do seem to be posting credits and links to the original, where they can find them.

Edit: tenillypo says that they are asking artist permission.

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Interesting meta on how LJ shaped fannish discourse

2013-04-04T09:28:54Z

She compares discussions on LJ to discussions on mailing lists. Of course, the article only begs the question - and what about Tumblr? Which, among other things, allows you to block fandom-specific tags, and search them out?

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Dear Characters Who Are Engaged in Shady Dealings

2013-03-31T12:29:20Z

Assurances by your business partners that you will "get what you deserve" should never allay concerns about payment.

Love,
Me.

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So.... Digital Spy made a fanvid?

2013-03-21T17:23:14Z

Honestly, the line just keeps getting thinner.

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Watching a "fandom confessions" type community -

2013-03-15T15:13:07Z

it's like a constant struggle to decide whether the pleasure derived from the delightful confessions outweighs getting periodically smacked in the face by surprise violent misogyny.

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I have a question

2013-03-03T21:12:17Z

I have never watched The Sentinel, but I know the basic premise. I've read a lot of Sentinel fusions with other fandoms (i.e., Steve is a Sentinel and Danny is his Guide! Sherlock Holmes is a Sentinel and Watson is his Guide! Derek Hale is a Sentinel and Stiles is his Guide! John Reese is a Sentinel and Finch is his Guide! Erik Lehnsherr is a Sentinel and Charles Xavier is his Guide! etc).

(not for nothing, but you could do a whole massive meta on fannish slash archetypes just by categorizing characters as Sentinels and Guides. But I digress.)

One thing that seems to be very common in these fusion stories is that the universe knows of, and accepts, the existence of Sentinels, and there's some sort of "Center" where Sentinels are treated for Sentinel-specific mental conditions, hooked up with Guides, etc.

But I'd always thought that in the actual Sentinel series, the existence of Sentinels was not generally known.

So, is this all fanon? The idea of Sentinels as generally known, Centers to treat them, and so on? Because if so, it's remarkably consistent across fandom fusions.

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QOTD

2013-02-04T01:02:41Z

Gina Bellman (Sophie on Leverage):

We would gather in the studio to view the fan videos, made in homage to favourite characters or story lines. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Leverage fan vids are posted on YouTube, some of them expertly edited little treasures in their own right and receiving up to 40,000 hits. My favourite is a parody in which our characters are edited into a South Park spoof.

At some point, we started referring to fans by their names and avatars. A few were invited to the set, appearing as extras and hanging out with the cast.

o_O.

(via china_shop)

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I love how Festivids proves that no matter how obscure your fannish interests

2012-12-20T14:55:54Z

there is at least one other person who's right there with you.

(I suppose Yuletide does the same, of course, but I'm not as directly involved.)

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So here is a video of the cast of VDiaries reading NC-17 fanfiction

2012-12-16T17:06:40Z

There is one example of slash in the mix, and it's femmeslash, but it's the wrong pairing.

I don't really ... approve ... of this sort of thing, in the sense that it's obviously done in a spirit of mockery. Yet I link because I assume that at least some on my FList will take an interest.

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Sigh.

2012-12-16T16:31:33Z

Generally, all other things being equal, I prefer canon stories (or "canon AU" - canon changed just enough to, say, create a happy ending instead of tragedy, XMFC), but there are plenty of AUs in plenty of fandoms that I have enjoyed tremendously.

That said, if you write an AU of a character whose entire personality is defined by a specific set of overwhelming traumas (Dean Winchester, Erik Lensherr, Derek Hale), and you want to keep basically the same characterization, you've really got to come up with some explanation for it. A different trauma will do; otherwise, they're just going to end up somewhere between diva and psycho killer.

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In the category of Tumblr creating new art forms

2012-12-15T09:44:34Z

This is a GIF series about the male characters from Supernatural meeting their female selves from an alternate dimension, and it is awesome.

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This isn't anything people on my FList haven't said before* -

2012-12-09T22:06:01Z

but it's the kind of thing that bears endless repeating: PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical

*But I didn't know that about the women pirates! When do we get a movie?

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Here are two interesting social media stories

2012-12-06T23:25:40Z

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten resigns amid online commenting scandal in his office

Amid a metastasizing scandal in his office, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten announced his resignation at a news conference Thursday morning, ending an 11-year run in the post.

The troubles for Letten began in March, when landfill owner Fred Heebe -- the target of a sprawling federal probe -- filed a civil lawsuit alleging that prosecutor Sal Perricone had been using an online alias to savage him and other federal targets in comments posted at NOLA.com.

Perricone, the office's senior litigation counsel and a member of Letten's inner circle, quickly admitted his sins and resigned. The matter was referred to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility for investigation, and the scandal seemed to die down.

In an interview with New Orleans magazine published in August, Perricone insisted the commenting brouhaha started and ended with him, saying no one else in the office had been aware of his activities.

But last month, the scandal reignited with a vengeance, when Heebe filed a second defamation suit, this one claiming [Letten's longtime First Assistant, Jan] Mann had been commenting about federal targets and judges as "eweman" on NOLA.com. Many of the comments by "eweman" were adjacent to comments made by Perricone under one of his online aliases, suggesting a coordinated campaign.

Mann soon admitted she had commented online at NOLA.com, but did not cop to a specific alias.

[Judge] Engelhardt ... issued a stinging order in late November in which he essentially accused Mann and Perricone of untruthfulness.

In particular, the judge was upset by a letter Mann sent him in October in which she wrote: "Prior to the Perricone incident, I was not a follower of NOLA.com postings and had no real sense of what was happening there."

And then there's Netflix Gets Wells Notice Over CEO Hastings’ Facebook Post:

Netflix and CEO Reed Hastings both received Wells Notices from the SEC, according to a filing this afternoon related to something Hastings wrote on Facebook back in June.

Shares are taking it pretty well. The stock is down only about 1.5% in late trading, at $84.85.

A Wells notice is a notification from a securities regulator that it intends to recommend enforcement action and affords the respondent an opportunity to explain why such an action is not appropriate.

Back in July, Hastings wrote on his Facebook page that Netflix users had streamed more than 1 billion hours of video in June. The SEC is apparently looking into whether or not that violates fair-disclosure rules.

What's this about?

Well, there's an SEC regulation known as Regulation Fair Disclosure ("FD"). It was passed in 2000, to prevent what was then a prevalent practice of corporations leaking inside "scoops" about their business to favored market analysts, who then used their inside information to make stock recommendations. The whole thing became incredibly manipulative during the whole dot com bubble, when these market analysts purported to rely on proprietary information to cheer favored stocks (i.e., the ones their employers did business with), and then there was a big tech stock crash, so the SEC passed Reg FD, which basically says that if the company gives material information to someone, it has to give it to everyone - no more selective leaks.

There's a fairly regimented mechanism by which companies release new information to the public. They file it with the SEC - and those filings are available electronically - and they use particular forms for particular types of information. Generally, if new information comes up suddenly, it's released on Form 8-K.

At the same time, as we all know, most companies now maintain a Facebook page, where they post little PR updates. Which is what happened when Netflix's CEO posted this:

Congrats to Ted Sarandos, and his amazing content licensing team. Netflix monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June. When House of Cards and Arrested Development debut, we'll blow those records away! Keep going, Ted, we need even more!

Netflix's Facebook page has over 200,000 followers - many of whom are reporters and bloggers. And they picked up the story and Netflix's stock price rose. But Netflix never formally issued a press release, and it did not file any 8-Ks with the SEC.

In response, the SEC just issued a notice indicating that it intends to bring a civil action against Netflix and its CEO for violating Regulation FD. Now, it sounds like the SEC doesn't intend to ask for any monetary penalties - it only wants to issue a C&D order or a civil injunction, so Netflix won't take much of a hit - but, it still raises eyebrows.

On the one hand, Netflix's position is - our Facebook page has 200,000 followers! How much more public do you need?

But I assume the SEC's position is something like - if you're an investor looking for information about Netflix, you might reasonably want to go only to official sources of info - SEC filings, press releases, that sort of thing. You wouldn't necessarily expect relevant information to be released on a Facebook page. And that would mean you'd be at an unfair disadvantage when trading - especially since people can trade on new info very, very quickly. The difference may only be for a few minutes, but that's enough.

But on the third hand, lots and lots of companies have Facebook pages and blogs and the line between "cute bit of positive PR" and "material information that should have been filed with the SEC" might be hard for them to navigate, especially given the informal nature of blogging.

But on the fourth hand, what if Netflix had used its Facebook page to announce its quarterly earnings, which is a major piece of market moving information? Or even something more drastic, like an impending merger or bankruptcy?

So, it's a quandary.

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Tweet of the Day

2012-11-20T08:54:47Z

Here is what would be amazing: Little girls being absolute dicks to grown men for being "fake bronies."
— Chris Sims (@theisb) November 15, 2012

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Let's call it a victory for fans everywhere

2012-11-08T09:05:04Z

The Maine state senate candidate who was attacked by her opponents for playing World of Warcraft won her race, with support from gamers. Who, as it turns out, are allowed to vote, too.

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This post is for the aca-fans

2012-11-01T23:39:25Z

I am become history. And don't forget to follow the OP's link.

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Now that I'm back at a computer

2012-10-25T22:43:54Z

Yay, we won!

What all of this is about (rivkat or anyone else more knowledgeable than myself, feel free to correct me if I get the details wrong):

Under U.S. copyright law, you are allowed to make limited copies of some copyrighted works - or excerpts of copyrighted works - that are deemed to be "fair use." Like, for example, quoting a few lines of a movie or a book in order to write a review. A critical aspect of the inquiry into whether something is deemed a "fair use" is whether it is transformative - whether it changes the original into a new work, especially one that comments on/criticizes the original work. Organizations like the OTW and the EFF have long argued that vids (and other fan works) are transformative and are fair use of the original works. There is very little direct legal precedent about this; though copyright holders may send out the occasional threatening letter, most don't actually sue fans for nonprofit fan creations.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has a provision that imposes special penalties for anyone who circumvents the copy protection on electronic media. These penalties - which can be quite onerous - apply regardless of whether the "use" was fair. That is, you could break the copy protection on a DVD to make the fairest-use ever new work, and still be, technically, in violation of the DMCA and subject to very harsh penalties. In other words, your new, transformative work could be totally not infringing on the original copyright, and you'd be subject to penalties anyway. The DMCA imposes penalties for breaking a lock - it doesn't matter why you broke the lock.

But the DMCA has a provision that says that the Library of Congress can create exemptions to these provisions when the situation warrants it. People can petition for an exemption, interested parties can oppose it, the Library of Congress holds hearings, hears testimony, and then makes a decision. Even if they do create an exemption, it has to be periodically renewed, and the advocates have to once again prove their need for the exemption every time.

In 2010, the OTW and EFF scored a huge victory by convincing the Library of Congress to create an exemption from the DMCA for vidders who break the copy protection on DVDs to make vids, if those vids would otherwise constitute fair use of the material. The Library of Congress did not say that all vids are fair use. What it did say is that there was enough evidence that some vids are fair use - the OTW and EFF showed them examples of several explicitly political vids - to justify creating an exemption for vids that would otherwise constitute fair use of the material.

In 2012, the OTW and EFF had to petition again to have the same exemption renewed. At the same time, they also petitioned to expand it to cover people who break copy protection on digital downloads, like from iTunes or Amazon Unbox. This is really important because - as I believe AbsoluteDestiny pointed out at some point - DVD technology won't be around forever; sooner or later, everything will be digital downloads.

But the reality was, there was a new Register of Copyrights, one who was on record as being more hostile to fair use rights, and the OTW and EFF didn't have that much hope they'd win the exemption.

In support of their petition, the OTW and EFF filed this petition. The industry opposed it with their own submission, and the OTW and EFF filed a reply. All of these documents discuss specific vidders and vids, and the reply in particular has lots of quotes from vidders, so they make for interesting reading. There were also hearings, where OTW members testified about vids, and the need for high-quality footage that could only be obtained by breaking encryption.

(I posted about this under FLock here and here after I kind of got drawn into it - my vid, It Depends on What You Pay, was used by the OTW/EFF - with my permission - as an example of a fair-use vid made with Amazon Unbox footage; in response, the industry apparently went to my website on their own, chose a vid they believed was not fair use and did infringe on copyright, and listed it as an example of an infringing, unprotected vid in their submission. Which was ... unnerving.)

Anyhoo, today, the OTW and EFF emerged victorious - as did we all. They won both the renewal of the exemption for ripping DVDs, and the new exemption for breaking copy protection on digital downloads. Technically, this is a report and recommendation of the Register of Copyrights to the Librarian of Congress, but the Librarian for the most part follows these recommendations, so it's great news.

Now, this does not mean that vids are protected from copyright claims - this exemption is an exception to the extra penalties imposed by the DMCA for breaking encryption. And the exemption is limited - it assumes that the vids are noncommercial (although they define noncommercial to include things like vids made for charity auctions or other similar commissions), that the vids and the clips used are very short, and that the vids are made for the purpose of comment or criticism (obviously, that's vague - OTW-types will define that broadly; the industry will define it narrowly).

But it's still a huge deal, and part of the really important project (I think) of recognizing fannish works as valuable and according them the legal protections they deserve. And the existence of the exemption explains that the Register believes that at least some vids are fair use, even if the actual ruling here is about the DMCA, and not fair use itself.

So, yay!

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Sexual intercourse began in 1963

2012-10-15T08:57:04Z

(Seriously, this is rather adorable, even if I take issue with his framing. Via tumblr.)

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Apparently ...

2012-10-06T21:03:49Z

BBC Merlin is learning from Teen Wolf.

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