FanLib
Once upon a time, there was a film producer, an internet whiz and a CEO.
Together they invested three million and created Fanlib, a multi-fandom archive for fanfiction. The plan was to make money of these fics and somehow "build a bridge between fandom and corporations" or something like that.

They started by spamming inviting a select few authors. Most invited authors either ignore the entire thing (probably because the invitation mail sounds like an offer for a seedy credit card) or got upset.

Then fandom, at least the Lj part, kinda explodes as the fanfic authors gather to blog about how and why they dislike Fanlib.

But oh! This hurts the feelings of the Fanlib CEO. And the real wanking starts...

I'm Chris one of the founders of FanLib> it's really late and i have been working on the site all day. I'm exhausted but i just realized what was going on here and all of the commentsts are making me sick.

i care deeply about what you think but this is crazy. we're good people here and you make us sound like we're an evil corporation or the govt. sending your kids to war or something.

Aw. Poor baby.

Icarusancalion has a pretty good summary of the entire story so far. Also, stewardess has gathered a bunch of links but the wank is spread all over lj and beyond.

Special highlights include feminism, is-fanfic-illegal-or-not? disucssions and of course the Fanlib people trying to defend their company.

I especially like how, a bit down in this thread, jdsampson who works for Fanlib, tries to avoid answering questions by dissing ff.net
chicgeekchick : The question is how do YOU get paid. Who signs your paycheck and where does THAT money come from? Where does the money to pay the webmaster and the server comes from? The ads? The sponsors? Do you run this place at a loss? Or do you gain something? If so, how?

jdsampson : Fanlib is a company - Fanlib.com is not the only thing they run. We have been running fan events online for several years, we are currently running huge promotion called IntheMotherHood.com with spring, MSN, The Ellen Show and we're working on an event for one of the biggest media brands around which will be unvieled shortly. Those events pay the bills. And what also amazes me about the question is why does no one ask it of Fanfic.net. Do you have any idea how much money they really make.

It's much more than it takes to run the servers.

ETA: The whole mess has inspired the creation of a new, fanrun multi-fandom archive. Of course this suggestion also creates some wank.