Well, issues about Heidi specifically aside (and certainly I have them), what fascinates me is this (snipped):

Naomi_Board what would happen if someone got sued and needed help and the OTW was going to help them
Naomi_Board is we would try with help from EFF and Stanford Fair Use to find a lawyer who would represent them
Naomi_Board and our legal team would help with advice and their expert knowledge
Naomi_Board about fandom

So, basically, in the course of this chat and the previous one, they've said:

• We may not have financial resources to help everyone, so we may have to pick and choose which cases we help with


• Even if we decide to help you, we're just providing money and advice to you-- none of the lawyers on our legal advisory board would actually represent you. But we'd try to help you find someone who would!

I mean, hell, I can beg the EFF or the Stanford Fair Use project to help me on my own. If that's the plan, I'm unclear how likely the EFF would be to intervene. Brad Templeton has been on record for years saying that fanfiction qualifies as a derivative work and is illegal.

I kind of assumed that with their statement of purpose and having a legal board, they were actually going to represent you.

Silly me.

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But they will be there to explain to your lawyer what a fandom is, right?

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They'll explain to your lawyer how fan fiction is transformative and thus fair use - probably as effectively as they've explained it to the rest of us. :)

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