on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 06:42 am UTC (link)

And also, WTF? Helloooooo there is INDEED A PAYING MARKET FOR M/M WORKS AIMED AT WOMEN, mostly in ebooks.

And, apparently, it can pay pretty well.

"And if I think any of it is worth it I'll be more than happy to steal it off the various pirate comms I am a part of on LJ and many other forums on the internet. :) Seriously, why would I give any ignorant money grabbing lying capitalist any of my hard-earned cash? Especially when they've still got so much to apologise for?"

While this attitude isn't representative of everyone in fandom, it's not entirely uncommon. That's actually the primary issue I have with fandom-- so, people argue that fanfiction is entirely legal, we're law-abiding citizens, etc. That very well may be true, but fandom does tolerate many clearly illegal activities-- e.g., fansubs, distribution of episodes via BitTorrent, complete show transcripts.

I'm not going to claim I'm better than anyone else in that regard, because I've certainly done all three of the things listed above. I will generally buy legal copies of things when they're available, though. Outside of fansubs, I only download shows when the network mistimes them and TiVo cuts off the last 1-2 minutes (FOX has done this a couple of times with House). Generally, I only use transcripts for shows I already own legal copies of-- if I'm looking for the episode with a particular scene, I want something I can search, and legal printed books of transcripts just don't give me that.

I also know that a lot of people in fandom are college students, and I remember very well what it was like to be a college student and have absolutely no money to spend-- so that's a front on which I feel a lot of sympathy. (They'd buy things if they could afford them; they can't.)

Not everyone's in that boat, however. And the fact that there's a lot of tolerance for illegal distribution in fandom seems to support attitudes like those shown in the quote-- we are fandom, so we are ENTITLED to everything being free.

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 06:48 am UTC (link)

Yeah, I don't get the ignorance. Even if you are not in anime fandom and so don't know about the BL market, there still is stuff like Torquere press. I do not understand the IT IS EVIL AND WRONG argument when the people who sell the stuff are getting compensated and everything seems to be above board.

Yeah. Although, with that, it's more like 'I can get it free, so I will,' most of the time, and not 'Capitalism is wrong, therefore, it is right to pirate!' So I am not shocked at the piracy, I'm more shocked at the way she's saying it to Aris_tgd's face. It's kind of like the attitude that people are wrong to sell things, that I find striking. I mean, people pirate mp3s all the time. Yet, no one would say that musicians are doing anything wrong by starting an mp3 shop to sell their mp3s, or by selling it on iTunes.

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Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 06:57 am UTC (link)

I mean, people pirate mp3s all the time. Yet, no one would say that musicians are doing anything wrong by starting an mp3 shop to sell their mp3s, or by selling it on iTunes.

But they do think that musicians who attempt to police pirated MP3s are evil/mockworthy/poor sports. Consider Metallica. So, it's okay to attempt to sell your own MP3s, but you should never object to piracy (especially if you're rich).

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 07:05 am UTC (link)

Ah... But IMHO, it's not really the same thing, and anyway, not really a fandom-specific attitude. I just think it's out of the ordinary to object to people selling their original stories in a magazine, and the claim that marketing content similar to slash is somehow objectionable too.

(LOL, now I really do wish that the domestic m/m market would take off. Wouldn't it be interesting if several years from now we did have one, where in a normal bookstore you would see all of these m/m romance novels?)

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Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 07:19 am UTC (link)

I just think it's out of the ordinary to object to people selling their original stories in a magazine, and the claim that marketing content similar to slash is somehow objectionable too.

No, I agree with that.

But I do wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that the poster is male. One of the biggest sources of outrage over Fanlib was that it was run by men-- men trying to cash in on a female activity, those evil bastards, etc. If a woman were talking about starting a m/m original fiction publishing house or magazine, people would probably be all in favor.

Wouldn't it be interesting if several years from now we did have one, where in a normal bookstore you would see all of these m/m romance novels?

Very.

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	Re: on a slight tangent charmian 2008-12-26 07:24 am UTC (link)
	Ehhh, but it was quickly explained that most of the people involved are female, and it's bradhanon who is male. Aris_tgd seems to outrank him, and she's female. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 07:39 am UTC (link)

The problem is presentation, as well. If you say, "I love m/m fiction, and I want to support women who also love it with publication!" you probably get a better response than when you say, "There's an unexploited market, and I want to get in on it."

I'm cynical enough to believe that anytime someone says the first thing, they actually usually mean the second. (Oops. Did I say cynical? I usually say "realistic.")

Anyway, the second says, "I'm an outsider" and the first says, "I'm an insider." This seems to be a very important concept in fandom.

So, there are problems of (1) male speaker (no matter how much power he actually has in the enterprise) and (2) outsider (exploiting people who love writing m/m fiction). Of course, there's a question of how much you're being exploited when someone's actually paying you for doing work, but, clearly, that's being ignored. (Because the consumers of free m/m slash are being exploited!)

Of course, it's not as if the free porn is going to vanish from the earth or anything. So, who cares?

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 07:50 am UTC (link)

Wait, and I thought people were complaining that the mainstream money-grubbing capitalist market ignores them? Like 'such and such showrunner doesn't think women are watching this show' or 'such and such folk don't think that a show with lesbians/gays will sell.'

Frankly, that attitude just really... FRUSTRATES me about fandom. Maybe it's because when you come from a different fandom, who is 'outsider' and who is 'insider' get blurred.

Well... I personally don't think someone who is getting paid a fair rate is exploited? Nor is someone who buys a producted necessarily exploited.

In some ways, that is what I was wondering... they're not threatening to get rid of the free stuff, so...

Well, in a way, I guess I COULD see that fear. If we had a really robust m/m market, some of the popular fanwriters might want to go pro (in fanfic writer land, there are two groups, one who are in it for the show, and one who are in it for the audience. If the latter group could leave fandom, write whatever they want, and still have an audience/community?), and then they would stop producing free work. So, the average quality of the free stuff would go down, and 'm/m for women' fandom would become more like SFF online fandom and romance novel fandom, with more of a pro atmosphere.

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Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 07:59 am UTC (link)

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 08:47 am UTC (link)

Indeed they do...

Apparently so. But yeah, that is one of the justifications for copyright law, that bragging rights, feedback, and community are "not enough" to spur the creation of works. So I think that is something to also take into consideration. Of course though, this might be sort of a taboo in fandom? To acknowledge that it is difficult to find the good writers ("what do you mean the reccing system isn't good enough?") or there writers might be more motivated to produce if given filthy lucre ("what do you mean that the adulation of fans and feedback isn't enough?!")

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 07:54 am UTC (link)

Obviously, I generalize with the 'two groups' and their discretness: what I mean is that while there are a group of fans who write for love of the show and the characters and are rabid about IC, there is another group who kind of take things farther and will write create fanon and believe that is a good thing, who write AUs so far off that they could file off the serial numbers and sell it as original, etc.

And there are fans who only read about shows and characters they love, and fans who will just read fanfic even if they haven't seen the show, just for the writing. The latter group is a good potential audience for original stuff.

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Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 08:10 am UTC (link)

There are a few people who will read fanfic for particular characters only, and will read in a variety of genres as long as it's about a particular character. (I, for example, would pretty much read anything about Snape.) However, really, if you're reading m/m slash, by and large, it's that you want to be reading m/m slash.

Most fans will also consume original material-- they have to, or they wouldn't have a fandom at all.

So, I think the market's potentially large...

...but I'm curious how embarrassed people are by their reading habits. One of the differences between online reading and printed books is the actual possession of something other people can see. Online, clear your cache-- as long as no one's looking over your shoulder, who's to know what you do? Offline, you have a book with men in a romance-novel style clinch on the cover. Are you willing to read it on the bus? There are people who are embarrassed to admit they read romance novels.

I'm curious to what degree people are embarrassed to admit they read slash when outside anonymous online communities, and, therefore, to what degree this would impact purchase of professionally printed material.

[No way to answer this, of course, but there is some level of stigma attached to slash, or it wouldn't be upsetting for people to tell your employer you write it. (That it's fanfiction is not the part that might upset said employer.)]

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 08:44 am UTC (link)

Yeah.

Well, or because m/m slash is the only place you can find any fanfic in your fandom or about your favorite character, as well.

I'm not sure... Maybe they make book covers? Or they could make generic covers without bare chested men embracing. Anyway, I'm not sure. In Japan they sell bookcovers (they usually ask you if you want one when you buy a book), so you can cover up your books on the train or in public, whatever they are.

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 06:54 am UTC (link)

Okay, I guess the difference to me is, in anime fandom, there is tons of piracy, and IMHO it is probably even more piratical than Western media fandom (I mean, stuff like HP, probably most of the people bought all of the books). Yet, if someone said something like 'I'm gonna be a pro comic book artist!!!' you wouldn't GET this kind of reaction. People are divided on the quality of OEL manga, but they're not like 'lying money-grubbing capitalists besmirch fandom by trying to sell to us fans!'

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Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 07:04 am UTC (link)

Anime fandom is a bit different from Western media fandom in general, though, and I think we agree on that.

'lying money-grubbing capitalists besmirch fandom by trying to sell to us fans!'

But if an anime is licensed and the license holder attempts to suppress fansubs, you see the same outrage as when Metallica went after Napster.

You're right that the concept that you aren't allowed to make any money off of original works is weird-- and I think it's fringe in Western media fandom, too. I think there is an underlying sense of entitlement in fandom in general, though, so it doesn't shock me to see people espousing this sort of thing.

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Re: on a slight tangent

charmian
2008-12-26 07:07 am UTC (link)

Really? Nowadays a lot of fansubbers just voluntarily stop, and the trackers stop carrying them.

It seems that a lot of people are approvingly citing these comments, though. So I wonder, how fringe is it really? (especially considering how capitalistic a lot of the things popular in fandom are. Published books have a 3-4% profit margin. TV and movie industries are a lot more profitable, and thus more capitalistic...)

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Re: on a slight tangent

white_serpent
2008-12-26 07:16 am UTC (link)

Really? Nowadays a lot of fansubbers just voluntarily stop, and the trackers stop carrying them.

The original fansubbers stopped doing Slayers Revolution when hit with a C&D by Funimation, and those episodes disappeared from the trackers.

You should not take this to mean that there was not outrage within Slayers fandom (such as it is) directed against Funimation. You should also not take this to mean that no further subs were made.

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	And also. white_serpent 2008-12-26 06:46 am UTC (link)
	(So now capitalist=anyone who wishes to make money off of their labor, or anyone who wishes to start a business?) Minitrue in action? Obviously, you can identify capitalists because they wear top hats. Duh. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: And also. charmian 2008-12-26 06:51 am UTC (link)
	I guess I'm just shocked by how capitalist (in that sense) seems to have become a dirty word. I had no idea fandom is soc!alism in action for so many. (whoops, forgot that we cannot talk about that political philosophy on JF) (Reply to this)(Parent)