Guys, I want to introduce you to the Organization for Transformative Works, or OTW.
Some of you have heard of them before, most likely as the group that built AO3. But these guys are doing seriously important work for fandom, in many directions.
They’re building AO3 (and it is a work in progress) so that fans will have a fanwork archive which embraces fanworks of all sorts, which implements modern usability and accessibility principles, and which employs professional standards for tagging, searching, sorting and categorization of fanworks. That may sound snoozeworthy to many of you, but the bottom line is, when you start amassing a lot of data in one place, you need to employ good information management or else all those fanfics may as well not exist because you’ll never find them again. OTW has given fans access to the skills and professional services you can find in libraries, archives and museums.
They’re also the force behind Fanlore, the wiki that exists to archive the history of fandom as a community. Does that sound cute? Well, it’s an effort to document the history of fandom. As many of you know, what doesn’t get written down never happened, as far as history is concerned. Fanlore is an effort toward giving fandom a voice, and a basis for scholarly documentation and legitimacy moving into the future.
The OTW also promotes the legitimacy of fandom and fanworks by publishing a peer-reviewed academic journal for the scholarship of fanworks and practices: Transformative Works and Cultures.
And last but sure as hell not least, the OTW fights information policy battles all over the US to support and expand the legitimacy of fan activities and the creation of what’s legally known as ‘transformative works’—using creative works that already exist to make new creative works.
Hark to this, my fen, because here is the legal grey area in which fandom resides: Transformative works are legally recognized as culturally enriching and worthy of legal protection. Derivative works—works wherein all you’re doing is copying and ripping off somebody else—are not. The argument rages as to whether fanworks represent transformative or derivative works, powered on one hand by copyright protectionists such as the MIAA and MPAA, and on the other hand by businesses such as Google and non-profit organizations such as the OTW and the ALA (yes, librarians are fighting for your rights! Just in case you wondered why you see so many of them around here these days).
This is the great work that the OTW is doing. When fans come under attack for creating their works, the OTW offers legal advocacy services to represent us in court. This year, they went to bat before the US Supreme Court to win exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so that fan practices such as vidding have legal protection. Because the DMCA is so broad, the law includes the right for members of the public to submit requests for exceptions to its copyright protections every three years. Some of these exceptions include private citizens having the legal right to jailbreak their cell phones and the ability for instructors to create copies of excerpts from copyrighted material for educational purposes. Every three years, these exceptions also come up for renewal or expiration. This year, many exceptions were up for renewal, including the right for fan vidders to rip DVDs for use in creating fanvids. The OTW not only convinced lawmakers to renew that permission, but also successfully got it extended to cover Netflix streams and other sources (though interestingly, not Blu-Ray).
So this is long, but I’m not cutting it because this is something people in fandom need to know about. This is your passion and your personal life, and it’s the growth and richness of our culture. It’s happening here, by and through us, and the Organization for Transformative Works is fighting for us.
So with all that said—and keeping in mind that I am myself in no way affiliated with the OTW, other than having an AO3 account—if you ever find yourself in possession of extra money or extra time you feel like flinging somewhere, the OTW operates largely on donations and volunteer effort.