thebibliosphere:

nanasamantha:

evilwriter37:

IMPORTANT

@flurbejurbvondurp

This is so fucking stupid. Why can’t artists and writers even give the option of pay? It’s not like anybody is holding a gun to reader’s heads forcing them to donate. It’s donated money! You’re telling me Article 13 removes people’s option to even donate???

Article 13 is causing all sorts of bullshit, but this is nothing new for Ao3 and it’s important for folk to know. Writers or anyone hosting content on Ao3 should never ever link back to a ko-fi or patreon or even mention needing donations due to legal restrictions placed on Ao3 in order to exist. If you are found out or reported, they can delete your account.

So the way Ao3 works? Is that the only way they can protect us from content creators and their legal teams, is to be like “hey, look, this is transformative work for fun! It earns no money!” And that’s how they get around what many authors still in this day and age think of as plagiarism and defemataion.

It’s actually in Ao3′s Terms of Services, not because they are monsters who don’t want you to thrive, but because it’s the only way to protect fan creators from the proverbial wolf at the door. I’m just old enough to remember when Anne Rice and Star Wars were going after people and filing official take downs for fan works and threatening to sue people. I know actual people who got real letters telling them to take down their fanzine or else.

And every time I see someone creating a patreon or ko-fi for the fanfic, my heart jumps up into my mouth. Like sure, let people know you have those things? But don’t have tiers that say things like “fanfic updates”. And for the love of god never post links to them in your Ao3. @deadcatwithaflamethrower nearly lost their account some years ago because they mentioned having a donation drive on their tumblr and someone reported them.

(via kenjie11)