Etsy sellers are turning free fanfiction into printed and bound physical books, and listing them for sale on online marketplaces for more than $100 per book. It’s a problem that’s rattling the authors of those fanfics, as well as their fans and readers.

Several sellers, easily found on Etsy and very popular, each with hundreds of five-star reviews, are selling copies of fanfiction taken from sites like Archive of Our Own (Ao3) and reselling them as bound books. The average price of these bound copies is around $149. Some sellers claim that they’re simply covering the cost of materials, while others just sell the books, usually with the fanfiction writers’ Ao3 username on the cover.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    Then everything is fair-use because everything is based on another person’s copyrighted material.

    Lol

    This is about fanfiction. There’s a HUGE difference between fanfiction and using tropes or cliches common in other media.