Several popular shops, which clearly violated Etsy's terms of use and IP laws, were deleted after 404 Media reached out for comment.

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.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Yeah. You hold some rights. For example, you don’t get the rights to the characters or setting since they’re not original, but you do get the rights to the unique events that happen in your plot.

    For example, if you write “Harry Potter Goes to France”, Harry Potter is obviously not yours, but the story of going to France is new and original. If you wanted, you could reskin that story with some original wizard kid and be fully in the clear.

    Hypothetically, anyway. I’m not sure that this has been tested in court.

    • FaceDeer@kbin.social
      0·
      9 months ago

      Famously, “50 Shades of Grey” started out as a Twilight fanfic. The author later pulled out all of the Twilight-related stuff and then it was free and clear to publish as their own work. Given how much money 50 Shades raked in I would imagine there’s been some legal scrutiny there from various sides.