Some people are going to get suuuued.

Ah yes, handcrafted stolen fanfiction. Exactly what I shop Etsy for. More seriously, I feel for the fanfiction authors. Not only is someone profiting off your work, but this is the kind of thing that gets the attention of copyright holders that fanfiction authors generally don’t want.

Down the chats of the official Fanlore discord server lately (of which I have been in for the past few months), they’ve been discussing this kind of transgression alongside the HP fanfic debacle (specifically, the Manacled one, of which upon its reworked professional release by its fanfic author gained enough controversy within and outside the fandom that it warranted for a wiki article on its own).

Also, one editor has suggested using “illegal fic binding” in place of the term "illegal “fanbinding” as the latter connotes the non-profit work with a for-profit tone in a negative way. Another has noted that het (in other words, F/M) fanfics sell much more than other pairing-centered ones, and attract more outsiders willing to buy that much for an illegal fic-binded copy, in disrespect to those original authors; throw the franchise copyright shenanigans in, and there we have the entire panfandom world at a crossroads battlefield against those recklessly profiteering for the sake of it.

Also, as a side note, there’s also this recently-created wiki article section about said fannish controversy:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Fannish_Bookbinding#Criticism_and_Controversies

So like normal stealing without putting a LLM in between? Classy.

I kinda understand the pain of those fanfic writers who sent time to write those stories. But book printing and binding for small numbers of print is really expensive. And I’m sure a lot of book lovers would love to have physical versions of their favorite works. So I am sure the situation will continue until things change in the publishing industry.

I’m wondering if the authors could file DMCA claims against Etsy, for a start (“I used evil to destroy evil”).

Beyond that, I feel the problem is mostly that these binding people do not get permission to transfer medium in the first place, and then make it worse by selling the printed copies? A fanfic author themself should be legally able to print and bind their own story on their own (they both hold the copyright and are costing the materials) or pay someone else to do it (they hold the copyright and they grant a one-use license to the binder).

It’d be interesting to officiate the OTW to see what do they think of this, since they have held quite some anti-author positions in the last few years such as the idea that other people can profit off people’s fanfiction but the authors themselves can’t even have an online tip jar.