There's a couple of issues with all of that. First is that you cannot give away certain rights without express consent, and exclusive distribution rights to a copyrighted work are one of those things. the FFn TOS is unenforcible. Additionally, many of the users are not legally old enough to enter into a contract, and many don't even have a common jurisdiction.

All that aside, this author's request may cause the site to go down for a while.

EDIT:

As a side note, I find it hilarious for a fanfiction author to complain about the distribution rights of their story... hilarious, ironic and hypocritical.

 

I don't find it ironic or hypocritical, though perhaps a bit pedantic. I can understand authors wanting to have control over how their work is distributed, formatted, and presented. On the other hand, if they expected to always keep that control then they never should have put it online on a public website.

In your case, I don't know what to think. I'd have thought that a system which automatically turns a fanfiction author's story into an ebook so that it's more convenient for their readership would've been a win-win situation. Maybe the author's mother was killed by an ebook reader and now she has an unreasoning hatred for them.

Is there another way that you can implement the ebook feature on your site without you storing the ebooks on your server?

I don't really know how such things work, but a user-script, bookmarklet, or browser extension that people can use to convert ff.net fics to ebooks could come in real handy.

 

Well...its not like the author in question can do anything about it, no matter how much of a grey area it is legally speaking. They write fanfiction, so don't have a copyright leg to stand on. Do they even have copyright to their fics? Another grey area...

 

Yes, they do. They own the work, even if they're limited in what they can do with it. This is true for all derivative works.

 

The TOS are quite clear:

Edit: I should say that I personally think this is all really dumb; ebook conversion is very useful. I don't know why anyone would object.

 

That's unfortunate, as it rather renders the entire ebook conversion process moot, regardless of how it's done.

That said, the same probably holds true for users who convert ebooks themselves, and a lot of people do that. Hell, Less Wrong openly advertises ebooks on his profile, and given his popularity, I think FFN as a site doesn't care too much.

 

It's not against the TOS for an author to link to ebook copies since it's their own work (this is the same thing as uploading to another site).

Even so, you're probably right regarding FFnet. They have no incentive to try and crack down on "dubious" behavior, and that clause is probably only in the TOS to cover their asses.

 

As I said, it's also unenforcible. They can put in their TOS that little leprechauns have to give them cream cheese if they want. It doesn't make it true.

---------- Post automerged at 04:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 PM ----------

I found out... evidently she was a Twilight author.

I simply removed the Twilight section, as I'm not sad to see it go. She has like 20 Twilight lemons written, and the bottom of her profile explains that all BDSM is by definition consensual.

Read for yourself:

http://www.fanfiction.net/~angelgoddess1981

EDIT:

As a side note... her lemons violate the TOS too... lol....

 

It's not quite that black-and-white. Although in this case, I don't know if some of those clauses would actually hold up in court.

You should send her a message stating something to that effect...

Edit: Never mind, looks like she's in the process of censoring her fics. I'm kind of disappointed that you just folded, though. Should've called her bluff.

 

If it wasn't Twilight I might have... I honestly think it will be more funny for me to cut off the rabid Twilight fans from the entire section then refer them to her.

EDIT:

Hahaha...

Ah well, this has been entertaining.

 

Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to complain about losing the Twilight search results. Most of DLP does HP/DF and popular Anime/TV/Movie, not Twilight.

 

You should say there are technical problems, put the functionality back, and state that you're "in the process of removing it". You can conveniently remove it again whenever she gets around to removing her lemons. :awesome

Also, if she ever stumbles upon this thread: fuck you and everything you stand for.

 

Well shit. I just got laid off for lack of work. Back to this huh....

 

Sorry for the necro, does anybody have any news about the fanfic rec engine? The site seems to be down

 

I haven't heard anything. How long has it been down for?

There's no mention on the twitter feed: https://twitter.com/#!/FanFictionRecs

 

At least a couple of weeks - I checked a while back, and it was down. Maybe JordanL didn't get enough donations? I know he was struggling with money at one point.

 

It was an excellent tool. I wish I'd taken more opportunity to use it. As it was, I almost never sought it out because I rely on DLP to be my fanfic recommendation engine.

 

Yeah, it's down for several weeks. I think I noticed it two or three months ago, back then still hoping it might be back up soon.

JordanL himself hasn't been online in here since August 8.

 

He didn't get enough financial support and just kinda let it die.

 

I'm too late to the party but from what I've read in this thread this tool sounds great. I'm wondering if anyone know how to contact JordanL, I'm interested in trying to start this project up again and help sponsoring.

EDIT: Never mind, didn't notice the contact info tab...