Just read it. Yep. (About the story, not the grey day, which I am not certain how I feel about.)

Though a HEAPING ASSLOAD of speculation in it.

I'm not sure I get what that site's supposed to be about, Dana. What's special about 5/19?

Signed,

Terminally Clueless

People are going to take down their sites on 5/19 as ...not really a protest but to make a point about all the various types of theft that are going on in fandom.

Bandwidth, clips from vids, photomanips, unauthorized distrubution of vids--including handing them out to actors of a show, but also putting them up on personal sites without permission or credit.

The big excuse that keeps coming up is "I didn't know it was wrong." Which is pissing people off.

As I have no idea how to take down my site without it being a buttload of hassle, I think I shall plead "I'm just a tiny blip on the radar, irrelevant to the larger thing, so just ignore me."

If your site has an index page that leads to the stories, you could just substitute one without links and a statement that you're supporting the effort that day.

Going gray would be a helluva lot easier with personal pages and sites, but doing that for a major archive? Or three? Not so much.

In fact, it would be pretty damn hellish.

And in an abrupt subject change, I've been tossing around the idea of starting a Velvet Goldmine fic archive since Lipstick Traces seems to have disappeared into the ether.

(And no, Dana this isn't merely a ploy to see if you're actually writing that essay. t g )

Is there a specific notorious theft case that's inspiring all of this? I've always heard buzzings about it, but it seems to be a Big Issue on LJ and elsewhere right now.

Well the most recent incident I'm aware was in FF fandom. Some people went to see NF's new pilot tape and they gave him copies of some FF vids. They also made a copy that they planned to drop off at ME for Joss. They didn't ask the vidders permission before doing so, despite it being suggested to them by a third party.

There was a big thing in which first a fan burned a bunch of Firefly vids to CD, without obtaining any sort of permission from the vidders, or even notifying them, and gave the CD to Nathan Fillion at a party. She was going to give a second copy of the CD to Joss, too, but was dissuaded in time.

So then when a couple of the vidders, understandably freaked out and pissed off, take their vids down, another Firefly fan uploads their vids to his own web sever and offers them for distribution.

It's not a good day.

ION-- has anyone heard of a place that archives Shakespeare slash, or Shakespeare fic? I had an idea....

t edit xpost

There's also the situation where certain vidders found another vidder whose vids consisted mainly of material from their vids, just spliced together.

The guy used several vids as his source material for nearly all his vids. In response the vidders who had their stuff questioned came down hard on him. For one vidder this is at least the third go around I've seen she's had with people stealing from her vids.

The big deal is that they massively altered & edited the source material for their vids---frame by frame in many cases---and it took them months to do this. And then this other guy comes along and graps their work and uses it just like he's using raw source material straight from the episodes.

So they are pissed. And then there are the types who say "well we steal from the shows so taking from a fan isn't any different." This excuse has been used when people have been caught plagerizing as well.

Also the guy who offered the Firefly vids for distrubtion was extremely rude and hostile to the vidders and acted very entitled do take their vids and do whatever he wanted to because "it's just stolen material anyway."