So this is interesting, I've never come across it before.

Someone's selling PDFs of a fic zine. I understand why, once upon a time, you sold zines for money to cover the cost of xeroxing and mailing. But what justifies selling access to an electronic file?

t peers sideways suspiciously

My understanding from catching the edges of a discussion which I'm pretty sure was about that very zine is that they're justifying it by saying it's compensating them for their time coding etc. (No one was terribly impressed by that argument, but that's what I remember hearing third-hand that it was.)

it's compensating them for their time coding etc.

With Adobe, it's a straight conversion of text to PDF. There must be pictures or something. though I doubt that would impress any lawyers.

Maybe for their time doing layout? It can be significant.

I believe there is art as well.

But in a universe where publishable-quality fic and fanart is available for free on the net, I'm really not getting the warm fuzzies here. What makes them so great that their time producing it gets paid for when my time coding websites doesn't?

Hell, if we had to pay Shrift for all the time she spends coding fansites, she'd have more than enough money to move to LA.

... huh.

Maybe for their time doing layout? It can be significant.

That may well be. But traditionally fanzines only recovered out of pocket actual costs, not time. Because if you cover someone's time, then the fan producing it is making money, and that's treading on the producer's right to earn from the source product.

I'm not saying it's right -- just that coding mightn't be where the time went, but layout instead.

Don't know, didn't read their justification.

Well, hey, if people'll pay. *shrug* I understand that set of authors are very popular in a particular Daniel-centric portion of the fandom.

Yeah, it's just... it's the sort of thing that makes studio lawyers twitchy. Ya know?

Oh, I agree! I wouldn't do it, even if the idea didn't make me giggle. (No, really, pay me money!)