Because I’ve seen so many wishes for Blanket Statements/Permission Statements on the fandom wishlists of today’s Snowflake:
- Blanket Statements or other Permission Statements are statements posted to your profiles on archives and blogs that let people know what you permit them to do with your creations.
- Why is that important: Writing down such a statement forces you to think about what kind of transformative uses you are comfortable with. Permission statements encourage transformative creativity. No matter how nice you think you are, many people are too shy to ask for permission. If you have a permission statement, they don’t need to ask, and they will know what you’re comfortable with.
- There is no moral obligation to issue a Blanket Statement. How you support transformative culture and what your limits are is completely up to you. You don’t need to justify or explain your statement. Your stories, your art, your statement.
- Last but not least, two helpful links: Blanket Statements at Fanlore has more details and links for the fannish context. Creative Commons offers licenses and information how to share original content in a way that permits transformative creativity.
My Fanworks License is posted HERE.
I know I said there’s no need for explanations, but I’m happy to explain some of the thoughts that went into my Fanworks License.
My Fanworks License is not a blanket statement or a free culture license. 🙁 BUT it’s modelled on a Creative Commons Attribution–ShareAlike–NonCommercial license with some special rules for translations and podfics. w00t
I’m a bit of a control freak in connection with translations and podfics because even in another language and read & recorded, at the end of the day it’s still my story, not the translator’s or podficcer’s story. Of course once something is posted online, you have de facto lost all control over it. I am perfectly aware of that. And thanks to “50 Shades” it’s less of an issue these days. Fanfic is very mainstream now. The likelihood that I will feel compelled to delete all versions of a certain story approach nil. Still, I prefer translations and podfics to be posted on accounts that I own or in other ways clearly associated with my accounts. ( Let’s hear it for AO3!)
Attribution. Credit where credit is due. I think that goes without saying. And I really wish ppl would put a little more effort into reblogging so original creators get some more love …
NonCommercial. Well, D’OH. 😉
ShareAlike. That’s a biggie for me, and actually the reason why I ended up creating my Fanworks License years ago. With my fanfic and my fanart I engage in transformative creativity. Most often without or sometimes even against the wishes of the original commercial creator. I think what I do is okay for many, many, many reasons or I wouldn’t be doing what I do. If I did not permit fanworks of my fanworks, I’d be a damn hypocrite. So I permit fanworks for my fanworks. But because of that I also won’t permit others to take that back. So if someone creates a fanwork based on one of my fanworks, they need to allow others to transform their fanwork.