Fanfic Forensics

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I've briefly outlined the reasons why I think the 'open work' is an appropriate framework to apply to fanwork. Now for the interesting part: in what ways does it benefit us to characterize fanfic or other forms of fanwork as expressions of 'open work'? We can identify several important benefits and challenges that this theory poses to fan studies.

1. Sign of the times: fanwork as reflecting contemporary worldview
2. Legitimizes fans' participation in the cultural landscape
3. Offers new perspective on role of technology in shaping of fan texts
4. Encourages cross-cultural research of fanworks

Sign of the times: fanwork as reflecting contemporary worldview

Through 'open work', we could characterize fanwork not as a specific legal category of media or as a mere response to "specific historical conditions" (Jenkins 1992), but as a 'sign of the times'. This would make fanwork a very timely and DDD medium. 'Open work' theory makes it easy for us to examine the location and function of fanwork in contemporary cultural production. It also provides one answer to the question of whether fanwork creators are first and foremost readers or first and foremost writers.

Another very interesting possibility this opens is that it encourages us to situate fanwork among other 'open' movements with similar requirements for collaboration and collective efforts, pluralism of ideas, and lack of central authority or planning. For example:

• open source
• open access
• open data
• open (notebook) research
• (feminist methodologies)
• ...

Legitimizes fans' participation in the cultural landscape

By disproving definitions of fans as 'poachers' (Russo DDD, Stasi 2006) or fanwork as 'derivative' (Noppe 2010). (I'm going to make a short side jump into copyright law now.) Several researchers have touched upon the fact that using the word 'poachers' when referring to people who create fanwork may be quite harmful, since it is actually a very negative term. I believe it's fair to say that, as a descriptor of the activities of fans who use characters and settings from a commercially published work to create their own media, the term 'poaching' is absolutely incorrect.

This is the definition of 'poaching' given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

intransitive verb

1 : to encroach upon especially for the purpose of taking something

2 : to trespass for the purpose of stealing game; also : to take game or fish illegally

transitive verb

1 : to trespass on

2 a : to take (game or fish) by illegal methods b : to appropriate (something) as one's own c : to attract (as an employee or customer) away from a competitor

(from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poaching)

'Poaching' is illegally removing something from the possession of someone else. If I take this pen and leave the room, you are minus one pen, and I have engaged in theft. If you write a story and I publish another story on my LiveJournal that features characters from your story, you have not lost your story. The story, the rights to the story, and any financial benefits you get from it are still entirely yours. In legal terms, this does not equal stealing. It's not even borrowing, because at no point does the creator's work actually leave the creator' possession. The concept that re-using an idea first copyrighted by someone else is just as harmful as the theft of a physical object is an invention of copyright law, and a quite recent invention, too. Copyright law has certain useful functions, even though it's often abused and profoundly misunderstood. However, copyright law cannot be a basis for scholarly argument about which expressions of human creativity are legitimate and which are illegitimate.

It's clear that 'open work' theory is not necessary to dispute the characterization of fanworks as illegitimate, but I believe it can be very helpful because it re-positions fans' creative activities as just as legitimate as literature with big L, perhaps even essential in the landscape of contemporary literature.

Offers new perspective on role of technology in shaping of fan texts

Because 'open work' theory places such great importance on the format in which works are expressed, I think it may be helpful in clarifying the role of technology in creating differences between fanworks created by different groups. I'm thinking mainly of English-language and Japanese-language fanwork here. In Japanese-language fandom, printed work plays a much larger role today than it does in English-language fandom. Looking at this from an 'open work' framework, this may not be just a historical coincidence or a consequence of social norms in Japan, but an expression of worldviews and an understanding of science that's entirely different.

Connections between technologies, users, and tasks

 

Technologies used in production of fan texts

Dojinshi

• 'traditional' tools
• image editing software
• printing
• online publishing

influence of net on print dojinshi: wider availability, higher chance that dojinshi will be seen by those 'not in the know'

Fanfic

Encourages cross-cultural research of fanworks

Going on in the same vein, I believe an 'open work' perspective encourages cross-cultural research of fanworks, and that this kind of research poses a very valuable challenge to studies of English-language fandom and fanworks. I've mentioned that some great truths of fan studies don't seem to be quite so true when we consider Japanese fanworks as well as English-language fanworks. To give just one example, we often assume that a fanfic is considered better by other fans the more compliant it is with the canon. But canon compliance doesn't seem to be important at all in Japanese fanworks. One more example is the concept of the 'gift economy' as central to fan communities, which may bear some rethinking once we take into account that money does change hands very regularly in Japanese fandom. This gift economy is apparently not universal. I think we've got quite a few assumptions about fanwork and the motivations of fans that would be buckled by more cross-cultural research. I think 'open work' theory could be very helpful in this area for a variety of reasons.