Organization for Transformative Works News

Barring last minute snags, we’ll be deploying new code to the Archive of Our Own today! This is a BIG release - we've upgraded the site to run on Rails 3 (the framework the Archive is built on), a change that involved changing ALL the code. We also have some new code for collections and challenges, some performance enhancements, and a bunch of other nice little tweaks and enhancements.

Because this release involves lots of big changes, the Archive will have scheduled downtime while we deploy. We expect to take the site down for approximately 12 hours from 13.00 EST on 11 November 2010 (what time is this in my timezone?) . This time may change if we hit unexpected problems, but we'll send out a message on our Archive status Twitter account AO3_Status before we start and when the Archive comes back up.

We thank you for your patience, and we hope you’ll enjoy the improvements in the Archive when the maintenance is done!

We're a week away from the OTW's first contested election for seats on our Board of Directors, and all eligible voting members of the Organization for Transformative Works have now been sent voting account information!

If you made a qualifying donation and became a member between 1 October 2009 and the end of our most recent donations drive on 25 October 2010, then you should have an email which includes a unique randomly assigned username, password instructions, ballot instructions, and a link to the 2010 ballot on the OTW Election website. If you have not received this email and believe you are a qualified voting member, please contact us! We will also be posting and sending a separate reminder email on the day of the election, prior to the opening of the polls.

At noon UTC on 17 November 2010 polls will open, and that ballot will become active. (What time is that here?) Voting will continue for 48 hours, and the polls will close automatically at noon UTC on 19 November 2010. (What time is that here?)

You won't be able to change your vote once you have cast your ballot, so we urge you to think about your choices. We have four eminently qualified candidates standing for three seats on the board -- three challengers and a single incumbent. Our candidates are Hele Braunstein, Francesca Coppa, Ira Gladkova, and Kristen Murphy, and you can read more about them and about the OTW's voting process here, on our elections website.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a review of the UK's intellectual property laws with an eye to adopting U.S. style fair use.

In a speech given on November 4, 2010, Cameron said, "Over there [in the U.S.], they have what are called ‘fair-use’ provisions, which some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services. So I can announce today that we are reviewing our IP laws, to see if we can make them fit for the internet age. I want to encourage the sort of creative innovation that exists in America."

Currently, as Ars Technica notes, UK intellectual property law can be quite restrictive: "there's no exception for "parody," for instance, or for ripping CDs to computers."

While the move is being considered to spur business development - in particular, a new "Silicon Valley" in East London - the adoption of fair use would be of obvious benefit to all forms of creative speech and innovation, including fanworks and remixes.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

We've nearly recovered from the whirlwind of our October 2010 drive -- but the excitement isn't over, because now we have results to share!

Thanks to you, our members, donors, supporters, and volunteers, during the official week of fundraising we raised US$18,308.46. Even after the drive our posts were still reaching new donors: by the end of October we raised US$21,143.46.

That's amazing. That's your posts in action, your goodwill, your belief in our mission: providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan cultures. Our works, our cultures, our voices. Our servers, our software, our archive, our wiki, our journal, our legal advocacy, our OTW.

Your OTW.

Our donation drive season is over for 2010, but we always welcome your donations, your time, and your feedback. Thank you again, from all of us.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

* Our top story: Mercedes Lackey's pep talk for writers doing NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, encourages them to try their hand at fan fiction. While Lackey mistakenly believes that publishing fanfiction is plagiarism (whatever your thoughts about the legality of publishing fanfiction, "plagiarism" isn't right word), she also notes that a project that starts out fanfiction (like her own forthcoming Secret World Chronicles) can evolve into "a real, marketable project." She also says that "you would be surprised at how many professionals started out that way (and still do it!)" While that may be generally true, here at the OTW we're not so terribly surprised.

* Techdirt has an article discussing the ways in which copyright law gets in the way of fan art. Among their good points: that trademark holders don't have to block all uses of the mark or risk losing it, and that more copyright holders should consider issuing free licenses to people who want to use their stuff.

* Mikhail Koulikov of the Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research is going to work with the OTW's Vidding team to help us create an online bibliography for anime music videos, but fans interested in anime and manga more generally might want to poke around this fantastic fannish resource.

* Henry Jenkins's blog is hosting a series of guest posts from the curators of the various parts of the 2010 DIY 24/7 video show. The first one, Activist Media (curated by Sasha Constanza-Chock) is up now, in three parts.

* Lastly, The Archive of Our Own got a really nice shout out from the librarians, archivists, and crowdsourcing specialists at the Emerging Technologies Summer Institute: watch their run-through of the Archive's features below!



We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about you can submit it in three easy ways: comment on the most recent Link Roundup on LJ, IJ or DW, tag a link with "for:otw_news" on Delicious or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

Written by Tanaqui

Dutch fansites may be criminalised if their users mention the existence of copyrighted material on the internet, even if they don't link directly to it, despite it not being illegal to download copyrighted content in the Netherlands for personal use.

( Read more... )

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

Our October was jam-packed, and our newsletter is a little late as a result -- we think it was worth the wait. Find news from all our committees behind the cut!

( Read more... )

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

Written by Tanaqui

German courts have indicated that they may force video hosting companies such as YouTube to proactively search out and delete music videos that infringe copyright, rather than requiring copyright holders and rights collection agencies to submit takedown notices before videos are removed.

This comes on top of the conviction last February of three YouTube executives in Italy where the ruling of the Italian court included a clear implication that every hosted video should be pre-screened.

Although German rights collection agency GEMA may have lost an application for an emergency order at the end of August 2010 asking for access to certain videos to be blocked, this is small comfort for German web hosts. The ruling was made only on the basis that an emergency order in itself was inappropriate, as GEMA had known for a long time that the videos were available on YouTube. The presiding judge in the case invited GEMA to ask for a ruling in regular proceedings, indicating their claim was likely to be successful in that event. He is reported as stating that "There are some good reasons to think that YouTube indeed has some duty to take care of detecting illegal uploads."

GEMA indicated at the start of October 2010 that it does plan to file a new suit.

According to some legal observers, the opinion of the German court appears to be the latest of several examples of an emerging gap between the way similar laws are being interpreted in Europe and the US, where YouTube and other companies are covered by the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Web hosts based in Europe appear to be at greater risk of being held liable for users' actions prior to receiving takedown notices.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog, where it is available in Nederlands, Deutsch, and Español.

The OTW's October 2010 membership and donation drive has come to a close.

We've been thrilled by the response, and will be busily double-checking our figures for a few days. We want to be sure to count our donors who used eChecks and physical checks, the ones who donated by surface mail as well as those who took advantage of our online donation system. We'll give you a full report as soon as we can be sure of the information.

Please keep donating! Donations after this point will not qualify you to vote in 2010, but they will qualify you to vote in 2011, and they will go far to support our work.

Thank you again for your generosity, for your attention, and for your support.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

It's been an exciting October drive, and we have less than an hour left -- we close things up (and stop marking donors as eligible to vote!) at midnight UTC tonight (What time is that where I am?)

We thought we'd give you a last minute reminder, and ask you to help make this drive our most successful to date. And while we do that, we wanted to share a few numbers!

As of right now, the OTW has 677 voting members in good standing, hailing from 32 countries across the globe. We've raised US$13,793.46 from 269 separate contributions, with an average donation amount of US$51.28. We had two donation matching grants -- one for US$2,000 and one for US$2,200. 74 of our donors during this drive opted for a premium.

And a few numbers about the OTW! Right now, we are comprised of 89 staff in 17 committees. We're strengthened by the time and hard work of around 300 coder and tester volunteers, 32 translation volunteers, and 95 active tag wrangling volunteers. We put in a lot of hours! But they go by quickly and productively, and we haven't counted them up. :)

To wrap up, how about a few numbers about the Archive of Our Own, for trivia value?

There are a total of 5461 fandoms currently represented; the average number of stories per fandom is 21. There are 4936 fandoms with fewer stories than the average, and 525 fandoms with more stories than the average!

Fandoms in the AO3 with exactly 21 works are:

• 
  Apocalyptica - 21
• 
  Mirrormask (2005) - 21
• 
  Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo - 21
• 
  Ginyuu Mokushiroku Meine Liebe | Meine Liebe - 21
• 
  Suikoden III - 21
• 
  Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 21
• 
  Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin - 21
• 
  Strangers in Paradise - 21
• 
  Tales of Symphonia - 21
• 
  Baseball RPF - 21
• 
  Power Rangers Mystic Force - 21
• 
  No Night Is Too Long (2002) - 21
• 
  Malory Towers - Enid Blyton - 21
• 
  Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz - 21
• 
  X-Men (Ultimateverse) - 21
• 
  Standoff - 21
• 
  Queen of Swords - 21
• 
  Escaflowne - 21

The top 25 fandoms in the AO3 right now, in reverse order by number of works, are:

• 
  Criminal Minds - 629
• 
  Final Fantasy VII - 680
• 
  Gundam Wing - 718
• 
  Fullmetal Alchemist - 732
• 
  Heroes - 900
• 
  NCIS - 948
• 
  The X-Files - 961
• 
  Highlander: The Series - 1107
• 
  The Sentinel - 1108
• 
  Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien - 1156
• 
  Smallville - 1244
• 
  House M.D. - 1341
• 
  Battlestar Galactica (2003) - 1345
• 
  Lord Of The Rings RPF - 1354
• 
  Firefly - 1554
• 
  Merlin (BBC) - 1602
• 
  Torchwood - 1875
• 
  Star Trek (2009) - 2005
• 
  due South - 2119
• 
  Angel: the Series - 2245
• 
  Stargate SG-1 - 3297
• 
  Supernatural - 4841
• 
  Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 5187
• 
  Stargate Atlantis - 6705
• 
  Harry Potter - Rowling - 7991

You still have time! Please donate -- we would love to count you in.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.