ALERT: Fanart and fanfic theft!

[krait]

Thanks to allzugern for alerting me to this:

Ebay user doctor_beth2000 appears to be selling "fanzines" (stories she has printed out and bound, including stories that have never been printed in a 'zine) for profit... without the consent of the artists and writers used.

One of the works listed for sale was discovered by the artist and has now been pulled, but there are 450 listings for this person's account, and I bet that there's more stolen stuff than just that one "fanzine"...

If you're an artist or writer in Smallville, Star Trek, Stargate, Due South, or and inform other Fen to go to this ebay page and also check to see if their work is being sold at her store: doctor_beth2000. There are 744 Zines offered there. 744!

There is fiction being offered from an astounding variety of fandoms. In five pages of browsing, the list of fandoms on offer contained:


Beauty and the Beast
Sentinel
Man from UNCLE
Riptide
Airwolf Scarecrow
Battlestar Galactica
Blake's 7
Buffy
Dead Zone
Doctor Who
Due South
Equalizer
Forever Knight
Garrison's Gorillas
Highlander
Horatio Hornblower
Indiana Jones
LotR
MacGuyver
Magnificent 7
Magnum PI
MASH
Miami Vice
Power Rangers
Professionals
Rat Patrol
Real Ghostbusters
Red Dwarf
Russ Logan
Seaquest
Simon and Simon
Smallville
Stargate (SG1 at least)
Star Trek (TOS, Voyager, DS8 at least)
Starsky & Hutch
Star Wars
The A Team
The Bourne Identity
The Mummy
TJ Hooker
Twin Peaks
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Wild Wild West
Without a Trace
X-Files
Young Guns

Keep in mind this is a partial list -- I read only one-third of the auction titles and perhaps three actual listings!

I also see at least one original work, "Solace" by Alexa C -- anyone know this person, and whether this is an authorised production?

Some of the zines look authentic -- one gave a publication date of 1996 and had some water damage. However, many had no date at all, which makes me very suspicious. Artists and writers, please, no matter how obscure your fandom, do a title+description search for your fandom within this seller's items. (I've noticed a lot are listed only by acronym, so search "MFU" as well as "Man from Uncle", etc.)


I don't know what a word would be worth from me, since I am not a writer, but at least one author has submitted a complaint to Ebay (I think; and I know allzugern has), so let's see what we can do, folks!

Comments

[challengerhk]

I don't want to hijack a thread, but I'd like to get some more information on some of the ideas posted just above.

I've been in and out of fandom for many, many years. At one point, during my BA and then my MA, I started doing academic work on fanfic. Long story short, with the exception of Ming Whatne (a lovely woman) I found no access to zines for my research at all. The fandom community was particularly not helpful; one collector with a large number of zines told me that I was not welcome to access her library. I think a lot of this reaction came about because many fans felt that they were improperly represented by academia.

That's not my point, though. I did buy a large number of zines for my research. Because I was focused on pre-80s material, and because I was on the open market, I paid a lot for them. I don't think I'll be needing them any longer, and that's the crux of my question. It sounds like I'll be violating some unwritten rules of etiquette by trying to sell them and minimize my monetary loss. These are not rules I've ever heard about (or, as I said above, experienced), so I'd like to get some guidance on what constitutes acceptable practice.

[ride_4ever]

Do the zines you own not carry the disclaimer about methods of secondary distribution? No one will actually interfere with you selling them to recover some of your original costs, but the etiquette is still as I originally stated it. If you would like to donate any of them to a permanent fandom library (I myself will be volunteering next month at the one maintained by Escapade) LMK.

Also, I'd like to know more about the academic work you did on fanfic.

[challengerhk]

Thanks for the response.

As far as I can recall, I've never seen a disclaimer about secondary distribution. To get some clarification: 1) is this something relatively new? (As I said, I've been working with pre-80s material.) Or, 2) is it something that goes on material circulated among fans by fans, but not in an organized, published zine? Some of these later acquisitions I skimmed, but I have a few zines that constitute my first published fiction, and since I was 16 at the time and excited as hell to get them I read these cover to cover. Definitely nothing about secondary distribution there. These I won't sell, and I may leave them to a library on my passing.

Thanks for the interest in the fanfic academic studies. More than anything, it was fun for me, as opposed to the vast majority of people in my field, who make these studies a soapbox for political statements. If you want to read a couple of my pieces go to the Internet Review of Science Fiction at irosf.com, click on the archives, and go to the first year of publication. I have one piece in the January issue and another in the March issue; the latter was part of my fanfic study. It addresses Mary Sue characters as a means of showing how producers were using fanfic to understand what their audience's interests were, blurring the line between producer and audience.

[ride_4ever]

I'm at work now, so have to keep this super-short, but wanted to let you know I read your reply right away and will get back to you tonight. (If you'd like for me to email you a pic of a disclaimer page from one of my zines -- most of which are 1990's or newer -- PM me an email addy.)

[ride_4ever]

Won't be home 'til after midnight -- will continue to respond at more length tomorrow.

[ride_4ever]

I can't answer the "old versus new" question because I didn't even find fandom community until 2011, and my primary fandom dates back to the 1990's.I'm not sure about your distinction between "among fans by fans" as opposed to "an organized, published zine" -- both the homegrown small zines that I know and the more professionally produced zines that I know are "among fans by fans".

I love love love your saying "...the fanfic academic studies. More than anything, it was fun for me, as opposed to the vast majority of people in my field, who make these studies a soapbox for political statements"...and I look forward to reading what you have in the Internet Review of Science Fiction.

I got your email addy and will send you some zine pics soon.