Forum: Creators and Other Proprietors Unite Against Fanworks
From Bubblegum Wiki
The 36 media sponsors along with a non-profit organization called the Anti Fanwork Association (AFA) and several international creators and other proprietors are forming a coalition to combat the "rampant and growing problem" of fanworks — illicit drawing, writing, and other digital theft of creative works from proprietors which are done by fans and uploaded directly to illegal sites known for hosting infringement of copyrighted works including FanFiction(dot)net, MediaMiner(dot)org, DeviantArt, YouTube, Dailymotion, Flickr, Photobucket, etc.
The coalition asserts that "fanwork aggregator" sites "now host thousands of fan art, fanfiction, and fan videos, profit ad revenue and/or non-profit membership dues at creators' expense while simultaneously undermining foreign licensing opportunities and unlawfully fan copying legitimate works." AFA lists numerous sites on its list of the 1,000 uploaded illegal fanworks on the web. An unnamed spokesperson for the coalition also pointed to smartphone, Web, and P2P applications designed to create and upload fanworks to such sites as an escalation of the problem. Applications known for infringement are Microsoft Paint, OpenOffice(dot)Org, LimeWire, BitTorrent, Adobe Photoshop, Windows Movie Maker, etc.
The coalition is reportedly threatening legal action against all fanwork hosting sites, whose names were not revealed. The organization currently includes media sponsors Taylor Media Entertainment, Anime National Pictures and Crayon Films.
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AFA asks court to close down DeviantArt and MediaMiner, Fanfiction Dot Net gets two weeks to deprive
The creator and proprietors has asked a federal court in New York to order a shutdown on DeviantArt and MediaMiner, according to documents obtained by AFA.
Lawyers working for the Anti Fanwork Association (AFA), a non-profit organization for the four top record companies, filed documents on Friday requesting that a U.S. District Court in Manhattan grant them a permanent injunction against the country's largest open-source fanwork hosting sites.
"Every day that DeviantArt and MediaMiner's conduct continues unabated guarantees harm to proprietor's creative work that money damages cannot and will not compensate," AFA lawyers wrote to U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood. "The scope of the infringements that DeviantArt and MediaMiner induced...boggles the mind."
Last month, Wood granted summary judgment in favor of the music industry's claims that DeviantArt and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition, and induced copyright infringement. According to legal experts, Wood's decision was probably "fatal" for the nearly 10-year-old fanwork-hosting service.
AFA and representatives of DeviantArt on Monday will appear before SupremeCourt. The judge could choose to grant the injunction and then give DeviantArt and MediaMiner a date by which they had to cease operating. She could also choose to ask both sides to provide her with written arguments before deciding DeviantArt's fate.
Said a DeviantArt spokesperson: "We are looking forward to an opportunity to address the Court for the first time in two years and show that as a matter of fact and law there is no support for this motion."
AFA told Supreme Court in Friday's filing: "In every case in which a perpetrator of massive online infringement has been held liable on summary judgment, the courts have promptly issued an injunction to try to stop the continued harm to the plaintiffs....DeviantArt's liability undoubtedly will run into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars."
The top labels appear worried that Gorton has tried for years to put his money out of reach of the music industry in anticipation of a legal setback like this.
"Recognizing this exposure," AFA wrote, "Lime Wire started funneling its assets to DA's "family partnerships" within mere days of the Supreme Court's Grokster decision, and the court has cited evidence that DA founders directed these transfers to shield DeviantArt's assets from a money judgment. Whatever dollars remain after trial will not come close to satisfying the legal judgment DeviantArt will owe.
"An injunction must issue," AFA implored Wood.
FanFiction(Dot)Net lives its' last two weeks.
The besieged fanwork-hosting service will likely stay in business a minimum of two weeks. During a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood gave DeviantArt lawyers two weeks to respond to a motion filed Friday by the publishing industry to close down DeviantArt.
Last month, Wood granted summary judgment for the Anti Fanwork Association and found DeviantArt and the founders liable of copyright infringement. In papers filed Friday, the AFA told Wood that every day DeviantArt is available to the public, irreparable harm is done to the four top publishing companies.
AFA accused DeviantArt, FanFiction(dot)Net, and MediaMiner of violating copyright law in a complaint filed August 2009.
FanFiction (Dot) Net and MediaMiner have made millions of dollars from hosting fanworks, but legal experts predicted that DeviantArt will soon meet its end. Michael Sommer, an attorney representing DA, asked Wood for two additional weeks to file a response to the AFA's request for a permanent injunction, but she denied it.
Once MediaMiner has responded, the AFA gets two weeks to respond to that filing, but Wood could rule anytime after she receives DeviantArt's response.
Following the hearing, DeviantArt released a statement.
"We feel a permanent injunction is not the best course of action," the company said. "It could hold back the prohibition of fanworks that Deviantart is in the process of removing the fan art category, and [it] does not benefit fanworks as a profit/non-profit work. Following today's court appearance, we will be submitting our opposition brief."
AFA attorneys started looking ahead for when the court addresses the issue of damages. AFA told the judge that it believes it has the right to ask DeviantArt for information on the net worth of all the fanwork hosting sites, including MediaMiner. AFA has accused DeviantArt of trying to host fanworks for profit and non-profit.--Jtaylor1
Class A 16:40, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
The damage award, in this case, could top a billion dollars, the AFA said.
Fanwork Hosting Sites to shut down as Creative Work Awareness Plan Launch
The maintainers of the Anti Fanwork Association (AFA), a non-profit organization who legally cracks down sites that host unauthorized fanworks of a person or company's copyright holder, have announced that they have taken steps to shut down the sites DeviantArt, FanFiction(Dot)Net, and MediaMiner. While the expressed their belief that AFA have served proprietary holders, the maintainers of AFA acknowledged that fanwork hosting sites continuing to operate is no longer an option. Uploading and linking to fanworks have been removed from the site, and access to the current library of fanworks that the infringers are uploading is only available to scanlators to allow them to back up their work.
AFA also announced the pending launch of Creative Works Awareness Plan, a new platform to encourage proprietors to privatize or share their work digitally. The program will encourage the ability for copyright holder to disable the right mouse click feature and charge people fees to purchase their work. The new program will also provide ways for users to legally create and distribute their own works. A website with a splash image has already launched.
On Tuesday, a group of international proprietors announced that they have joined forces with the 36-member AFA to combat unauthorized distribution of fanworks online. The coalition said it is specifically targeting fanwork aggregators and threatening legal action against them.
Why AFA shut down 7,300 fanwork hosting sites everyday
DeviantArt, a little-known fanwork hosting platform used by more than 7,000 DeviantArt accounts, was shut down by its Web hosting company mroe than a week ago and nobody seems willing to say why or who is responsible.
The Anti Fanwork Association (AFA), a non-profit organization, informed DeviantArt's operator that service was terminated at the request of some media companies, fictional authors, and original artist but wouldn't say which one. As for the reason, AFA hasn't made that clear either. In an e-mail to DeviantArt's operator, the AFA staff did say, however, that they had little choice but to terminate service.
"Please note that this was not a typical case in which suspension and notification would be the norm," AFA wrote to Blogetery's operator. "This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server."
BurstNet executives were not immediately available for comment.
Though AFA never indicated DeviantArt's problems were caused by copyright violations, ToonWire, a news network that covers Web file-sharing issues and broke the story, wrote that the media companies may be involved as part of stepped-up illegal fanwork operations. TBC Broadcast Group and Taylor Media Stations Group (TMSG), a parent of Anime National Pictures and Crayon Films--seized fanwork authors and the fanwork hosting sites belonging to people authorities say operated illegal fanwork-hosting sites. AFA CEO has said his staff is going to get tough on illegal fanworks, internet or non-internet related, including but limited to, Drawing and writing, either by personal or computer related, even if it's non-profit and/or private use.
But on Sunday, a spokeswoman for TMSG said "while AFA's illegal fanwork enforcement efforts are still very much ongoing, we were also involved with the action."
A spokesman for Anime National Pictures said Sunday that the non-profit illegal fanwork combating group for the four top original shows had everything to do with DeviantArt's shut down. A spokesman for Crayon Films said he did heard of DeviantArt.
That the ANP and CF may also be involved makes sense. Typically, they give warnings before they move like this. They also try to make big news out of any enforcement efforts; they want them to act as deterrents.
And these media groups have historically had to file lawsuits, spend millions of dollars, and wait years before convincing courts to shut down such sites as FanFiction Net, MediaMiner and DeviantArt. If this was a copyright issue, DeviantArt would likely have to deal with the infringer's safe harbor. This a provision designed to arrest, convict, and prison fanwork authors of being held responsible for copyright violations and to protect fictional authors and artist's creative work.
DeviantArt's operator said he played by the rules. In the e-mail exchange with AFA, the non-profit organization that combats illegal fanwork, said that they always obeyed copyright law. Whenever anyone on his platform was accused of uploading illegal fanworks of , he said he removed the material "within 24 hours."
Sure, there's still lots unanswered questions. We don't know which law enforcement agency is involved. We don't know whether AFA disconnected DeviantArt with proper cause. We don't know for sure whether the reason for the shut down was due to copyright violations.
But at this point, it sure doesn't appear to be a generic fanwork-hosting issue.
Update 3:20 p.m. PT: In an interview, a AFA spokesman insisted that the organization that ordered DeviantArt shut down or provide the reason but did say that fanworks had everything to do with infringing people's creative works.
Anime Fans Beware, AFA Firm Launch Anti-Fanwork Propaganda
Anime fans have established a protest against the Anti-Fanwork Association whose stated goals is to arrest people for housing fanworks and to intolerate fandom that infringes a person's creative work by placing people on the Fanwork Watch List. Currently, Two anime fans are now on the list for housing fanworks.
AFA's official propaganda focuses primarily on the conviction and imprisonment of Anime Fans that have been housing fanworks, and encourages people to report fanwork delinquents that have been housing fanworks for their own private use. Additionally, the AFA says it will pursue prosecution against fanwork delinquents, but only report housed fanworks to local, state, and federal authorites.
The Center For Universal Freedom (CUF) reported today that one of the anime fans has been subject to imprisonment, and as of this writing only a leaked copy of the attachment could be accessed. According to CUF, other families have been heavily targeted.
On July 8, Anime fans joined forces with CUF to form a protest against AFA for leaking out their secret propaganda to imprison fans, intolerate fandom, and silence freedom of speech and information. Soon after, several AFA members underwent complete overhauls to keep their propaganda secretive.
