Recently, Amazon announced the creation of “Kindle Worlds,” which it describes as “a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games.” Fan fiction (also known as “FanFic”) are works such as books, videos and the like created by fans of an original work that adapt the characters and stories of the original work without the permission of the owner of the copyrights to the original work. Amazon’s new publishing venture will allow writers of fan fiction to do so legally and to earn royalties.
Under copyright law, one of the exclusive rights owned by the copyright holder is the exclusive right to control the creation of works based upon or incorporating the underlying copyrighted work. This “derivative work” right means that currently fan fiction constitutes copyright infringement. While some copyright holders (such as Anne Rice) have consistently objected to all such fan fiction, many other copyright holders see such works as a way to broaden and deepen the audience for their own works. As a result, even though technically an infringement, copyright holders often have allowed it to take place if the fan fiction has been distributed for free. To date, fan fiction largely has been a non-commercial affair.
Thus far, Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries. Those licenses allow for adaptations and other “extensions” of the underlying works without fear of a copyright infringement lawsuit. In return, Amazon, the fan fiction writer and the licensor (in this case, Warner Bros.) will share in proceeds from the sale of the fan fiction on Amazon. While Amazon has arranged for licenses only for these three works initially, they plan to negotiate other deals with rights holders to broaden the scope of potential fan fiction works.
Amazon has announced that fan fiction authors will receive 35% of the net revenue from the book if the work is longer than 10,000 words. For short stories, that amount is 20%. While this is much lower than Kindle’s normal ‘self-published” royalty rate of 70%, it is important to remember that: 1) without the license, these works technically are illegal; and 2) current practice is to give away, not sell, these types of works.
For the original copyright holders, this Kindle Worlds deal means that they will earn additional revenues from their works that they currently do not earn. In return, Amazon takes its “house cut.” Amazon essentially serves as the intermediary to bring fan fiction writers and rights holders together. This intermediary role is essential, as very few fan fiction writers would have the resources to negotiate a deal with a major rights holder. And, of course, the fan fiction writer gets a piece. So, all three parties get something out of this new relationship.
The creation of “Kindle Worlds” represents a sea change for fan fiction. Until now, fan fiction has been produced for the pleasure of its writers or as an “homage” to the original work and distributed for free over the internet. Currently, many, if not most, fan fiction writers are not professional, published authors. The commercialization of fan fiction by Amazon might change this. Now that writing fan fiction can produce real money, professional writers might choose to do so. While this could result in better quality writing and more polished fan fiction, it might discourage the fan fiction hobbyist. Particularly if Amazon is able to negotiate a large number of additional “Kindle Worlds” licenses, the entire concept of fan fiction, at least literary fan fiction, may be transformed. Once written purely for the love of it, fan fiction may soon be written purely for the money.
