Ancient Fandoms
I’m not sure if people today realize how deeply weird some of the older fandoms were in the pre- and early-internet days.
Take, for example, the Pern fandom. There were rules for writing fanfic in this fandom, very strict rules, laid down by The Great Anne Herself, and woe be unto you if you dared break any of them. I’m not sure I remember all of them, but these are the ones I do remember:
- Thou Shalt Not Use Anne’s Characters, Ever. OCs only. Which…fanfic, I know. Like I said, the weird was strong in this one.
- Thou Shalt Not Use Certain Specific Locations on the planet. Ever. Those were Anne’s Exclusive Playgrounds.
- Stories taking place during the same time periods as any of the books? Right Out. A hundred years before or after is totally fine.
- Pern dragons come in different colors. There were strict rules about what gender/sexuality combos could be pair with which colors of dragon. The dragons knew what people’s sexualities were, because gay pheromones.
- Seriously gay pheromones I will never be over this
- Thou Shalt Not Get Creative with The Colors of One’s Dragons. Book colors ONLY. Except that one book color, that’s right out too.
- Do Not With The Porn, despite rapey mating flights being canon
There were more, relating to how characters could be named and other such things. And this was SERIOUS BUSINESS, I knew dozens of people who were hit with C&Ds from her lawyers because they made fanart or broke the Sacred Fanfic (??) Rules. I have no idea how many lawyers she had, but they were extremely busy people.
(And THANK ALL THE DEITIES that my terrible Pern fanfic was restricted to paper ‘zines and unlikely to ever again see the light of day…)
Not so ancient history
Pern lawyers - threatening to sue fans if they link to unapproved websites since 1999: http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Pern_Plushie_Incident
Pern lawyers - threatening to sue conventions if they don’t blackball artists since 2005: http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Pern_Dispute_(Austin_Leather_Works)