I just dozed off and had a half-waking nightmare where fandom’s post-Tumblr migration was to a walled garden controlled by Disney.
On waking, that is clearly ridiculous because Disney doesn’t own all the copyrights yet, and there are still enough media companies out there that Disney running a platform full of fanfiction for other companies’ properties would be the ninth ring of Licensing Hell. But whatever. Maybe it’s a different behemoth. Maybe Amazon acquires Wattpad, uses its stranglehold over the media-distribution market to extract licensing agreements from most major industry groups, and uses the built-in massive userbase to actually make Kindle Worlds a thing this time.
It makes me wonder what fandom in the year 2017–or 18, or 19–would do if Verizon/Yahoo shut Tumblr down and the media companies were standing there with open arms: “Come post your fic and art to our sites, chat in our forums, get a shot at publishing the next EU novel or at writing an episode of your favorite show. The licensing terms aren’t bad. We will love you, recognize you and validate you. And, you know, we’re modern-day companies–you can post all the gay stuff you want. Just don’t taint our brands with anything actually immoral.” The catch being, of course, that any fanwork outside the walled garden gets pursued with the full wrath of MPAA lawyers’ interpretation of copyright law.
I wonder if today’s fandom would still reject that devil’s bargain.
I think we all know, or suspect, what today’s fandom would do if Strikethrough happened again.