About Illegal Printing
TikTok is ground zero for tutorials on printing fanfiction through commercial printers like Lulu and Barnes & Noble Press. Myself and other fanbinders have tried to dissuade and inform these Gen Z that this is illegal; a violation of copyright laws. Often we get the following responses:
“The fic author says it’s okay”
“This is just a personal copy”
“I don’t give a shit about <<insert IP rights holder such as JKR, Disney, Warner Bros, etc>>”
The fact of the matter is:
The fic author giving you permission means shit when it comes to copyright law because;
only the legal intellectual property rights holder has the power to permit commercialization of their IP (duh!); and
your personal feelings for these rights holders are also irrelevant because the law doesn’t take your feelings into account.
Both Lulu and Barnes & Noble Press condemn using their services to print fanfiction.
Even Lulu weighed in on this issue. Read their article about it; it’s shorter than most oneshots.
These copyright violators are the kids who were never around during the days when fanfiction was on Geocities, Yahoo! Groups, FFN, Livejournal, and Xanga blogs. They weren’t here when every fanfic writer had to preface every chapter with a disclaimer that goes “These characters are not mine. Please do not sue!” They don’t know about the Anne Rice vs fanfiction debacle. And that’s why their entitlement shines through via illegal fanfic printing.
Fanfiction is already toeing a fine legal gray line, and we all have to tread very carefully. As long as fanbinders operate on a non-profit basis, bound books will continue to be a safe luxury. But if entitled brats keep doing what they’re doing on Lulu, one of these IP rights holders will catch wind of what they’re doing slam the hammer down on fanworks. So, please, just stop.
Another thing to note…
These companies make money off of every book they publish. The authors of the fics don’t make any money from writing and sharing their hard work for free. If you respect these talented authors and artists, don’t abuse them by uploading their work to a site that profits off of printing them. Do better.
