Subject: So, if you want to do that...
Author:
Posted on: 2021-07-30 16:32:43 UTC

https://complaints.games-workshop.com/.

Please do not mention Alfa by name, that'd probably make it more likely the channel gets yanked.

As to why... there are a few reasons. I've heard some speculation from different places, but the big obvious reason is that GW wants to start producing video content and they want to charge us monthly to watch it.

Now, nevermind that this is... historically not a good idea (single-IP streaming services are by and large unsuccessful and the ever-increasing competition for the limited amount of money people have to spend monthly makes trying to enter the space without a fairly large value proposition in terms of content extremely ill-advised, especially for a company that already makes products marked up to premium prices that fans are frequently a little on edge about paying), it seems like GW has effectively decided thst fan content is competition and thus needs to be eliminated. It's hard to say whether this is actually their position, but the timing here is suspicious. Now, I would vehemently disagree with that stance, especially with something like TTS, but at the root of this, I think GW wants to make sure something like Astartes can never happen again—despite the glacial production schedule of multiple years of incremental release for a single 13-minute short, the fact is that Astartes was essentially professional-quality animation made by a fan. I'd argue that that doesn't really compete with any kind of official streaming platform anyways—the production time to actual frames of animation ratio on Astartes is so, so low, too low to compete with streaming content released on a regular, TV-production-ish schedule. And the thing is, the person who made Astartes got hired by GW to come help develop official content.

The other issue is... well, money. Fan animation, unlike fan fiction, can make money, and the instant money starts to change hands your fair use protections start to evaporate—it's much much easier to defend a work as fair use when nobody is financially gaining from it (and fair use is... honestly a lot less iron-clad then people tend to think. It can be very shaky, and its boundaries are largely decided by case law, so it's hard to know for sure if you're protected unless you win in court—by which point it is far, far too late). This is why patreons from people like Alfa, Something Witty Entertainment, Project Mouthwash, and LittleKuriboh are structured the way they are (abridgers are really the closest analogue to what Alfa does, although their heavy reliance on the original animation arguably makes their position more fraught)—if you sell access to content created with IPs that you don't own, it's dangerous. However, if you structure things so that it is a donation, not a purchase of some form of anything, and by donating you gain access to perks that aren't technically covered by the IP, it's harder to sue them (although many of these offer add-free download access to their content, which is... a little bit dangerous. Just less so than selling any and all access). And of course if you pay Alfa every month... That's money you're not using to buy warhammer models (although the fact that I continue consider giving Alfa money if I can spare any indicates that for at least a portion of the audience, that money really wouldn't go to them either way).

It's honestly easy to make a legal case against fan animation—moreso than any other fan content, because of the monetization and because it can more easily directly compete with official works then pretty much any other sort of content out there (although, again, I'd argue they fill different niches and really don't compete as directly as GW might think). I don't necessarily think, however, that commercial endeavors by fans always harm the rights holder—many rights holders actually allow it if they're in the loop and get some money for it, but I'm not even entirely convinced that's necessary. Hell, if GW straight-up said "yeah, you can accept donations and we won't try to sue you" (which... isn't actually illegal, just toeing right up against the line), there are actually opportunities that open up to them, some of which they can even take without looking like despicable human beings. They can provide publication for fan works or opportunities for creators who want to go official from inside of that space—you hired the Astartes creator, give other people who have proven themselves opportunities to official through hiring or contracting. People like Valve have been doing this for decades: it has proven profitable to varying degrees, and perilous to ignore, lest a friendlier company give your fans an offer—but if you close the door by making your works inhospitable to fan content, you won't get more hires, because those people won't be in your fandom anymore. Hell, if you okay donations, let people donate to fan creators who have reached a certain level of success and applied for it through your website, GW: you can take a cut analogous to patreon, you don't get access to actual content revenue streams like AdSense but also thus do not assume as much risk for fan content (you can't get sued as easily for profiting off of, say, references to Disney's IP if you only take a cut of donations...), and fan creators get the advertising of being on GW's website without actually taking a hit to the amount they get every month from an extra cut—nobody loses here.

There are ways to make this work, is what I'm saying, if you're willing to expand beyond the view of "I OWN this, it is MINE, nobody else get something from MY work, whether it be money, acclaim, or popularity."

Reply Return to messages