Fan labor
The rise of online repositories built to archive and deliver fan fiction has resulted in a new activity: fandom analytics.
This fan labor practice is focused on the analysis and visualization of the use of content tags and categories, along with other metrics, such as hit and word counts in order to discuss and forecast trends and variations within and across fandoms.
Reanimated projects have been produced in honor of Looney Tunes, SpongeBob, The Simpsons, Kirby, and Zelda CDi, among others.
Costuming often goes well beyond basic seamstress and tailoring, and may include developing sophisticated mechanics, such as hydraulics to open and close wings, or complicated manufacturing techniques, such as building Stormtrooper armor from scratch by using vacuum molding and fiberglass application.
[21] Having invested significant amounts of time, most fans provide their creative works for others to enjoy without requiring or requesting monetary compensation.
Most fans are engaged in an economic model that rewards labor with "credit" such as attribution, notoriety, and good will, rather than money.
From another economic anthropology perspective, fan creative practices are labor that is done in a relatively routine way and that helps to maintain a connection to the media property itself (the "cultural ancestor" or "deity").
The types of material that fans produce and consume continually reproduce the structures and worldview of the fandom subset of the authors and readers, for instance, in terms of which ships are popular.
These choices also reflect the relationships fans construct of their view of their place within fandom, including how they relate to the media property and the corporate structures and products surrounding it.
Fans are therefore engaged in "the individual and collective construction of overlapping and even conflicting practices, identities, meanings, and also alternate texts, images, and objects".
[26] For example, Rebecca Tushnet fears that "if fan productions became well-recognized gateways to legitimate fame and fortune, there might be a tradeoff between monetary and community-based incentives to create.
That fear has come true in more than one case, such as the removal from sale on Amazon.com of Another Hope, a commercial fan fiction book set in the Star Wars universe.
The gray market operates mainly through word of mouth and "under the table" sales, and provides products of varying quality.
Even though these are commercial activities, it is still expected that fan vendors will not make a large amount of profit, charging just enough to cover expenses.
[22] Jenkins comments on the fan-media conglomerate relationship, saying, "Here, the right to participate in the culture is assumed to be 'the freedom we have allowed ourselves,' not a privilege granted by a benevolent company, not something they [fans] are prepared to barter away for better sound files or free Web hosting.
Instead, they embrace an understanding of intellectual property as 'shareware,' something that accrues value as it moves across different contexts, gets retold in various ways, attracts multiple audiences, and opens itself up to a proliferation of alternative meanings.
[36][37][38][39] Companies are now building in room for participation and improvisation, allowing fans to essentially color-by-number with franchise approval.
Stephen Brown, in his article for Consumer Tribes, Harry Potter and the Fandom Menace, writes, "Fans, furthermore, are atypical.
[42] As fans recognize the commercial value of their labor, the issue of companies abusing these volunteer creators of videos, stories, and advertisements (such as the 2007 Doritos Super Bowl Ad contest) by not providing an appropriate monetary reward is of concern.
[44] Often, these cases are settled out of court, but usually result in the fan vendor having to stop selling products entirely, or significantly modifying their wares to comply with the copyright owner's demands.
Recent years have seen increasing legal action from media conglomerates, who are actively protecting their intellectual property rights.
Because of new technologies that make media easier to distribute and modify, fan labor activities are coming under greater scrutiny.
Some fans are finding themselves the subjects of cease and desist letters which ask them to take down the offending materials from a website, or stop distributing or selling an item which the corporation believes violates their copyright.
