I'm... Really not sure about this...

[jo_anne_storm]

Amazon Worlds, where you can publish fanfic from certain WB franchises and earn royalties for your stories.

I'm really...  I don't like it.  Fanfic has always been driven by pure love, not by money.  And the few times someone has tried to publish pure fanfic, the internet exploded with hate.

What I'm seeing as the end result is that the WB will start making a profit on fan stories and send Cease and Desist orders to free fanfic sites.

Really, no, I do not like this.

Edit:

From the Bleeding Cool comments section, a breakdown of some of the fine print:

There's also a couple "gotchas" in this. The first is relatively minor, but it says that the owners of the IP that authors borrow will have an exclusive license to your work. So if you did what Larry Niven did when he got a chance to write an episode of Star Trek (animated), and adapted one of his short stories to fit in the Trek universe, you wouldn't be able to publish that short story (in its original form) elsewhere. The bigger "gotcha" comes next: While they reassure authors that they'll retain the copyright to their original elements (new characters, settings, plot, dialog), the owners of the IP you're borrowing will have a license to use them, without paying you an additional penny. I suspect they included this clause to protect themselves from "you stole my idea" lawsuits, but it would be oh so easy for them to abuse it. So not only would Larry Niven be unable to publish "The Soft Weapon" on his own, he would've handed the Kzinti to Paramount to use in future episodes (and books and movies and plush toys), free of charge.

Also, with free sites, why would you pay for fanfic?  I can see why getting paid royalties would seem nice, but most fanfic authors I know are not in it for the money (obviously).  They do it because they love the worlds and the characters.  Because they love writing and want to hone their craft. 

Comments

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

Also, this is a good breakdown (of how writers get the bad end of the deal in this); http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/22/amazons-kindle-worlds-instant-thoughts/

I'm not remotely interested, and it doesn't seem like something True Fandomers will be interested in either.

[jo_anne_storm]

*nods* I saw that after posting. It seems like a bad idea all around and something that I'm not remotely interested in participating in (even if I did have an interest in any of the fandoms they currently have a license for).