Etsy sellers are turning free fanfiction into printed and bound physical books, and listing them for sale on online marketplaces for more than $100 per book. It’s a problem that’s rattling the authors of those fanfics, as well as their fans and readers.
Several sellers, easily found on Etsy and very popular, each with hundreds of five-star reviews, are selling copies of fanfiction taken from sites like Archive of Our Own (Ao3) and reselling them as bound books. The average price of these bound copies is around $149. Some sellers claim that they’re simply covering the cost of materials, while others just sell the books, usually with the fanfiction writers’ Ao3 username on the cover.
Indeed, this is a common misunderstanding of the status of fanworks. Most fanfics likely violate the copyright of the IP they’re based on, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t themselves original copyrighted works. The original IP’s rightsholders can’t simply claim the fanfic’s copyright for themselves. It likely means that each party would need the other party’s permission to make legal copies of the fanfic.
This is why most studios or authors will refuse to even read unsolicited ideas that are sent to them, they don’t want to end up in a bind if someone sends them a fanfic that’s got elements in it that they already intended to use in future books or episodes and then sues them for “stealing” their work.
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Famously, “50 Shades of Grey” started out as a Twilight fanfic. The author later pulled out all of the Twilight-related stuff and then it was free and clear to publish as their own work. Given how much money 50 Shades raked in I would imagine there’s been some legal scrutiny there from various sides.