Kindle Worlds

Well holy shit.

I was all settled in for a nice, productive Wednesday, and then Amazon blew up the internet.

People love stories. Sometimes, people don’t want stories to end. Sometimes they want them to end differently. Sometimes they want Draco in leather pants, whipping Harry with a ten inch wand of diamond hard wood. And for these people, fan fiction provides an outlet. It gives people who love a character or a story the chance to contribute their own thoughts to the universe, to provide commentary, an alternate world, or just plain old smut.

It’s flattering when someone loves your stories and characters enough to keep them going. It’s awesome when someone is so caught up in your work that they need to explore what might have been. It’s really cool when a fan makes a little part of your world a little part of theirs.

Fan fiction has always kind of existed in a legal gray world. It isn’t, technically, legal, because authors hold the copyrights to the worlds and characters they create, and without their explicit permission, you aren’t allowed to create a derivative work. Most authors, though, agree to just look the other way. Others, myself included, explicitly allow fanfiction in their copyright statements, usually with a clause disallowing commercial sale.

Amazon, as they are wont to do, looked at the status quo, then blithely said “fuck that noise.”

Introducing Kindle Worlds, a sister program to Kindle Direct Publishing, that will allow you to write and sell your fan fiction. Amazon has acquired the rights to several Worlds from Alloy Entertainment, including The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars.

So this is awesome, right? You get to write your fan fiction and make money from it?

Well, not so fast. There’s a really big GOTCHA in the Terms of Service:

  • Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.
  • Kindle Worlds is a creative community where Worlds grow with each new story. You will own the copyright to the original, copyrightable elements (such as characters, scenes, and events) that you create and include in your work, and the World Licensor will retain the copyright to all the original elements of the World. When you submit your story in a World, you are granting Amazon Publishing an exclusive license to the story and all the original elements you include in that story. This means that your story and all the new elements must stay within the applicable World. We will allow Kindle Worlds authors to build on each other’s ideas and elements. We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.

Let’s unpack this:

“Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.” What this means is that when you publish a story on Kindle Worlds, you’re giving Amazon the right to do whatever they want with your story, forever. They can sell it electronically, digitally, carve it into a rock, or give it away. It’s up to them, and you have no say. Ever.

“You will own the copyright to the original, copyrightable elements (such as characters, scenes, and events) that you create and include in your work, and the World Licensor will retain the copyright to all the original elements of the World.” Awesome! Exactly the kind of license I would want. Except …

“When you submit your story in a World, you are granting Amazon Publishing an exclusive license to the story and all the original elements you include in that story.” Want to publish your fan fiction on FanFiction.net? Tough. Amazon is the only entity legally allowed to publish your material. And if they decide that they want to stop publishing your material? Sucks for you. You have no other outlet.

“This means that your story and all the new elements must stay within the applicable World.” This is a huge, flashing warning sign, a big neon Danger, Will Robinson! When you submit a story to Kindle Worlds, you give Amazon all of the rights to your new ideas, even ideas that came solely from your head. Come up with a concept for an awesome new character who just happens to interact with a Salvatore Brother? You can never use that character anywhere except within a Kindle Worlds story.

“We will allow Kindle Worlds authors to build on each other’s ideas and elements.” This means that people get to write fan fiction about your fan fiction. Kindle Worlds is essentially a viral license. I don’t exactly have a problem with that. It would be cool if there was a way to be compensated when another author uses some or your original ideas, but I honestly don’t know how that would even be possible.

“We will also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you.” One of the big issues authors have traditionally had with fan fiction is the possibility that a fan fiction writer would claim the original author stole the fan’s ideas and incorporated them into their work. This is why even authors who explicitly allow fan fiction almost never read fan fiction. This sentence does away with that fear entirely. If you submit a story to Kindle Worlds, the original creators can use it however they want. Just think! The next season of Vampire Diaries could be based on your story! Except you won’t be paid for it.

This is basically a huge, huge rights grab, worse than most contracts I’ve seen come out of traditional publishing. I’m very close to saying that it’s a deal breaker entirely. Except …

Fan fiction authors never really had the rights to their work in the first place. They have no legal right to create their own stories using someone else’s characters and worlds, and they certainly have no right to sell it. Fan fiction authors were never going to profit from their works, and now they can. The rights Kindle Worlds authors are giving away are rights they never really had.

The exception is the license to new concepts developed within a Kindle Worlds story. That is uniquely the author’s own, and submitting to Kindle Worlds locks it up forever. Stories are an author’s lifeblood, and you should never give that kind of control over your ideas to someone else. Fifty Shades of Gray would have never happened under Kindle Worlds, because Amazon would own all of the rights to that story, not EL James. She wouldn’t have been allowed to change the character names, flush out the story, and publish on her own. Amazon would have owned that work, not her.

But if you aren’t creating a lot of new material, or at least material that you would want to use somewhere else? Then Kindle Worlds could be a fun experiment.

Oh, and no porn, so this is basically dead on arrival anyway.

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Vampire Diaries – S04E23 – Graduation

Before we begin, I’d like to mention that my latest Vampires of St. Troy novel, Scion is now available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords, with Apple iBooks and paperback versions coming soon. You can read the first chapter here. A huge thank-you to everyone who’s already bought it, and if you liked it, please leave a review on Amazon for me.

And now that we’ve gotten the shameless self-whoring out of the way …

Previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Mystic Falls High – Ghosts of Graduations Past -

Kol: Hey, anybody else realize that the so-called “heroes” of this show kind of do terrible things on a regular basis and risk ending the world all so they can get laid? Just me? Okay then. But we can still gang up to kill them, right?

- Castle Salvatore – We Could Barely Afford the Song, Let Alone a Cameo -

Damon Salvatore: Hi Stefan! Ready to graduate for the seventeenth time?

Stefan Salvatore: You bet! Right after I get done hanging out with my best friend slash sober sponsor Lexi … you know, the one you murdered in cold blood?

Damon Salvatore: So I guess it’s up to me to stop the world from ending?

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Vampire Diaries – S04E22 – The Walking Dead

Previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Castle Salvatore – Attic of Action -

Stefan Salvatore: Elena, if you want to get through your hategrief, you have to focus on one single thing!

Elena Gilbert: I tried, Stefan! I tried focusing on smashing these concrete blocks, I focused on smashing those wooden boards, I focused on doing pullups, and I even focused on the awesome CW soundtrack! But the only thing I can get happy about is my idiotic quest to murder a vampire five hundred years my senior!

Stefan Salvatore: Yeah, so when I said “focus on one single thing,” I was kinda talking about Little Stefan.

Elena Gilbert: …I’m gonna go take a shower.

Stefan Salvatore: Need help? :-)=

Elena Gilbert: No.

Stefan Salvatore: :-(=

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Vampire Diaries – S04E21 – She’s Come Undone

Previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Mystic Falls High -

Caroline Forbes: Hi Elena! I’m valedictorian!

Matt Donovan: And I got a full ride college scholarship!

Bonnie Bennett: And I have an actual, interesting plot line!

Elena Gilbert: Huh. Back at school. Yep, the Salvatores have finally resorted to torture.

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Vampire Diaries – S04E20 – The Originals

previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Castle Salvatore Damon’s Elena’s Detox Dungeon-

Damon Salvatore: Man! I can’t believe it’s been five whole hours and Elena still isn’t doing exactly what we want!

Stefan Salvatore: This sucks! It’s almost like the world doesn’t revolve around us anymore!

Katherine Pierce: Hi guys! Since Nina Dobrev is currently playing a desiccating corpse, I figured I’d drop by and wreak vastly entertaining havoc!

Stefan Salvatore: That’s great Katherine!

Damon Salvatore: Except we aren’t in this episode!

Katherine Pierce: :-(=

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Vampire Diaries – S04E19 – Pictures of You

previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Mystic Falls – Population – Matt -

Bonnie Bennett: Okay, thanks for filling me in on all of the past week’s wacky shenanigans, Stefan! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to run an errand in the most popular spot in town!

Stefan Salvatore: The Grill? The High School? My living room? We don’t really have a whole lot of other sets.

Bonnie Bennett: No, silly! The cemetery!

Jeremy the Vampire Slayer: Hi Bonnie! I’m dead, but it’s all right! You can make all of this better by ending the world just a little bit!

Bonnie Bennett: That sounds like a great idea!

Jeremy the Vampire Slayer: Also, this is a dream! Also, you may have set your house on fire in your sleep.

Bonnie Bennett: Wow, it’s almost like I’m slowly losing control of my powers, posing a danger to myself and everyone around me!

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Vampire Diaries – S04E18 – American Gothic

previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Katherinesburg, OH – Causway of Convinience-

Rebekah: Elena Consuela Gilbert, you get your pert little butt back in this car right this instant!

Elena Gilbert: Chill out, Rebekah! I have to pee!

Rebekah: Okay, two things. One, we stopped at a gas station just ten minutes ago, and you could have peed there. Two, you’re a vampire, and you don’t even pee.

Elena Gilbert: Okay, so be “pee” I meant “tear out an innocent bystander’s throat in the middle of the sidewalk in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, thereby demonstrating exactly how many shits I do not give.”

Rebekah: And I suppose you’ve forgotten all about our plan to track down Katherine, steal the cure, preserve your immortality and get me pregnant?

Elena Gilbert: Hey, maybe we’ll find a clue to Katherine’s whereabouts here in town!

Rebekah: Oh come on, the odds of running into someone who even knows who Katherine is in this random podunk town are about a million to–

Lanie: Hi Katherine! Good to see you again! Would you care for a quick sip from my cephalic vein? Have you picked up any other supernatural trinkets you’d like me to hide in my sock drawer? Any dastardly plans I can assist you with and then immediately forget?

Rebekah: …Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.

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Vampire Diaries – S04E17 – Because the Night

previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- New York – 1977 – City of Not Sleeping -

A Pretty Lady: Look! That guy is either dead or, like pretty much everyone else in this city at this time of night, passed out in the gutter after a sixteen hour gin and coke bender!

The Pretty Lady’s Hapless Boyfriend: What? I don’t see anyone there!

Damon Salvatore: Hi guys! My hair is awesome and you’re both dead!

A Pretty Lady: :-(

The Pretty Lady’s Hapless Boyfriend: :-O

Damon Salvatore: :-)=

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A Man’s Guide to Defending Yourself from a Rape Conviction

Something shocking happened in Steubenville recently. Two young men were convicted, actually convicted, of rape. They can’t play football anymore! They might not graduate on time! What will happen to their college careers? Or their career careers? And then they got jail sentences! Why, it’s almost as if it isn’t safe to be a rapist anymore!

But worry not, young sexual assailants! I’m here to help! I know that being convicted of rape can have devastating consequences for any young man, and even the allegations of rape can haunt a man for the rest of his life. What’s a virile young stud to do?

Get your notebooks, kids, because this plan is detailed, and maybe even a little hard to follow. But if you’re diligent, if you take my advice to heart, you can save yourself from the fate of the Steubenville rapists. Ready?

A Virtually Flawless Plan to Stop a Rape Conviction from Ruining Your Life:

  1. Don’t rape anyone

A bold plan, I know, but it’s almost 100% guaranteed to save you from being labeled a rapist for the rest of your life. “But,” you ask, because you’re an asshole, “what about those bitches who run around screaming ‘rape rape rape’ every time some guy uses some roofies to loosen her up a little bit?”

Ah, therein lies the secret to my plan. You see, somewhere around two percent of rape accusations are false. That means 98 times out of 100, if someone says you raped them, you actually did! So by simply not raping anyone, you instantly have a 98% chance of protecting yourself from the devastating consequences of a rape conviction! Amazing!

“But,” you ask, because you’re still an asshole, “just what is rape? It’s not like ‘no’ means ‘no’. Some bitches just need convincing!” Ah, a common misconception (among shitheads)! But it turns out that 97% of grammarians agree, the word “no” does actually indicate lack of consent!

“So you’re saying,” you posit, because you’re still a shit weasel, “that I have to get her drunk before I fuck her?” No! In a stunning blow to rapists everywhere, courts have found that the inability to consent is the same thing as lack of consent! Not giving her the chance to say “no” just isn’t good enough!

“But,” you interject, because your soul is as putrid as your genitalia, “how am I supposed to get my rocks off if I have to get a girl’s permission before I stick it in her?”

Well, good sir, try this: go fuck yourself, instead.

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Vampire Diaries – S04E16 – Bring It On

previously, on The Vampire Diaries

- Castle Salvatore – Brothers of Bickering -

Stefan Salvatore: Hi Damon! Since I am contractually obligated to remove the fun from any and all situations, I must voice my deep concerns that Elena has become an interesting character!

Damon Salvatore: And as your roguish yet charming, slightly evil, and more attractive brother, I must disagree!

Stefan Salvatore: But Damon! She turned off her human emotions! And burned down her own house! While her brother was still inside!

Damon Salvatore: Oh come on … he was already dead!

Stefan Salvatore: And you aren’t the least bit concerned that the girl you love is going to turn into a clone of the girl you hate? You know, since she is played by the same actress and all.

Damon Salvatore: Please, it’s not like she’s throwing herself down in the middle of the road, waiting for some hapless jerk to stop and offer assistance, and then eating the poor fool as soon as they get out of the car!

- Mystic Falls – Highway to Hell -

Elena Gilbert: Woe is me! For I have fallen, and I can’t get up!

SOme Hapless Jerk: Egads, this is terrible! Allow me to offer assistance!

Elena Gilbert: :-)=

- Castle Salvatore – Brothers of Bickering -

Stefan Salvatore: You were saying?

Damon Salvatore: Shut up.

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