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Official Fan Fiction

We've been talking about different moral economies in class, which essentially refers to people expectations of what is fair. The attitude of 'remix' culture and web 2.0 encourages others to share freely, create and remix new content using someone else's content or framework (like memes) in many cases without even receiving credit. This attitude stands in contrast to the moral economy of the previous media landscape when corporations were the main drivers of content, proper credit (and pay) for content was strongly enforced, and copyright was vigorously enforced.  Finding common ground between these two sides has proved difficult.

Marvel Comics has tried to offer a middle ground to fans who want to write their own stories about Marvel characters and properties with Marvel Create Your Own.  It allows anyone to make their own comics by choosing from a variety of pre-rendered Marvel characters, backgrounds, layouts, and effects.  Only a handful of characters can be used for free, but others can be purchased to use for a few dollars. 

On the surface it sounds great.  Marvel has found a way to give fans and creators access to their popular characters and tools that will allow anyone, even if they have no previous drawing or writing experience, a chance to make their own comics.  However, there are some major issues with this platform. As Kaitlyn Tiffany writing for The Verge points out, "Legalism and art rarely mix well; lawyers will always err on the side of caution, which in a creative context can mean censorship and encouraging artists to make things that are inoffensive, toothless and of little interest to anyone."  A quick look at the list of restrictions reveals that any stories with "Sensationalism” (which could include killer bees, gossip, aliens, or scandal), politics, social issues, 'controversial topics', fart noises, “Content that could frighten or upset young children or the parents of young children,” and much more.  The other issue that seems 'unfair' is that Marvel will own anything users create, even though many of those users have paid money to purchase characters and spent their own time and energy to write these stories. With huge restrictions and an inability to really share or own any content I don't imagine this service will be popular among most comic fans.

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