shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Ao3:
Thank you for your replies. Fannish non-fiction, commonly known as "meta", is permitted on the Archive. However, as we stated in our previous email, we do not allow reviews of television episodes or movies. As our Terms of Service FAQ states, "as an Archive whose goal is preservation, we want permanent, nonephemeral content. To the extent that your content is designed to be ephemeral, such as liveblogging episode reactions, it should go on a journaling service and not the Archive." Works that are ephemeral, such as reviews, are not allowed under Section IV.H. of the Terms of Service, which states: "The Archive of Our Own is a place for fanworks."

Regardless of your intentions, when you created your account, you agreed to comply with our Terms of Service. Section I.D. of our Terms of Service states: "You agree not to use the Service […] to make available any Content or work that violates the Content Policy." Reviews are generally classified as non-fanworks, and non-fanworks may not be posted on the Archive of Our Own.

We brought to your attention the works which were reported to us as being legitimately in violation of our Terms of Service. We will remove those works if you do not do so. If you also choose not to review your other works and remove any remaining non-fanworks you have posted, that is your prerogative. However, if you do not remove all violating content on your account, or if you post additional non-fanworks or otherwise violate the Terms of Service in the future, you may be reported again. As we have already stated, further violations of the Terms of Service may lead to the temporary or permanent suspension of your account.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email.



PBJ
AO3 Policy & Abuse


ME: First off, I don't tend to live blog. Everything I've written has been long after it aired. Rarely during.

Second. I looked up "ephemeral" (clearly a dumb attorney is writing this - I can tell - I know how lawyers write ).

e·phem·er·al
/əˈfem(ə)rəl/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
adjective: ephemeral

lasting for a very short time.
"fashions are ephemeral"


Last time I checked? We could apply that term to about 80% of fanvids (because most of them are copyright infractions), and fanfiction (most are reactions to an episode and are undone by the next episode).

Reviews are not temporary - no matter how much you may want them to be. An episode reaction also isn't any more temporary than a fanfiction. That's kind of splitting hairs.

My review of The Help is not a temporary reaction of live blog.

Anyhow the idiots hid my review which had four kudos.

I’m sorry, most people including professional film reviewers and book reviewers define reviews or episode reactions in that fashion. You did not state that episode reviews, film reviews, theater reviews etc should not be posted.

Film reviews and episode reactions are not limited to blogs - they are also fan works, and I’ve had mine linked to.

At any rate - if you don’t want people to post those things then instead of using the word ephemeral which is defined as for a “very short time”, you might want to use the word “Film Review” or state specifically that film reviews, episode reviews, recaps of episodes, reactions to episodes, book reviews, analysis of books, and reactions to books are not permitted on this site.

I still have no idea - because your definition of a temporary non-permanent work is NOT the same as mine. This is clearly written by a lawyer - who is using a word that isn’t precise or clear.

IF you want to exclude certain works - clarify what they are, and don’’t attack people for misunderstanding because you can’t be clear about it on your site.

If you want anything I wrote removed - remove it yourselves.

And since there were typos because mother called while I was trying to write it and distracted me.


Made some typos. So will to clarify.

Since when are movie reviews, book reviews or reactions to episodes considered “temporary””? Many fans don’t consider it them to be temporary. Professional book and film reviewers along with fans who review television, books and films don’t consider these to be temporary - which is the definition of Ephemeral. It is defined as for a very short period of time.

No where in your FAQs do you state that episode reactions, film reviews, commentary on films, episodes, or books is not permitted. You state that ephemeral works aren’t. And you are presuming that a reaction to an episode isn’t permanent - by whose definition? A lawyers? You could define most fan fiction as not permanent or ephemeral in the same manner - since a lot of it is written as a reaction to an episode or work at that moment in time.

I’m sorry using a word like ephemeral or permanent - to determine what can or can’t be on a fan site is disingenuous of you and your lawyers. Those words can be questioned. If you don’t want something - be precise. I posted the reviews and episode reactions - after another meta challenge from your site - stating reviews were welcome and episode reactions were from people on dream width - as a means of preserving fandom history. To keep a record of fandom reactions and fandom interactions, and reviews. But if that is not what you want - state it clearly so there is no misunderstanding. Don’t use terminology that is vague.

Again, I’ll leave it to you to decide what of my works should be removed.

I looked through my other works - and I don’t know what can be loaded to your site any longer. I have a Justice League film comparison - but I’m guessing it would be considered not a fanwork? I can tell you have lawyers who are writing this - apparently lawyers who don’t understand that film and book reviews aren’t temporary works.


Sigh. If they'd been up front and stated clearly what was not permitted under their narrow legal definition of fanworks, then I wouldn't have wasted hours of my time trying to share my works with their site.

But alas, no. They were cowards, and had lawyers write vague legal rules.
And here we are.

ETA, the more I thought about their insistence on it not being permanent or ephemeral, the angrier I got. (I deal with people playing word games with me all week long at work.)

Also, who is Ao3 to decide what is and what isn’t ephemeral work? If you wan to be exclusive site that only allows fan fiction and fan art? Then state that - and do not do meta matters challenges. Or define precisely what Ao3 means by meta? Don’t come at honest fans who have honestly taken the time and energy to post their non-fiction fan works and tell them that they aren’t fan works, they aren’t meta, and they are ephemeral and not worth saving.

It’s insulting, and however unintentional, callous, malicious, and the exact opposite of what you claim in your FAQs.



***

This occurred after three hours of changing passwords on the internet across various sites. My phone alerted me to a data breach - probably my mother's computer. So I had over 162 items to change.

Date: 2022-07-30 07:29 pm (UTC)
yourlibrarian: BUFFY Where Do We Go From Here (BUF-Where Do We Go - tinny.png)
From: [personal profile] yourlibrarian
Yeah, the whole idea of reviews being ephemeral is rather bizarre. I mean there have been books published of some critics' reviews. Reviews are regularly linked to from Wikipedia or other sources about shows or movies. They may be of a particular time (a review of Bonnie and Clyde in the 60s vs the 90s) but that doesn't make them ephemeral. In fact, if anything it's fascinating to see what may have been the take in a given period vs now. They can even be used for historical research.

My feeling is that they find it too difficult to split hairs regarding episode reactions (including live blogging) vs reviews, which can be extensive, detailed and setting the episode within a whole season so they are for convenience's sake simply banning it all. I mean, in what way does a meta which focuses on a particular episode differ from more analytical episode reviews? If it's just how it's labeled, well...

Date: 2022-07-31 05:44 am (UTC)
atpo_onm: (Days_of_Meta)
From: [personal profile] atpo_onm
What this reminds me of is the kind of snobbery that was attached to classical music when I was growing up. There was "classical music" and "popular music". The latter, for the aforementioned snobs, could have the term "ephemeral" applied to it. (I had to look it up also, what the dictionary stated was not what I was thinking the word meant).

Or in your post where you were discussing Sandman and comics, it was the same years ago-- comics weren't literature, they represented the degradation or demise of it. As I've posted many years ago on LJ and earlier, I started collecting newspaper and magazine comics/cartoons in th elate 60's because that attitude annoyed me.

The passage of time had revoked a great deal of that idiocy. On a popular NPR show that features young people working in the classical music genre, one regularly hears the students cite influences from jazz, rock, ambient, whathaveyou and the hosts-- classical musicians themselves-- not only don't discourage this, but the opposite.

Methinks you have some people here who are still anchored mentally in decades past.

And lawyers.

(Suddenly wants to listen to Jackson Browne's tune "Lawyers In Love".)

Oooop... here we go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxXiitZAjiY

Date: 2022-07-30 08:01 pm (UTC)
iddewes: (pallas cat)
From: [personal profile] iddewes
That’s ridiculous. Of course reviews are no more “ephemeral “ than fan fic. What a bunch of tossers. And yes they should have specified what was permitted.

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