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Fate/Revelation Online

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Stratagemini said:
As far as I know it hasn't come up in a legal case yet, but there's a pretty good argument that recieving renumeration for fan works obviates their status as fair use and opens the author up to lawsuits by the rights holders. I'm not sure someone making that argument would win (a fanfic, especially a crossover, is still a transformative work), but that initial lawsuit could still bankrupt you.

This all assumes you're sued in the US of course.
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There are enough fanfic authors – and quest runners, for that matter – who receive Patreon support (often quite substantial) for Western fan works that I kind of doubt Reki Kawahara or Type-MOON are going to hit this one with a cease-and-desist any time soon.
 
Revlid said:
There are enough fanfic authors – and quest runners, for that matter – who receive Patreon support (often quite substantial) for Western fan works that I kind of doubt Reki Kawahara or Type-MOON are going to hit this one with a cease-and-desist any time soon.
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I don't want to get into a legal argument because this isn't the proper venue for it, but under US law, rights holders sre required to defend their rights lest they lose them, and the US rightsholders (i.e. the distributors) would probably be the ones suing. More people getting renumeration from patreon doesn't lower the risk uner the US schema, it heightens it, because the more potential infringement there is, the more likely your rights are declared invalid.
 
daniel_gudman said:
As an aside,

How do you people feel about fanfic authors having Patreon accounts? I saw a couple and thought it was a bit strange... but on reflection, I couldn't see how it's any different (ethically, not legalistically) than being in a Doujin Circle that sells at Comiket, for example. (So yeah I feel like ethically it depends on whether you're doing fanfic for anime stuff with an accepted fanwork culture, or Western Media which doesn't; if it's "right", not what the Disney Corporation has lobbied the US Congress into legislating).
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I personally don't have a problem with it (as long as it's 'per chapter' funding and not 'per month' funding and people don't fall into the old traps affiliated with 'paid based on word count'), but it's very much a legal gray area, and how gray definitely depends on which country you live in.

The grayness of it (primarily in regards to the impracticality of proving that it's a transformative work rather than a derivative work when faced by a big company with tons of high paid lawyers) is the reason why groups such as Team Four Star have Patreon accounts that get most of their support from fans of their Abridged Series, but have the actual Patreon account ostensibly be completely unaffiliated with the Abridged Series, and instead be affiliated with their other projects (such as Let's Plays).
 
Revlid said:
Having not paid attention to the full discussion chain, I was briefly confused by the conflation of "Turing complete" with the "Turing test", but it seems like the latter was what was under discussion the whole time anyway so this comment was entirely pointless and yet I keep on typing and you keep on reading.
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Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. "Turing" without qualifiers can mean a bunch of things, and "- test" isn't what computer science sorts would think of. (It's entirely possible that the designation was invented by management and/or marketing, so *shrug*).


As for the ritual, it's possible that it was meant to do something, when properly carried out by real magic users (who know stuff the Crowley book doesn't, or doesn't contain in the widely circulated version), but not quite what Cardinal/Yui interpreted it as.
 
daniel_gudman said:
But really that's just an aside from the main point....

More generally, this is explicitly the Cardinal System guessing, and winging it. That's why it had to ask Yui (a humanoid AI) for help understanding what the Players were even asking for -- because it didn't know what the Players were asking for. Should the ritual have fizzled? Cardinal is guessing here, and just assumed they should get something.

Kayaba will explicitly be surprised things turned out this way, once he finds out about it -- he can't be everywhere all the time, and this was something Cardinal swung at without his input.

That Kayaba can be blindsided like this is important foreshadowing for him also getting blindsided by Yui going rogue down the line... and more generally, working towards establishing that empathy is a weakspot for him; that he's not omniscient, especially when it comes to understanding and predicting human hearts.
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He's going to be pretty shocked by Kirito and Asuna adopting Yui, and by how far they'll go for her, isn't he?
 
With regards to the Grand Order thing: how far does the anime adaptation go now and how far was it announced to go? All I've seen is the part where male-Rin and Shielder (not the New Wave guy) beat up Lancer-Medusa with Caster-Cu Chulainn.
 
daniel_gudman said:
As an aside,

How do you people feel about fanfic authors having Patreon accounts? I saw a couple and thought it was a bit strange... but on reflection, I couldn't see how it's any different (ethically, not legalistically) than being in a Doujin Circle that sells at Comiket, for example. (So yeah I feel like ethically it depends on whether you're doing fanfic for anime stuff with an accepted fanwork culture, or Western Media which doesn't; if it's "right", not what the Disney Corporation has lobbied the US Congress into legislating).

Full disclosure if I thought I could make extra pocketchange on Patreon I would, but since this is a hobby I do for fun, it would basically be a way to win twice, since fundamentally I have a "career", not a "job," and I don't need to make money to buy food to stay alive to keep writing fanfic.
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I have no moral objection. I just think it's a great way to open yourself to some real legal trouble.
 
You can accept donations, just don't word it like you're taking them for shit you don't own.
"This money increases my free time and motivates me to continue producing entertainment for my fans. Disclaimer: no funds procured via these donations will be used for the purpose of fanfiction or other works that would violate the IP rights of the legitimate owners, I'm serious ;)...:whistle:"
 
So I was re-reading some and I noticed that Argo got that inside out spell book that the Hungry Ant Lion dropped and is learning how to turn her body into magic circuits.
reminded me of this: spoilers

although with Argo's element and TK might be more this: spoilers

instead of beams
 
Stratagemini said:
under US law, rights holders sre required to defend their rights lest they lose them
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Based on previous reading of places that focus on the legality of this stuff: unless something's changed in the last few years, that only applies to trademarks, not copyright or patents. The various rights holders PR people just like to claim it applies to the others as well because it makes them look less like complete dicks when they sue over things like a video of a kid's party where people happen to sing "happy birthday" or other equally morally indefensible (if technically legal) shenanigans.
More people doing it does increase the odds of it going poorly (until there's enough people doing it that the fan backlash and resulting losses would be greater than the gains), but that's purely because the various large media publishers are more likely to notice it's a thing and think they can gain more in cash and legal precedent than they loose in good will (and thus sales)... which for most of the ones prone to suing over fanworks in the first place... well, for various reasons they mostly don't give a shit about good will beyond their pet judges and the politicians who write the laws.
 
justinkal said:
I personally don't have a problem with it (as long as it's 'per chapter' funding and not 'per month' funding and people don't fall into the old traps affiliated with 'paid based on word count'), but it's very much a legal gray area, and how gray definitely depends on which country you live in.

The grayness of it (primarily in regards to the impracticality of proving that it's a transformative work rather than a derivative work when faced by a big company with tons of high paid lawyers) is the reason why groups such as Team Four Star have Patreon accounts that get most of their support from fans of their Abridged Series, but have the actual Patreon account ostensibly be completely unaffiliated with the Abridged Series, and instead be affiliated with their other projects (such as Let's Plays).
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Per chapter is skeevier I think. That's like demanding money for writing. It's more acceptable for original stuff but still.
 
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STOP said:
So I was re-reading some and I noticed that Argo got that inside out spell book that the Hungry Ant Lion dropped and is learning how to turn her body into magic circuits.
reminded me of this: spoilers

although with Argo's element and TK might be more this: spoilers

instead of beams
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Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! Mahoyo's been translated?
 
The only thing I think with having a Patreon as a fanfiction writer is that it in a case decided against them it would mean actual damages could be awarded. Otherwise it's probably fine, the fair-use test in the USA would deal with market harm, not necessarily if you were commercially benefiting from producing a derivative work.
 
The best way to sum this all up is that US copyright (and, really, IP in general) law is an intentionally tangled, loophole ridden, corrupt, Mess. Whatever its original purpose, in its current form it exists pretty much to give Disney, and others of that ilk, a way to lock down it's monopoly on, and functionally keep charging rent on the product of, access to work done decades ago. Probably by people who aren't even part of the company any more and almost certainly don't see any of the money.

There are really only three protections against lawsuits:
One: obscurity: if they don't know it's happening, they can't sue anyone over it.
Two: Being part of a large enough group that the costs (of all types) of doing anything about it out weigh the benefits. FF.net basically uses a combination of this and taking sane and reasonable measures in response to legitimate complaints.
Three: Be wealthy, canny, and stubborn enough that if they Actually take you to court, the lawsuit won't sink you and you've got decent odds of winning and setting precedent they really don't want.

If you're not managing at least one of those, then your only protection is hoping the legal/pr department, or author, or whatever is sane and reasonable on the matter. Generally speaking, individual authors are either very good about it, or absolutely crazy (though there are a couple who are actually reasonable and polite but still won't allow fanfics, it's almost always at least in part based on either bad past experience or bad advise by their publisher's legal/pr department.*), while big publishers of movies, games, cartoons, and books are usually fine with written fanfics on various internet communities or (back in the day) in fan magazines, but get downright Erratic about anything else (up to and including legitimate reviews which don't manage to be sufficiently "identical to our advertising, but free"). Let's not talk about the music industry.

*Seriously, even lawyers who Specialize in copyright law don't understand large chunks of it and acknowledge a lot of the rest as being awful.

Ultimately, monetizing fan-fiction is a risk. If you have the resources and mentality to take such a risk and deal with the consequences, go for it. You might even manage to set precedent that helps people out one day. Otherwise, don't. Because it's a grey area at best and there are plenty of companies involved who can and will use it to extort money out of you if they notice and think it worth the effort, either to get the money or to set an example so as to discourage others.

Edit: I'd say "consult a lawyer", but as I said earlier, even those who Specialise in this stuff haven't got a clue half the time. Any given lawyer will probably tell you either not to (because they're looking out for your interests, and having it all go pear shaped is not in your best interests), go for it (because they see a way to benefit themselves) or that they have no idea and it's up to you (because, well, they have no idea and are at least honest about it).
 
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The same loophole that big, well known, but still easily crushed by big companies groups like TeamFourStar use should work though.

That loophole being "write both fanfiction and original fiction, and have the Patreon account only talk about the original fiction, even if that's only a small part of what you do".
 
On the issue of Patreon, I'm with many people here. I would even encourage you to do so, because I like to make an occasional donation to free works that I enjoy. It lets me show my appreciation in some measurable way. Legal issues aside, you put work into bringing this fanfic to us, even if it is a work you enjoy. That being said, that's only as long as I don't have to pay to read. Dunno why, but I'm willing to pay a lot more for free stuff I enjoy, than pay to read stuff.
 
A thought occurred to me, Argo hasn't done the affinity test. She described the transmuted circuit feeling like salt so maybe her affinity is crystal and not metal as both salt and metal fall under crystals. Has this come up before?
 
While Argo was not shown discovering her element "on-screen", it's safe to assume that one of the first steps she took in doing so was chugging those basic five-element beers or some equivalent, such as the quest those were based off of, and that's probably where she learned her affinity. I don't think one of those would give a misleading reaction. I mean, while sure, metal might fall under crystal technically, they seem like they'd be quite different conceptually, you know? And those brews wouldn't even react if you drank Eastern fire but had a Western fire affinity. I don't think it'd give a false positive such as that.

Perhaps the brine-precipitation imagery will likely have more to do with a ... 'method' affinity rather than having to do with elements, like how Asuna's better at bursty stuff rather than sustained effects. Or maybe it's just imagery, like Shirou's hammer-cocking, although I hear that was still related to swords somehow in Japanese but that didn't translate over?

We'll have to see more of her spellcraft to really say, I think. Most of the magic we've seen from her has either been system provided or derived from Shirou-sensei's stuff. Well, Argo's the best girl that's really in this fic (Taiga is of course best girl overall) so I won't say no to seeing more of her.
 
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