A Feud in Wolf-Kink Erotica Raises a Deep Legal Question – The New York Times

It s hard to imagine that two writers could independently create such bizarrely specific fantasy scenarios. As it turns out, neither of them did. Both writers built their plots with common elements from a booming, fan-generated body of literature called the Omegaverse.

The dispute between Ms. Cain and Ms. Ellis is a kink-laden microcosm of tactics at play throughout the fanfic industry. As the genre commercializes, authors aggressively defend their livelihoods, sometimes using a 1998 law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to get online retailers to remove competitors books. When making a claim, a creator must have a good faith belief that her ownership of the work in question has been infringed.

But what does that mean when the ultimate source material is a crowdsourced collective? The question has members of the Omegaverse community choosing sides between Ms. Cain and Ms. Ellis as will a federal judge in Virginia, who is considering whether the allegations, and the consequences, merit a payout of more than a million dollars.

via www.nytimes.com