Organization for Transformative Works
Encyclopedia
The Organization For Transformative Works (OTW) is a non-profit organization that advocates for the transformative and legitimate nature of fan labor
activities, including fan fiction
, fan vids, anime music videos, and real person fiction
. It is an organization advocating for the legality of fan works, and its primary focus is protecting fan fiction, fan videos, and other transformative works from legal snafus and commercial exploitation.
The Organization for Transformative Works offers the following services to fans
in fandoms:
Fan labor
Fan labor is a term used to refer to the productive creative activities engaged in by fans, primarily those of various media properties or musical groups...
activities, including fan fiction
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
, fan vids, anime music videos, and real person fiction
Real person fiction
Real person fiction is a type of fan fiction featuring celebrities or other real people. In the past, terms such as actorfic were used to distinguish such stories from those based on fictional characters from movies or television series....
. It is an organization advocating for the legality of fan works, and its primary focus is protecting fan fiction, fan videos, and other transformative works from legal snafus and commercial exploitation.
The Organization for Transformative Works offers the following services to fans
Fan (person)
A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...
in fandoms:
- An open-source, non-commercial, non-profit archive for fan fictionFan fictionFan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
and other transformative fanacFanacFanac is a fan slang term for activities within the realm of science fiction fandom, and occasionally used in media fandom...
("Archive of Our Own"), built by fans (many without previous coding experience) - A wikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
for preserving fandom oral historyOral historyOral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...
(Fanlore) - Legal assistance to the fandom community, addressing the legal issues with fan fictionLegal issues with fan fictionLegal issues with fan fiction arise due to the prospect that a piece of fan fiction may constitute a derivative work, most prominently under United States copyright law.-United States copyright law:...
and other fan works - Preservation of fannish historical artifacts, such as zines and GeocitiesGeoCitiesYahoo! GeoCities is a web hosting service, currently available only in Japan.GeoCities was originally founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet . In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to place their web pages...
websites ("Open Doors") - A peer-reviewed academic journal for scholarship on fanworks and practices ("Transformative Works and Cultures")
- A series of short documentaries on vidding, in combination with participatory culture academic Henry JenkinsHenry JenkinsHenry Jenkins III is an American media scholar and currently a Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the USC School of Cinematic Arts...
and the New Media Literacies project at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...