I think the gift economy is the most fabulous thing ever invented. I practically wept when I discovered the fan fiction community in 2002. I had recently become visually impaired, I had practically no access to e-books, and here were millions of writers who were offering their stories for free!
That said, if there was ever a time when fandom was entirely free of commercialism, it was before my time. The first time I ever visited a dealer's room at a slash con, in 2002, it was filled to the brim with fanworks being sold: zines, vids, art, and all sorts of products like buttons and clothing.
How many of these fanworks were being sold at cost, without profit? I don't know. But I suspect that creating fanworks for fun and creating fanworks for profit wasn't considered to be entirely incompatible by some of the folks there.
Speaking as an originalfic writer, I saw originalfic being commercialized in the early 00s. So I agree with verity that, if it hadn't been for legal reasons, fanworks would probably have been commercialized before now.
(While we're totting up motives for commercializing fanworks, I hope we won't forget financial need. I've heard that this can be a big motive in the case of some marginalized fanfic writers.)
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I think the gift economy is the most fabulous thing ever invented. I practically wept when I discovered the fan fiction community in 2002. I had recently become visually impaired, I had practically no access to e-books, and here were millions of writers who were offering their stories for free!
That said, if there was ever a time when fandom was entirely free of commercialism, it was before my time. The first time I ever visited a dealer's room at a slash con, in 2002, it was filled to the brim with fanworks being sold: zines, vids, art, and all sorts of products like buttons and clothing.
How many of these fanworks were being sold at cost, without profit? I don't know. But I suspect that creating fanworks for fun and creating fanworks for profit wasn't considered to be entirely incompatible by some of the folks there.
Speaking as an originalfic writer, I saw originalfic being commercialized in the early 00s. So I agree with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
verity that, if it hadn't been for legal reasons, fanworks would probably have been commercialized before now.
(While we're totting up motives for commercializing fanworks, I hope we won't forget financial need. I've heard that this can be a big motive in the case of some marginalized fanfic writers.)