WIPs and Lemons (two fanficcy resplies)

[heiditandy]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "msbeadsley" 
<msbeadsley at y...> wrote:
> > They have no obligation, imo, to host anything they don't want 
to - 
> > and to be honest, they have no obligation not to lie or cheat or 
> > steal (and yes, I consider radically changing one's ToU when 
you're 
> > taking money from people to cover services a form of cheating & 
> > stealing), but in the same vein, nobody has an obligation to give 
> > them the time of day either. 
> 
> People are *paying*? That's not a freedom of speech issue or 
> censorship--it's breach of (even implied) contract! I'd be at least 
> trying to organize a walk out! (If nobody uses their site...)


Been there. Done that. Actually accomplished something, from what I 
understand.

Now, here's the long version of that. 

When Saity mentioned yesterday that she thought that FFN had 
announced the NC17 thing before closing down for 9.11.02, I went back 
to IvyBlosson's LJ for that day
(http://www.livejournal.com/~ivyblossom/2002/09/13/) because I 
remembered that she'd plugged a "get your money back from ffn" thing, 
where people complained to PayPal, who at that point were the 
processing place for payments to FFN. 

PayPal agreed that it was a breach of contract for ffn to collect 
money and then change their terms of use so radically. However, I'm 
not sure that removing lemons would constitute a change in the ToU at 
this point, because it's been over a year since they accepted NC17 
fics, and they should allow lemons to stay on if they're R-rated (and 
yes, such a thing is technically possible). 

If you want to read what one of ffn's columnists wrote last year 
about the NC17 issue, you can find it here: 
http://216.239.39.104/search?
q=cache:P4ILccexoWUJ:www.fanfiction.net/column.php%3Fcolumnid%3D38+%
22fanfiction.net%22+%22support+services%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8&client=lgtech-kb - yay for GOOGLE!

Now, people don't pay to be hosted on ffn, nor does one have to pay 
to read or review stories. 

This is what you pay $25/year for:

1. Enhanced Statistic Keeps track of hit count for stories under you 
account. Moreover, it will keep a separate statistic for each chapter 
if you have many chaptered stories.  
2. Author Alert aka New Story/Chapter Alert Automated new 
story/chapter notification from the authors you have chose to 
monitor. Also allows non-support service members to be able to 
receive alert notifications on your newly posted stories and/or 
chapters.  
3. Ad Free Pages(*) Regardless of an user's ad blocker settings, your 
profile page, your story pages, and the review pages of your 
published entries will be void of any type of ad placement at all 
times.  
4. @FanFiction.Net Email Account Your own customized @fanfiction.net 
email account with spam and virus protection.  
5. Enhanced Search In addition to search the site for authors by 
penname, stories by title you have options to search for stories by 
story summary and filter searches by category, genre, rating, 
language, and length.  
6. Profile Picture Allow you the flexibility of posting a gif or jpeg 
picture within your regular author profile.  


They still use PayPal, so I guess anyone who thinks that their 
contract was breached can try that approach again.