ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the strategies and tactics employed by businesses and fans to negotiate the lack of strong formal legal control over fan creative expression online, and it argues that copyright holders, internet platforms, and service providers often use their power and resources to threaten baseless legal action in the name of obscenity and copyright laws in order to intimidate fans into removing or turning over ownership of their content. In contrast, fan communities have their own hidden transcript that narrates their use of copyrighted works as legally and morally acceptable, which they may mobilize in instances wherein solidarity between fans or partnership with non-profits offers enough resources to publicly contest corporate control. Thus, the internal governance and power structures of fan communities are more responsive and less asymmetrical than those employed by copyright holders, internet platforms, and service providers, as they resolve internal disputes through democratic communicative ethics.
