Create Your Static Fan Fiction Website

In some cases, fanfiction may be considered a copyright infringement if it copies too much from the original work, uses characters or settings that are too similar to the original, or competes with the market for the original work.

In short: Fanfic falls under fair use, so long as there is no profit being made, they are transformative in some way, and youʼre not redistributing the full original work. It is legal to produce and to share, regardless of the opinion of the original creator/copyright holder.

Fan fiction based on works that are in the public domain is legal. In fact, you can publish it and make money off of it. You might even have a best seller, such as The Seven-Percent Solution or Death Comes to Pemberley, not to mention the numerous movies, artwork, etc. based on public-domain work.

The legal team working on behalf of Organization for Transformative Works believes that the publication of fan fiction on AO3 is legal under the Fair Use doctrine, meaning that they need to be transformative, which they interpret as giving new meaning to the original work.

While non-commercialized fanfiction enjoys broad protection under copyright law, resulting in little more than the occasional cease-and-desist letter, there is a higher burden on those who seek to profit from it. The fair use defense largely protects non-profit based fanfiction, and other similar fan works.

The two most popular fanfiction sites are Fanfiction.net (FFN) and Archive of Our Own (AO3). Many fanfiction writers crosspost to both sites, while others prefer to post to only one.