2024 Harry Potter Fanbinding Controversy

This article documents a currently unfolding situation within the fannish realm. Content may change quickly, and the page structure itself may undergo major revision. New details are very welcome.

Event
Event:	Theft and Plagiarism for Profit in the Harry Potter fandom
Participants:	Multiple parties
Date(s):	~2022 – Current
Type:	theft, plagiarism, monetisation of fandom
Fandom:	Harry Potter, specifically the Draco/Hermione and Marauders sides of the fandom
URL:
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Since at least 2022, the Harry Potter fandom — and specifically the Draco/Hermione (aka. Dramione) and Marauders parts of the fandom — have reported a growing issue around fanworks being stolen and monetised in a variety of ways. Fanfiction authors and fan artists found their works being sold on platforms such as Kindle and Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Mercari, and the TikTok shop as well as other locations. Despite ongoing efforts from within the Harry Potter fandom to report and take down these stolen works, the problem only seemed to grow going into 2024.

Some people have suggested that the enormous popularity of Manacled and All the Young Dudes on TikTok, which led to the fanfics breaking containment and becoming well-known within BookTok and other book-related spaces on social media played a role in the Harry Potter fandom in particular being hit by this trend of theft and plagiarism for profit.

History

While the issue became so notable in 2024 that it was discussed widely on various social media platforms and garnered so much attention that media outlets reported on the matter, the issue of other profiting off of fan authors works in the Harry Potter fandom started years before then.

2021

• By 2021, fan-binding of both Manacled and All the Young Dudes, as well as other merchandise, were already popular and, while the majority of these seemed to be fans making copies for themselves or as gifts, there were already copies being sold for profit online as well as people asking where others were buying physical versions. Other Dramione and Marauders works also came up less frequently in queries and TikTok was often referenced by those asking, either as the source of seeing physical copies or for being the person's introduction to the fanwork entirely.
• Related, in June 2021, the artist kumatandraws reported that their Dramione fan art for their series Meet the Malfoys had been stolen by a number of companies for use as advertising on social media, posting a number of examples.

2022

• In January 2022, a reddit user who had made typesets for fans to use in fan-binding brought attention to how sellers on Mercari were reselling fanworks made on Lulu.com and profiting on other people's work.
• Later in January 2022, Senlinyu, author of Manacled, posted to their Wixsite about the interest some fans had in obtaining a physical copy of Manacled. In the post they said they were fine with fan-bindings on Manacled but made their position on this being not-for-profit clear and that Manacled should not be printed through for-profit bookbinding sites. They shared various links to fan-binding resources.
• By June and July 2022, discussions about where to purchase copies of All the Young Dudes and Manacled were appearing on social media with increasing regularity, and other fans in the Harry Potter fandom began to draw attention to those who were profiting from fan authors work. (See: Fan-binding, Criticisms and Controversies). This was a significant event in the Harry Potter fan-binding community and led to a number of authors revising their policies on fan-binding.
• Throughout 2022, the issue of profiting off of fan works continued, with discussions about people purchasing from Lulu.com and etsy appearing from time-to-time.

2023

• Through 2023, senlinyu faced increasing frustration over Manacled being sold in both physical form and people selling epub and pdf copies of her work while the original remained up and free on AO3. She encouraged her fans to report any for-profit copies of Manacled. Fans began to debunk claims that sellers made that they were only covering etsy fees or materials and discussions about the legality of what the sellers were doing, as well as encouraging other fans to report them increased.
• By the end of 2023, Dramione and Marauders' works had continued to gain popularity and breach containment, particularly on BookTok and a steady increase in book-binds being sold for-profit on various platforms became widespread.

2024

• In January 2024, the issue had reached a peak, and a number of authors began to speak out about the theft of their work to be used for profit. In addition to senlinyu, authors such as Emerald_Slytherin, Onyx_and_Elm, and gillianeliza talked on social media about how others were profiting from their fanwork.
• Throughout January and February, discussions about the marked increase in book-bindings for profit began to appear, notably on r/Dramione and across TikTok.
• In the same months, a number of Dramione authors deleted, privated, or restricted their works and this led to the Dramione fandom co-ordinating to report as many sellers who were profiting off of the fanworks as they could find (See below for more).
• At the end of February and beginning of March, a number of online media outlets reported on the book-binding.

Commonly Bound Works

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Some authors and works were more frequently taken and monetised by third-parties, both in book-bound format and in selling PDFs or ePubs of the files on various platforms.

• Senlinyu's work, Manacled.
• MsKingBean89's work, All The Young Dudes.
• Emerald_Slytherin's work, Secrets and Masks.
• Onyx_and_Elm's works, Breath Mints/Battle Scars and Don't Look Back.
• gillianeliza's work, Mon Couteau Aiguśe.
• LovesBitca8's work The Auction as well as others from their Rights and Wrongs series.
• everythursday's work, The Fallout
• isthisselfcare's work Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love
• Otrtbs's work, Art Heist, Baby!
• MesserMoon's work Choices
• Bizarrestars's (aka Zeppazariel) work Crimson Rivers

Deletion and Privating of Dramione Works

During January and February 2024, there was increased focus on the sheer volume of bookbinds of popular works being sold and the prices they were being sold for. Discussions and discourse on the topic increased across TikTok, Reddit, and Twitter. In response, frustrated that efforts to get Etsy and other platforms to do something about their work being sold and overwhelmed by the constant flow, a number of Dramione authors removed their fanworks from Archive of Our Own and other platforms, either by completely deleting them or privating them. The author, shamione, deleted almost their entire Dramione catalogue; Onyx_and_Elm deleted all their Dramione works; gillianeliza deleted Mon Couteau Aiguśe; and numerous other authors deleted their most popular works or single works which were being targeted for bookbinding.

Some readers voiced frustration that this wouldn't do anything to stem the flow of bookbinds being sold, arguing that it would worsen the situation as it would remove the most accessible means of reading the works for free. Many other readers, though disappointed, were more supportive of the decision, pointing out that alongside having their works stolen and monetised, some authors were also being inundated with messages about how their works were being sold, including in comments on their works. Therefore, they understood why some authors just wanted to get away from everything to do with the problem, whether that was permanently or temporarily. Some people also suggested that the act of removing some of the most popular works might bring more attention to the matter.

Mass reporting of seller accounts on Etsy and other platforms

The loss of popular fanworks and the negative impact the ongoing problem was having for both Dramione authors and the fandom as a whole led to aspects of the Dramione community sharing links to sellers' accounts on various platforms and instructing people how to report the works.

Across various social media platforms, people reported accounts in volume and within a few days, multiple accounts had been closed down or suspended pending investigation.

Further Reading

Discussions

• Why are there so many thefts in Dramione fandom, Jul 2022.
• Illegally printing fics wasnt enough, now theyre selling it on Amazon too, a reddit thread on /r/Fanfiction about Marauders fanwork being sold on Amazon, Dec 12 2022.
• please help report this seller thread on /r/Dramione, with 84 responses about the sales of fanworks on Etsy, Dec 28 2023.
• is any other fandom struggling with this? Reddit thread with 140+ responses about the issue of Dramione authors having their work stolen, Feb 25 2024.

Meta

• To make a long story short, my art has been stolen by third party companies for profit by kumatan0720, June 2021.
• if you’re buying bound fanfiction, it’s malicious. no one is entitled to owning a bound copy of their favorite fic by getfuckedblr, Feb 25 2024.
• Twitter thread on bookbinding for profit by bogboogie, Feb 25 2024.