Editorial by Ann Wortham in "Southern Lights"

Open Letter
Title:	Editorial by Ann Wortham in "Southern Lights"
From:	Ann Wortham
Addressed To:	all fans
Date(s):	May 1993
Medium:
Fandom:
Topic:	Zine Pirating
External Links:
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Editorial by Ann Wortham in "Southern Lights" was printed in May 1993 in the sixth issue of Southern Lights (aka "Southern Comfort").

The subject was zine piracy.

Background Information

Making copies of zines that were still in print could be financially damaging to many zine editors and publishers. It was an issue that was first publicly discussed in media fandom in the eleventh issue of Probe in August 1977. The editor, Winston A. Howlett, wrote:

Have you heard of the Underground? The one in ST fandom... They Xerox things. Lots of things. Like parts of fanzines, or whole fanzines, or even whole sets of fanzines. All without permission of any kind from anyone who had anything to do with the fanzine's production. And I'm not talking about just a copy for 'personal entertainment,' but five, ten, forty copies... whatever number fits their 'small circle of friends.' Sometimes they sell them, sometimes they trade them for other fanzines (copies or originals), sometimes they give them away...to someone else who also has free access to a duplicating machine and another circle of friends. I first heard about the Underground when a fellow zine editor stumbled across a Xerox of her visual series (elaborate comic book if you will) in the hands of a neo-fan at a con. Said neo praised the artist/editor for her work and casually mentioned that 'XYZ in California' had Xeroxed about forty copies and spread them all over the country... People with free access to Xerox machines make me very nervous, if just for the built-in temptation that the devices [will be] be used irresponsibly. What good is all the extra effort and expense an editor goes through to acquire a special story or article for an issue, when somebody with the 'Start Print' Syndrome can wreck the whole process? In case you hadn't thought about it, zine editors don't just give their works that extra effort just for the sake of the art, but to acquire new readers. In short, friends, when you fellow Trekfan starts drooling over your latest zine purchase, try gently imploring them to buy their own copy, instead of running to Daddy's office. Xerox doesn't need the business, but we do.

In the early late 1980s and early 1990s, there were strong feelings in fandom about some fans who were making copies of zines still in print and were, from one point of view, "stealing" from zine publishers by copying in-print zines. There were also strong feelings about zine editors who kept zines in print forever, thus continuing to make sales while the story authors never received any additional compensation. This coincided with growing resentment among other groups of fans regarding rising zine prices, often for zines which they felt were not worth the higher prices.

Many of these tensions came to a head at, and after, RevelCon 1993.

A Series of Open Letters: by Zine Publishers/Con Organizers

In 1993 and 1994, a number of Open Letters circulated in fandom regarding the photocopying of in-print zines.

See: The Revelcon Zine Piracy Letters.

Wortham's Letter

[From the editorial]:

I have a concern to express to you. Bootlegging of zines seems to be on the rise again, and this time the problem is not really dealers who copy zines to resell, but folks who buy one copy of a zine and then make duplicates for their fiends. This is not all right. This is stealing. But, I think the people doing it already know that and don't care. However, YOU should care. Because if you bought a legitimate copy of this zine, you just paid a lot more for it than you would have if the thieves weren't stealing my property. It works like this: the more copies of zine that can be sold, the lower the price of each individual issue becomes. You see, the cost of supplies, postage, equipment, and contributor's copies is figured into the cost of each copy. The more copies that can be sold, the more the "hidden" costs can be spread out and therefore the lower the cost of the copy. There's another reason you should care about fans stealing zines. This is the last issue of SOUTHERN LIGHTS. There won't be any more. The fans at Revelcon in Houston who ripped me off, ripped off you, too. I have absolutely no desire to invest my hard-earned money and even harder to come by time, in producing a zine that can't pay for itself. Other editors have expressed the same opinions to me.

My gratitude and thanks to those of you who have supported this zine over the years by buying legitimate copies.