Board Thread:Inclusion debates/@comment-1506468-20190827123101/@comment-6032121-20190828225958

I continue to disagree that fiction published personally (that is to say, released personally by the author, as opposed to released via a publishing company, whether or not it is one the author happens to also own) is automatically fanfiction. Fanfiction's primary characteristic is not that it is published on the Internet, but that it is published without a license.

Again, the notorious novel Worm was released on the Internet, without a specific "publisher", but that doesn't make it fanfiction, because the author wasn't using any concepts he didn't have the rights to. Same thing here: if he had been writing fanfiction, Mr Wylder wouldn't have asked for permission prior to publishing the damn thing.

Whether through Arcbeatle Press or not, Wylder had, by all appearances, ever right to release a story featuring those DWU concepts. He did. How he chose to do so, and whether that story is later rereleased in print through Arcbeatle, doesn't make the prior, modern-style, webnovel-style release "fanfiction".

…All this being said, just checking: you do agree that even if we forget about Release #1, Releases #2 and #3 would be enough for the stories to pass Rule 3, yes? (In which case, though this is nitpicking, you can't say you disagree with "everything" that has been said in this thread.)