Walled Culture has written a number of times about the true fans approach – the idea that creators can be supported directly and effectively by the people who love their work. As Walled Culture the book explains (available as a free ebook), one of the earliest and best expositions of the concept came from Kevin Kelly, former Executive Editor at Wired magazine, in an essay he wrote originally in 2008. The true fans idea is sometimes dismissed as simply selling branded t-shirts to supporters. That may have been true decades ago, but things have moved on. For example, Universal Music Group has recently opened retail locations that cater specifically for true fans. In addition to shops in Tokyo and Madrid, there are new outlets in New York and London. Here’s what the latter will offer, as reported by Music Business Worldwide:

Located in Camden Market, the London-based space will “serve as a creative hub where music, fashion, and design collide,” UMG said.

The announcement added that the shop was “designed to capture Camden’s rebellious spirit and deep musical roots”.

The store will feature exclusive artist collections, immersive installations, and live performances, along with a Vinyl Lounge, DJ booth, and recording studio-inspired Sound Room that “allows fans to experience music like never before”.

That is a fairly conventional extension of the “selling branded t-shirts to supporters” idea. A post on the Midia Research blog points out a more radical development in the true fans space involving the latest generative AI technology:

AI is best considered as an accelerant rather than something entirely new, intensifying pre-existing trends. AI music absolutely fits this trend. Over the course of the last decade – including a super-charged COVID bump – accessible music tech has enabled ever-more people to become music creators. AI simply lowered the barriers to entry even further. The debate over whether a text prompt constitutes creativity will continue to run (just like the same debate still runs for sampling), but what is clear is that more people are now making music because of AI.

Thanks to genAI, true fans are not limited to a passive role. They can actively participate in the artistic ecosystem brought into being by their musical heroes, through the creation of new works based on and extending the originals they love. The fanfic world has been doing this for many years, so it is no surprise to find the use of generative AI there even more advanced there than in the world of music. For example, the DreamGen site lists no less than nine “AI fanfic generators”, including its own. It offers a good description of how these systems work:

1. You give it a prompt: This could be something like “Harry Potter and Hermione go on a space adventure” or “Naruto meets Spider-Man in New York.”

2. The AI takes over: It uses its knowledge of language and storytelling to write a story based on your idea. It fills in the details, such as dialogue, action, emotions,and plot twists.

3. You can guide it: Want more romance? More drama? A surprise ending? You can tweak the prompt or add instructions, and the AI will adjust the story.

4. You get a full fanfic: Some tools write it all at once, others let you build it paragraph by paragraph so you can shape the story as it goes.

As that indicates, the new AI-based fanfic generators are so easy to use, anyone can use them. The only limit is the imagination and the ability to put that into words. That’s an incredible democratization of creativity that takes the idea of participatory fandom to the next level. And, of course, it can be applied in other domains too, such as “fan art”, which Wikipedia defines as follows:

Fan art or fanart is artwork created by fans of a work of fiction or celebrity depicting events, character, or other aspect of the work. As fan labor, fan art refers to artworks that are not created, commissioned, nor endorsed by the creators of the work from which the fan art derives.

As with other uses of genAI, this raises questions of copyright, some of which have already found their way to court. Perhaps surprisingly, Disney has just announced its embrace of this use of AI by fans, in a partnership with OpenAI:

The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI have reached an agreement for Disney to become the first major content licensing partner on Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform, bringing these leaders in creativity and innovation together to unlock new possibilities in imaginative storytelling.

As part of this new, three-year licensing agreement, Sora will be able to generate short, user-prompted social videos that can be viewed and shared by fans, drawing from a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, including costumes, props, vehicles, and iconic environments. In addition, ChatGPT Images will be able to turn a few words by the user into fully generated images in seconds, drawing from the same intellectual property. The agreement does not include any talent likenesses or voices.

There’s a billion-dollar investment by Disney in OpenAI, as well as the following:

OpenAI and Disney will collaborate to utilize OpenAI’s models to power new experiences for Disney+ subscribers, furthering innovative and creative ways to connect with Disney’s stories and characters.

Presumably, Disney hopes to gain more Disney+ subscribers and drive more revenues with these short-form, fan-generated videos, plus whatever “creative ways” of using AI that it comes up with. OpenAI, meanwhile, gains some handy investment, and a showcase for its Sora genAI video platform.

Although this deal is a welcome sign that some major copyright companies are starting to think imaginatively and positively about genAI, and how it can actually boost profits, the new service will doubtless be rather limited, not least in terms of what kind of videos can generated. The press release emphasises:

OpenAI and Disney have affirmed a shared commitment to maintaining robust controls to prevent the generation of illegal or harmful content, to respect the rights of content owners in relation to the outputs of models, and to respect the rights of individuals to appropriately control the use of their voice and likeness.

That means that there will always be room for edgier, smaller sites producing fanfic, fan art and fan videos that don’t worry about things like good taste or copyright. As more fans discover the delights of building on and extending the creative ideas of their idols in novel ways using genAI, we can expect a corresponding rise in the number of legal actions trying to stop them doing so.

Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon and on Bluesky. Originally posted to Walled Culture.

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