Is making Homestuck Public Domain really a good idea?

[Bahinchut]

I've seen this proposal all over the forum, all over reddit, and even on a dedicated ratification proposal page on Tumblr, and while I was initially considering the benefits that this would entail, I was also concerned with the benefits of this open source approach. My main gripe with the idea is that Homestuck wouldn't be well known enough to be considered for public use, because as it stands in the eye of the public it remains a niche webcomic that has gone on for far too long.

In the same sense that throwing a rope of sausages at a cat isn't a good idea. It's not harming anyone, sure, but was it really necessary? Would anyone gain from Homestuck being in the public domain? As it stands, Homestuck has a wealth of fan content that is left totally untouched by corporate hands. I mean, is Homestuck even a registered brand? It has the theme song to Saw 3 and dozens of copyrighted images, how do you legally protect a story like that?

The only people who would really stand to benefit from this would be people who'll charge for whatever Homestuck shit they end up producing. I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of paying to read fan-fiction.

[JakeMorph]

so your argument is that because you, personally, would never ever want to pay for Homestuck content from someone not affiliated with What Pumpkin, it would be totally unnecessary to allow people to monetise that content

[sigmatic]

The only people who would really stand to benefit from this would be people who'll charge for whatever Homestuck shit they end up producing. I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of paying to read fan-fiction.

If it's actually good, I wouldn't see any problem with paying for something like that, supporting a creator who creates fiction that you like can be beneficial to the reader too. Of course it's up to everyone to decide for themselves but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this kind of setup.

[Bahinchut]

so your argument is that because you, personally, would never ever want to pay for Homestuck content from someone not affiliated with What Pumpkin, it would be totally unnecessary to allow people to monetise that content

yes

[Rob]

The benefit to a work being public domain is exactly zero friction on making a derivative work. The more derivative work there is the more derivative derivative work can be created and so on, it has the highest memetic potential. I think it's unabashedly a good idea to make Homestuck public domain for that reason, it makes fanon more concrete by putting it on the same intellectual property level as canon. That is to say: Paradox Space becomes more real.

Viz probably has a vested interest in that not happening if HS is making it money though. Oh well.