Intellectual property (IP) is one of the business cornerstones for creators. Whether a video game developer, a tabletop game designer, an author, a content or other creator – copyrights and trademarks let creators protect their creations and livelihoods. Enforcing those rights helps prevent fraudulent and infringing actors from stealing goodwill and money from a creator and maintains brand quality and reputation. Plus, creators have a legal responsibility to maintain their copyrights and trademarks or risk losing their IP.

All that said, whether a creator is trying to grow a fanbase and following for a game, book, or social media page, strict enforcement might not be the best strategy for protecting IP.

How do creators balance the need to police their brands while also encouraging their communities to engage with those brands? One way is through a Fan Content Policy.

What Is a Fan Content Policy?

A fan content policy (sometimes also known as a community license or an open gaming license) is an open license to a creator’s community and fans with terms and restrictions on how anyone can use a creator’s IP. Fan content policies are often written with simple language that average fans can understand. Such policies might be a simple set of rules regarding what type of fan content can be created and how such fan content can be used. For example, a VTuber may want to encourage fan art of their avatar or a video game studio may want content creators to stream themselves playing their game. Doing so not only helps drive engagement to their brand but also fosters a more lively and supportive community.

Other creators, such as tabletop game developers, might have much more detailed policies as they expect the community to create content that will be monetized. For example, several tabletop roleplaying games, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Daggerheart, rely on modules and campaigns published by third parties and individuals to continue to provide content for their player bases. In these cases, a creator may want to lay out how the community can or cannot monetize any content made using the underlying IP.

What to Include in a Fan Content Policy?

Fan content policies are highly customizable and what a creator chooses to include or not will depend on what the creator wants to prioritize. Despite that customizability, most fan content policies will include a few common terms:

• Commercial Uses: Whether and how fans can commercialize content they make. A creator may want to dissuade the community from directly selling goods that the community makes using the underlying IP since that can conflict with the Creator’s own merchandise. The creator might still allow fans to commercialize fan-created content by allowing fans to earn ad revenue from videos and livestreams (as in the case with streamers on Twitch and other platforms). The creator may also provide contact information for the community to inquire about official licenses and partnerships.
• Prohibited Uses: A creator will likely consider prohibiting fan-made content the creator thinks will damage its brand. This might include explicit and obscene materials, creating NFTs based on the underlying IP, or other uses that a creator wants to discourage.
• Disclaimer: A creator may want to distance themselves from any specific fan content. It could require the community to add an explicit disclaimer that fan-created content is not officially endorsed by the creator.
• Indemnification: If a fan ends up creating content that violates the law or the rights of a third party, the creator will want to ensure that they are defended from and held harmless for such activity.
• Enforcement: Setting forth the terms for when a creator might take action to take down fan content or otherwise enforce the creator’s rights can provide the community with some stability. By setting expectations in a fan content policy, a creator can avoid having enforcement seem overly punitive or surprising.
• Modifications: Typically a creator will want to retain the right to freely modify the fan content policy from time to time. Creators should be careful about how they go about doing so. While fans might not expect much from a simple fan content policy that allows fan-made content, a community relying on a detailed open gaming license for rules governing how they are allowed to commercialize their content will respond much more strongly against one-sided changes to such a policy.

Conclusion

Fan content policies are useful ways for a creator to balance the need to protect their IP while also engaging with their community and allowing fans to create content based off the creator’s brand and creations. But a fan content policy is not meant to be the sole tool for a creator to govern its IP rights. Even with policies in place, creators should still monitor for and enforce their rights against violations of their IP rights (including violations of their fan content policies).