Monetization of fan works

[Sam Hunter]

I have been thinking about something lately in regard of the paid mods controversy, and would like to share my thoughts and discuss them.

I can't help but feel that paid mods is a new step toward a trend that is starting to pop up in a lot of medias : the monetization of fanworks by copyright holders.
Copyright holders have seen now how much fanworks are influencial and how much money they can generate (fanfics becoming best-sellers with Fifty Shades of Gray, let's player making tons of money through ad revenue, etc).
A lot of projects are poping up to harness this and generate profit for the copyright holders and it's distribution partners : Amazon is selling a selection of fanfics through Kindle, Nitendo takes a share of ad revenue generated by youtube let's player, and now Valve strikes a deal with Bethesda to monetize mods and grab a (big) chunk of the revenue.
I can't ultimately see if this trend is for the worse or for the best, but I personally am not very optimistic about it.

What's you thoughts on this ?

[Silicon Vampire]

there are open threads on the subject in appropriate areas.