What Does Cease and Desist Mean?
Fandom CultureA legal demand letter ordering someone to stop an activity — in fandom history, the weapon certain authors and studios used against fanfiction. Anne Rice's campaign against fic in her fandoms remains the canonical example.
Cease and Desist in Practice
Through the 1990s and 2000s, some rights holders treated fanfic as infringement to be stamped out: Anne Rice's aggressive stance led FanFiction.Net to ban fic in her fandoms outright, and fans in several fandoms received individual legal threats that drove archives underground or offline. The era's fear shaped fandom institutions — the elaborate disclaimers on old fic, the keep-it-hidden instincts of older fans, and ultimately the founding of the OTW, whose legal committee exists to defend transformative work as fair use. The climate has since reversed dramatically, with most studios tolerating or courting fandom, but the C&D era explains much of fandom's residual caution. Some authors' no-fanfic wishes are still honored on major archives as a legacy of those battles.
Example usage
"Old fic disclaimers read like legal incantations because back then a cease and desist was a real possibility."
Related Terms
Disclaimer
A statement, traditionally at the top of a fic, declaring the author does not own the characters and makes no profit. Largely a ritual of older fandom; modern archives have made it mostly obsolete.
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OTW (Organization for Transformative Works)
The nonprofit founded by fans in 2007 that runs the Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, and Open Doors, and advocates legally for fanworks. The OTW exists so that fandom's infrastructure is owned by fandom itself.
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FanFiction.Net (FFN)
The veteran mega-archive of fanfiction, launched in 1998 and dominant through the 2000s. Abbreviated FFN or FF.net, and remembered as the formative home of a fandom generation.
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Do Not Repost
A creator's instruction forbidding uploading their work elsewhere — re-uploading art to other sites, copying fics to other platforms, or feeding work into apps. Reposting without permission is one of fandom's firmest taboos.
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More Fandom Culture Terms
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