Tushnet, Rebecca. "Payment in Credit: Copyright Law and Subcultural Creativity." Law and Contemporary Problems. Duke Law.

       According to Tushnet, fan creativity "concieves of the rights and responsibilities of authorship in ways distinct from standard models of creativity under copyright." Fan cultures create a communal experience around a work that the work itself cannot offer. She outlines the growth of fandom as it grew alongside of mass media to its eventual existence on the web, which has allowed for an explosion in content and accessibility. However, this visibility has copyright holders worried about the images of their characters in these fan cultures. Next she explains how fans justify their work as legitimate. Most believe, in some way or another, that what they are doing is fair use, and even those who believe it's illegal do not concern themselves too much because their work is considerably marginal. Tushnet goes on to explain why she believes fandom is fair use. Most importantly, fans are adding their own creativity to the original work and in that way making it partially theirs.

       Fandom also has its own sort of "code" which it abides by in regards to copyright. Fans originally used disclaimers that spelled out the owner of the original and often asked not to sue, but this began to fade with the internet. However, attribution is still very important, but most fans believe the creator of the original will be obvious and they actually pay more attention attributing other fans whose work they use. In short, fans have their own set of rules and norms by which they abide when dealing with the problem of copyright. She relates these to the idea of moral rights; fans often know more about the characters than corporations that are in charge of authorized works and will point out the flaws. She returns to fair use and what courts tend to consider fair use and not, explaining the satire-parody distinction and examines the commercial value of hybrid forms like fan works.

     What started as fan fiction has become its own culture, and really, its own online community. What this article describes is yet another way that copyright problems have been solved by the community that needs them. Fandom "treats authorship as a question of propriety, not property". It is not the same model that UbuWeb offers, where the site is simply acting as distributor of original works. Fan culture is a remix culture, again something CC was designed to make legal. However, fan works are complicated, as Tushnet alludes to in her discussion. Even though the characters are of course copyrighted, fans are creating a new and likely transformative use. However, there is often a lack of attribution, as part of the norms of this culture, since it is assumed that the audience will know who the original creator is. Instead, they are more focused on attributing each other, the "insiders" instead out the "outsiders". It is a flourishing culture online though, and another very successful way to circumvent copyright problems.