Creative Fans, Free or Tolerated?

Over the course of the last ten years, you may have noticed a repeated increase in not so good quality Movies, Television and even Video Games. And if you have been really looking for the last 5 years, you might have noticed an increased strangle hold on what fans can and can't do with said media. With all this going on, it begs a question that more & more has to be asked: Are us creative fans of our favorite Movie/Television/Game Franchises really free to express our support and like for the media we love or are we only tolarated? This comes for multiple reasons, mainly due to cases where companies have gone to almost unnecessary lengths just to "Protect their profits" or "Their image". Things like legal action, not against another company or someone trying to profit, but against innocent fans who did something out of love and support for said media. Lets take two recent examples of this extreme, over-the-top nature.

Example 1: Porsche Vs. Enduracers

For fans of Simracing (especially that of the PC variety), modding is something that pretty much goes back to the beginning of PC gaming. It can therefore be concluded that simracing almost is built upon the modding community and the tons of faithful fans that have contributed. One of the biggest names in Modding is the Enduracers team, known predominately for their Le Mans Series Mod featuring the various cars from Sportscar racing series like the American Le Mans Series, the World Endurance Championship and the European Le Mans Series. Here is where the first example of this extreme control occurs: The team were planning and working on a new Porsche Cup Mod featuring the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car from the well known One-make series. However in September of last year, they were forced to halt it because Porsche had ordered them to stop work on the mod or they would pursue legal action (As reported here). What makes this odd and bizarre is the fact that the Enduracers team have not made one single profit from any of the mods they make yet they have been ordered to stop by a Company who surely has more money then the small team they are threatning. So just like that, the simracing Community now has been put on notice. What was once a free and seemingly harmful service done by passionate fans has come under the pressure of an actual entity and all for what? "Image" is what supposedly was the motive for this. What exactly is it about something as harmless as a free, non-profit mod that's so dangerous to one's "image"? As far as it can be worked out, this mod (or any other free, non-profit mod featuring their brand) appear not to have any intention of doing any sort of damage to this image they seem so overprotective of.

Example 2: Hasbro vs The Mane6

As is known by now, the Popular franchase "My Little Pony" has made a comeback and one unexpected effect it had was that it bought along a fanbase not solely of little girls, but that of boys ranging from the age of 18-35. The amount of support was over whelming as it lead to many fan-forums, tumblr accounts and even some talented fans in the form of various fanart, fanfics and even some supurb animators who have been popping up. For awhile, it seemed the fanbase had been embraced by Hasbro, to the point where many of their promos repeatidly refferenced to said fans (known as "bronies") and they even seemed to be on their side when at the request of the fans, they pursued and stopped someone from selling a sex plushie. However as of late, this has slowly started to become questionable as a rash of things have been done that seemingly suggest the complete opposite. Tons of fan videos have been removed from youtube, among them some very popular series. Now however, the final nails in the coffin may have been set by their most recent and most extreme course of action to date: A popular group called "The Mane6" are developers of a non-profit MLP-themed game called "Fighting is Magic".  For the last two years, the game had been in development and many were hoping to finally see it. As was the case with the Enduracers Porsche mod, this too was made by fans who were not at all profiting from this venture.  It too will now set in vaporware because they've been ordered to stop production of the game as reported by Equestria Daily. To make things even more crushing, most of the team is already split apart while many similar non-profit game makers are now laying low to point of not being noticed because of the fear that they may be next.

While these examples are of two different audiences and two vastly different markets, they both share one thing in common: Big entities scaring the poor fans who sought to make something in support of what they loved and for the people who love it as well. So again, are we creative fans truly free to share our love and appreciation for the said media we've come to love or are we just tolerated to a certain extent? As both someone who wants to be a video designer, this is a big issue for me. Actions like these are a slap to the face of the actual fans that pour thier passion into this and they'll never get an answer for said actions, just dissapointment and disenchantment with the very thing they loved. Its things like this that now leave me questioning if I should just stop with this career choice, if the fans no longer have a voice to the very companies that make their beloved media then what good will my contribution be? I'm not very passionate about the idea of being associated with a big entity that slaps down fan made work for the sake of "images" and "profit"