There’s been a lot of speculation about why we recently created the Fan Content Policy. Don’t worry, there’s no nefarious purpose; Wizards isn’t going to start ripping off artists and cosplayers. The genesis of the Policy is far less interesting: our customer service folks were getting a lot of questions from fans about whether fan creations such as fan art and fan fic were allowed.



We realized that without a Fan Content Policy, creators were put in the awkward position of not knowing whether creating awesome art would result in a cease-and-desist letter. We worked with our legal team to put together something that would give our fans a lot of room to work with—but also not hurt us (e.g., we can still shut down people that rip off the Planeswalker trademark to sell 10,000 t-shirts online).

When we designed the policy, we thought carefully about how to properly balance flexibility for artists and protections for Wizards. But nothing is perfect and we are always interested in your feedback. This Policy will change and evolve as the needs of our fans (and of Wizards) do.

From the discussions that have taken place in the Magic community today, we understand that some creators have questions or concerns regarding the new Policy. Many relate to this particular passage:

Your Fan Content must be free for others (including Wizards) to view, access, share, and use without paying you anything, obtaining your approval, or giving you credit.

We’d like to try to alleviate some concerns we’ve heard about this limitation. Credit is important. Fan content creators work hard to create amazing art, and we understand that not receiving credit for that works sucks. That’s why when we retweet or amplify content, we always try to reach out to content creators before we sharing their content and give proper attribution in our posts.

This clause is not intended to stop a creator from asking anyone that shares their art to credit them; it stops creators from refusing to license (i.e., allow people to use) their art without agreeing to a credit restriction. The requirement that your Fan Content be noncommercial is similarly intended to remove barriers to sharing content. We’re sharing, and we hope you will too.

We know that this is not the only area of the Policy that generated some conversation, and we’re listening. We will continue to evaluate the feedback you give us and, whenever necessary, update our Policy.