I came across this story, and thought it was worth linking as a cautionary tale
There have been a lot of questions on another site I am on about making money from Fanfiction, and after reading this story – the guy was forced to pay $134,000 in damages and destroy all his work – I think that we have a more or less definitive answer.
And the definitive answer is no – it is not worth trying to make money from fanfiction :)
I think the early access model has worked so far, (meaning Rowling and her lawyers have allowed it to happen). I suspect if the money being made exceeds a certain amount they’ll probably sue Patreon or something. Unless patreon’s terrible business decisions cause it to collapse first lol.
5 years ago all authors dared to do was to publish another book and advertise it using their fanfiction. Occasionally they’d ask for Kofi too.
Rowling already stopped a certain wiki site (which she admitted to using herself lol!) from publishing a kind of encyclopaedic book on the world of Harry Potter iirc. Though it could be argued that they were just reusing content which is the closest thing to plagiarism but not plagiarism.
Do you think they’re actively tracking the amount of money? Patreon has become very popular for early access, as well as Ko-Fi with goals before posting content. Maybe Team HP acknowledges that fanfic keeps the Fandom alive, but draws the line at printed books?
I can’t recall what drama happened with Manacled.