Fans vs Profit - Cultural IP in the Age of Fandom

There’s a moment when a story stops being just a story and becomes something more. It slips past the bounds of its creators, seeps into culture, and begins to live in the minds of its audience for generation after generation. At that point, the legal notion of intellectual property starts to feel incomplete. Because when millions of people invest themselves in a story, doesn’t a part of it start to belong to them too?

This is the unspoken and unexplored idea of cultural intellectual property.

It’s not about contracts - it’s about care.

Pop culture is full of proof: memes, quotes, fan theories, cosplay, and decade-long Reddit debates. What fans participate in isn't just consumption-it’s what media scholar Henry Jenkins calls “participatory culture.” Jenkins writes,

"Fans do not just consume; they produce, they critique, they create meaning." 

And in doing so, they become part of the story’s DNA.

I mean… did Han Solo really shoot first?

That debate alone could power the internet for another decade.

That’s why, when a studio reboots or reshapes a beloved universe, it’s not just taking creative liberty - it’s walking into sacred ground. If it gets it wrong, the backlash can be seismic. From Star Wars to Harry Potter to Disney remakes, we’ve seen this happen time and time again in recent years. - can contain spoilers - read at your own risk -

Take The Acolyte, Disney’s latest venture into the Star Wars universe. The show ventures into unexplored lore with bold ideas, but in doing so, it disrupts the internal logic of a world that fans have studied like sacred texts. Force mechanics change. Canon timelines get fuzzy. Long-established truths are upended without the groundwork to justify them. For fans who’ve followed Star Wars across generations, this doesn’t feel like creative freedom-it feels like the foundation is being rewritten.

The issue isn’t creativity, it’s continuity.

When you mess with the foundations of a world built across films, books, and generations of fandom, it doesn’t feel like evolution. It feels like disinheritance.

Even George Lucas once acknowledged this idea of shared ownership when he said, “You don’t own the story. The fans do.” 

He may have sold the rights, but he understood the responsibility.

Harry Potter, meanwhile, is facing a different challenge: reboot fatigue paired with the pressure of cultural legacy. The upcoming HBO Max series aims to retell the original books with a new cast and modern sensibilities. But fans are asking-why? With such a vast world to explore, why repackage what’s already been told? Why not dive into stories fans are actively begging for, like the First Wizarding War, the Marauders, the rise of Voldemort? And then there’s the casting. Take Snape, for example: described in the books as pale, greasy-haired, hooked-nosed and cold. He’s a character defined by ambiguity and presence. So naturally, when casting goes in a dramatically different direction, people notice. Not because of bias, or in this case any racial motivation, but because the change feels disconnected from the distinct persona that helped shape how readers and viewers came to understand him. This reboot already risks becoming what it smells like: a content treadmill, and with the scale of Harry Potter, it will inevitably turn into a tightrope act for the production between satisfying the fanbase and"creative freedom"

The emotional stakes get even higher when a remake cuts straight into the heart of what made the original beloved. Shantaram is a perfect example. The novel is a sweeping philosophical epic - equal parts action, heartbreak, and self-discovery. At its core is the dynamic between Lin, an Australian fugitive in Mumbai, and Karla, a closed-book mystery who saves his life, opens his world, and ultimately breaks his heart. Throughout the thousand-page journey, Lin grapples with his trauma while falling for Karla and disliking her for how little she reveals. Their entire arc hinges on one major reveal: Karla’s deep, secret connection to the very mob boss Lin trusts most. A man Karla tells him to avoid. It arrives late, changes everything, and hits you like a betrayal. But in the Apple TV series? You find out within the first two or three episodes. Karla and the mobster have regular meetings on screen. It completely robs the story of this powerful tension, the emotional payoff, and its most devastating twist. The book was about self-forgiveness, moral grey zones, loving someone you don't truly know and the pain of uncovering the truth too late. The series swapped that out for surface drama and lazy exposition.

And in doing so, it gutted the story.

Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch takes a similarly painful detour. In the original, Lilo’s sister fights desperately to keep their little family together. That theme: “Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten” was the soul of the film. But in the remake, that drive is removed. Lilo ends up in foster care as her sister leaves. And just like that, the film’s emotional core collapses. Even considering the producers' claim that they wanted to showcase Hawaii’s wider community and portray Lilo as being “adopted” by her surrounding community, it is:

A) not clear enough, 

B) not strong enough,

and C) still robs the film of its initial driving force. 

Because if that was possible all along, then you don’t need the film. There’s no tension, no arc, no story and the court of public opinion has not been kind to the producers since its release.  

Contrast this with adaptations like Andor. Set within the Star Wars Universe, it explores rebellion not through epic battles, but through slow-burning character arcs, moral ambiguity, and grounded storytelling. It honours the tone, the logic, and the weight of the world it exists in-without ever needing a lightsaber. It fills gaps in the Star Wars Universe that support and even elevate the existing stories.

Or take The Last of Us. HBO’s version made tweaks, expanded backstories, added dimension, but every change came from a deep respect for the game. It didn’t just ask "what can we change?" It asked, "How do we translate this story from game to film?" and "What do we need to preserve?"

That question might be the most important one any studio can ask.

As Yuval Noah Harari writes in Sapiens, shared stories are what have brought us together for millennia. Be it a religion, a myth, a folk tale, or a childhood favourite passed down through generations. Narratives unite us, guide us, and shape how we see the world. In today’s world, many of these stories originate not from community, but from corporations that claim ownership over them.

That is the tension of today: when our myths come with trademarks instead of tradition.

In a world where beloved stories are owned by companies but protected by fans, respecting the source material and the bond it holds is not just good ethics. It is a creative responsibility. And as the past has shown, it is also a wise business decision, for when you get it right, the fans will reward you for it.

Because when a story becomes part of your childhood, your language, your identity, it stops belonging to one person or one company. It belongs to all of us, just like stories have done for millennia.