What exactly is the Shard's relationship with Brandon?

[dannnex male]

We call ourselves the "official" Brandon Sanderson fansite, and I was just curious as to what that really means. Like, on a legal level. Back when the logo change happened, Ene said that we ran the new logo by Isaac, but that it was more of a courtesy. Like, we didn't actually have to. So then I thought, "What if all the mods collectively went insane and changed the logo to like, something profane? Or just something that Brandon would definitely not be okay with? would we still be the official Brandon Sanderson Fansite?"

So that's my question. What exactly is the 17th Shard's Relationship with Sanderson and his Company/IP/all that stuff?

Edited December 19, 2021 by ookla the quantificational

[Chaos he/him]

Mostly that we host the forums and have a link on his website. We do not receive any financial support or anything like that but we work to be on good terms with Dragonsteel. We're here for the long haul of being around in some form or another until the end, so yeah, obviously we wouldn't go crazy and do something like that. Hopefully that answered your question?

[clowncarcrash]

Oh, so its fully sanctioned/endorsed by Brandon but not owned by him or his company?

[Chaos he/him]

Not owned by Dragonsteel at all, correct.