Completely ripped off!

I've had it happen to some old fanficts I had on fanfiction.net. It's aggravating but in the end, I know that it's pretty much worthless stuff. If the site owner refuses to give credit or remove the story after an email, if you really care, you could possibly bring it up with his website provider or just spread the word around wherever fictionpress writers gather.

In the end though, remember that if you put it on fictionpress, you probably didn't care too much for it in the first place. Stay positive

Thump said:

In the end though, remember that if you put it on fictionpress, you probably didn't care too much for it in the first place.

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I wouldn't completely agree with that... :/ It used to be a good place to entertain readers and gain feedback. It wasn't all junk writing.

*someone who used to use FP, although hasn't visited in years, but still gets occasional e-mail reviews*

Several years ago I attended a writer's conference in Washington DC.

In one of the workshops the issue of posting stories on "free to read" websites came up. This workshop was lead by a panel of three authors, all of whom have books that sell very well in their genre. One makes her living off her writing. Anyway, I was surprised to hear on of the panel members say that she used to post her stories to websites but after a while she stopped dong that. She then said something that I never forgot. "Your work is precious. Never give it away--ever."

Well, if you're as I am you want to be read. The royalties are good, make no mistake. But to be read, now that's really good.
C

Stolen Work

channeller said:

Has anything like this happened to any of you, and if so, how did you feel/what did you do about it?

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I used to be in a writers' club in the local library. One or two of the members were pretty good. Mostly short stories. We produced a small booklet. Anyway, one of the members went to Australia on a visit and spotted a story in a magazine (not one from the booklet - but I think it had been published in UK) that had been stolen from another member. It happens in the real world too! I think a strongly-worded letter was dispatched down under!

Given that there's no contact information on the site itself, personally, I would do a whois search for an email address and contact them by that. Then if they don't take down the story within, say, a couple of days, I'd file a DMCA takedown notice with their domain host. I would also likely feel inclined to file a DMCA notice with Google so that that page was not included in Google search since they're violating copyright. And if they had advertising on their site, like Google Adsense revenue, I'd be inclined to file DMCA notices with the advertisers as well - Google Adsense takes copyright violations quite seriously and will shut down Adsense accounts permanently for copyright violations.

Not saying you have to do any of these things, but they are options that are available to you. There's also an excellent site called Plagiarism Today that has a whole host of other information about this sort of thing.

Laurie, you make it all sound so simple... except that I, for one, would not have the first idea how to do most of what you suggest.

Is there a post about this anywhere on AW that you know of? One with instructions for each stage? If not, could you make it happen? I'd really welcome it, and would blog about it too. It's important information.

Jane

I'm sorry that happened to you, channeller. I'd be ticked-off. I've been stolen from enough in my lifetime that I absolutely cannot tolerate theft of any kind. I have no patience for it.

I'm wholly allergic to posting any of my work online. Anywhere. Not even here on AW for critiques. Rarely will I even post an idea unless it's something I'm doing to help someone else. I wouldn't post any of my own work anywhere online unless it was paid for. I don't mean that in a snobby sense, it's just that there are so many sleazy people online who have no qualms about stealing anything or scamming people. I just don't want to give them a chance to do it to me.

Other than that, I'm very free and willing to help others with advice, edits, proofreading, suggestions, etc., I just won't post any of my work, not even the silly stuff I don't care about. Paranoid? Perhaps, but I do have peace of mind and that counts for a lot.

The site is up now. Probably a server problem.

Old Hack, everything you need to know is at the Plagiarism Today site - it's where I learned most of what I know. I'd suggest you start with that. (I'm sorry, but my brain isn't doing well enough today for this.)

Ah, got it. Thanks for the clarification.