Has anyone ever had their work/ideas stolen after AW posting?

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Barb D

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I recommended AW to someone tonight, and someone else said she wouldn't post work online for fear it would be stolen. I admit I cringed about the idea for about a millisecond before posting my first excerpt, but I got over it.

Has anyone here ever had an experience where an idea or actual verbiage was -er- appropriated after posting it at AW or somewhere else online?
 

Cyia

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Ideas are fair game for anyone. If it's actual words taken and put elsewhere, that's something else entirely. You own your words, they're copyrighted to you (even if not registered).


ETA: since you asked about elsewhere online, yes - but only involving fanfiction.

I had someone cut and paste a fanfiction into their blog without permission, but I don't really care as it's not commercial fiction. I know someone who had one taken from FFn, the thief took the exact text, subbed in characters from a manga, and posted it under their own username with an author's note: For the purposes of this story {character1} is a vampire. (the manga wasn't about vampires, but the fandom from which she snatched the fic was for a defunct vampire TV-series)

Same fandom, different site, a poster was stealing poems from other writers (that had nothing to do with the fandom) and putting them up as her own writings and giving them titles to match the fandom.


So, yes, it happens.
 
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Gillhoughly

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I know someone who had one taken from FFn, the thief took the exact text, subbed in characters from a manga, and posted it under their own username with an author's note: For the purposes of this story {character1} is a vampire. (the manga wasn't about vampires, but the fandom from which she snatched the fic was for a defunct vampire TV-series)

Good grief. It would be less work to write her own stuff.

Some people are...hmm...what's the phrase...?

Ah.

Batshit INSANE.
 

poetinahat

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Yeah - best way to protect that precious idea is never to tell anyone about it, and whatever you do, don't write it!
 

Barrett

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I can see someone being unethical enough to copy n' paste a section of writing from here and claiming it as their own, but ideas?

That's a lot trickier, and it's why ideas can't be covered by copyright law.
A lot of people have written about powerful vampires and their hold on a small region, but no one put quite the imagery, characters and storyline on it as Stephen King in "'Salem's Lot". In fact it was a direct tribute to Dracula by King's own admission, but despite the obvious similarities, the two stories are each distinct and highly regarded in the blood-sucking subgenre.

Epic fantasy has a cozy mold a lot of readers like, wherein an innocent must quest to save the world with a group of companions across a magical landscape. Happens all the time, but each story is unique and oftentimes seen as completely different from it's forefathers.

I don't really worry about it. For one, I'm never gonna post an entire manuscript here, as I'm new and I just wanna be popular.

Two, if I post a sample chapter or an opening, good luck figuring out the totality of the tale. Trust me, you have no idea what my big picture is.

Finally, if I post a query, my manuscript is complete. You don't have a chance in hell of finishing a quality manuscript based on the idea and getting it published before I do. Even if you do, it won't be my story, and if mine is even semi-acceptable, it will read better than yours.

I wouldn't stress it.
 

Cranky

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Heck, no! Ideas are not something that can be stolen, in my opinion. Not strictly speaking. Even if you and someone else have a similiar idea or even premise, the execution is bound to be different.

Now, out and out plagiarism is something else altogether. And I've never had anyone steal my crappy words here or anywhere else. :)
 

maestrowork

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Idea and treatment are two different things. Ideas can't be copyrighted, and believe it or not, they're a dime a dozen. You think Dan Brown was the first person who thought of doing a story on the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail? Do you think Crichton was the first who thought about dinosaurs in a park? Stealing ideas is nothing if you can't deliver -- someone still has to write the damn book.

And we all think we're so brilliant that people will want to steal our work. Then again, if we're so brilliant, why aren't we published yet? Why would anyone want to steal something that is unpublished?

However, TREATMENTS are copyrightable. Treatments are specific outlines and plot points (with characters). So the following treatment:

Tycoon clones dinosaurs with DNA taken from ambers and puts them on an island. He invites some scientists over for a preview, to get their blessings. A rival group tries to steal the embryos via a spy on the island. Then a tropical storm hits the island and everyone is trapped. Dinosaurs run loose and start killing people....​

If someone stole that treatment, that would be copyright infringement and plagiarism.


ETA: BTW, I don't mind telling people about my ideas. If they have the ability to pull it off, good for them. But I am protective of my own treatments -- the story and characters, and the way I'm going to plot the thing out.
 
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Wayne K

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Writing no, but I did notice someone borrow one of my titles. I consider it flattery.
 

smcc360

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No, I steal all my ideas from bookstores.
 

citymouse

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Not from anyone here at AW, however, I a few years ago I emailed a writer friend about a novel I was working on. I sent an outline as well as some incomplete chapters. I researched this topic and found that while there are plenty of anthropological works there were no novels. Imagine my surprise when this same author reviewed a new novel with my plot, completed with settings and timeline. I learned then and there not to share any significant work until I had a complete manuscript in hand.
C
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DragonHeart

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If someone's ever stolen my ideas/stories, I've never found out. Even if they did nothing I post is completed or in final form, so they wouldn't get much out of it, other than (hopefully) a good read.

Theft of words/ideas happens offline too so I don't spend time worrying about it either way. If someone did steal one of my stories I'd be flattered that they liked my work that much. Wouldn't stop me from punching them in the face, though. :)
 

emilycross

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I've had FF stuff plagarised before (but not here obviously), but usually your the last to know when someone plagarises your work.

Ideas - well thats a different story. I think everyone borrows from everyone, but the difference is a person's interpetation of that story idea
 

Phaeal

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From what I've read, editors and agents consider paranoia over the theft of submitted material or ideas to be the glaring mark of the neophyte.

Or in the parlance of the gamer, OMG ur such a NOOB!!!!

Meh, as has been said, the amount of work it would take to complete a work based on the short excerpts posted here should discourage any pathetic loser who'd consider stealing it. I suppose pathetic losers might steal shorts or poems, but I've never heard of it happening. As for pathetic losers stealing your ideas, well, they're pathetic losers -- they wouldn't have the viable brain cells to make anything of the ideas anyway. ;)
 

BarbaraKE

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I don't worry about it but I also make sure I don't give away my main idea.

Not all ideas are worth anything - but some are pure gold. Like Crichton's idea of cloning dinosaurs from blood trapped in amber. Absolutely brilliant!! The 'story' was well-written, etc. but nothing really new. But that little twist made it *real* in a way none of the other dinosaur stories I've read did.

If I had a similar idea, I definitely wouldn't post it anywhere.
 

Kathleen42

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Not on AW.

I did have someone copy a (rather lengthy) blog entry and post it on their blog without proper attribution. She didn't claim it as her own but all she had in the way of acknowledgment was a line that said "hey, I found this entry on another blog".

When I emailed her asking her to provide a link back to either my blog or the communal blog where she had taken the entry from she became very offended and ended up taking it down rather than adding the info I asked for.
 

Maryn

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I've had work plagiarized from an online source, but not from AW. The thief passing it off as her own was selling it via email to AOL people who'd participated on boards suggesting they were its target audience.

I contacted an attorney, who told me quite frankly that while he recommended a letter from his firm telling the thief to knock it off, his fees would far exceed my losses if I were to pursue it any further. As far as I can tell, she stopped selling it soon after the letter arrived.

Since that time, I won't do online critique except at AW.

Maryn, who trusts Mac to protect her
 
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