Stolen Story

Hi everyone, I found out today one of my stories has been stolen and published on Google books. The “author” is attempting to sell it under a new (and ridiculous) name but otherwise couldn’t be bothered to attempt to change anything else. Does anyone know what I need to do to have the book removed? I read through the post about stolen stories on Amazon but can’t find anything for Google. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Contact Google with details of your earlier publication elsewhere.

You can also leave a comment on Google claiming your ownership.

The final resort is a DMCA notice.

From the first post in the sticky at the top of the Authors' Hangout:

DMCA complaints are the only type of action that counts as a copyright strike.

How do you go about finding your own story? It seems if they changed the title and character name it would be hard to find.

Tanuki said:

How do you go about finding your own story? It seems if they changed the title and character name it would be hard to find.

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The thieves aren't usually very sophisticated.

I find most of mine by searching for 'copyright oggbashan'.

Anything you post on the Internet is beyond your control. You have given it away for anyone to take. That is the reality. You can try to slap down thieves. Good luck.

Hypoxia said:

Anything you post on the Internet is beyond your control. You have given it away for anyone to take. That is the reality. You can try to slap down thieves. Good luck.

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This is too pessimistic. It's not true, in many cases. If you have registered the copyright you have options and remedies against online infringers, and sometimes those infringers face significant penalties. Even if you don't have meaningful financial remedies, just by threatening to take action, you often can get infringers to stop infringing or get providers to remove infringing works from the sites they control.

This isn't necessarily true of Literotica authors, however, because most are anonymous and have not registered their works, and they are reluctant to come forward and reveal their identities. But I've personally succeeded in getting a rip off of one of my stories removed. I just sent an email to the infringer and told him to knock it off and he did.

SimonDoom said:

This is too pessimistic. It's not true, in many cases. If you have registered the copyright you have options and remedies against online infringers, and sometimes those infringers face significant penalties. Even if you don't have meaningful financial remedies, just by threatening to take action, you often can get infringers to stop infringing or get providers to remove infringing works from the sites they control.

This isn't necessarily true of Literotica authors, however, because most are anonymous and have not registered their works, and they are reluctant to come forward and reveal their identities. But I've personally succeeded in getting a rip off of one of my stories removed. I just sent an email to the infringer and told him to knock it off and he did.

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Sorry, in practice unless you can shame the thief or get the host to comply with a DMCA notice, you have NO redress at all.

Even if you had registered your work in the US, and paid the fee, you cannot claim financial loss because you posted the story on a free site.

Most of my stolen stories are hosted on sites that are in countries that have a very relaxed view on copyright. I have copyright under the terms of the Berne Convention. That has meaning in the UK and Europe, not so much in the US, and no meaning at all in much of Asia.

Edited to add: I have bolded a section of your post quoted above. We have discussed this many times in the Authors' Hangout. So far none of us has found ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL that your statement is true. As far as we are aware NO ONE has faced any penalties for copyright theft of stories posted freely on Literotica.

Yes, you can register your copyright. As a UK citizen I can, and do, assert it at the start of most of my stories. I don't need to do that under UK law. My copyright exists from writing the first sentence.

No, you can't enforce or protect your copyright. If Disney can't, what hope have you got?

oggbashan said:

Sorry, in practice unless you can shame the thief or get the host to comply with a DMCA notice, you have NO redress at all.

Even if you had registered your work in the US, and paid the fee, you cannot claim financial loss because you posted the story on a free site.

Most of my stolen stories are hosted on sites that are in countries that have a very relaxed view on copyright. I have copyright under the terms of the Berne Convention. That has meaning in the UK and Europe, not so much in the US, and no meaning at all in much of Asia.

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I don't deny at all that enforcement of copyright infringement for a Literotica author is problematic. Of course it is. And, as you say, if the infringing story is hosted in a country where copyright infringement is feeble, then you may be out of luck.

But that's not the same thing as saying as a blanket matter that when you put something on the Internet you give up all rights to it. I know for a fact that's wrong. It's just not true.

If you have registered the work before the infringement occurs, you can seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 for willful infringement even if you can't prove you've been injured. Of course, most Literotica authors don't do this. I don't. I don't really care that much. If I find someone ripping off my story -- and I have, once -- I'll send them a nasty and threatening communication, but I'm probably not going to do anything about it if I don't get a response.

I'm not being a Pollyanna about this or trying to get anyone's hopes up. If you are an anonymous author on a free site like Literotica, you are right that meaningful copyright enforcement is pretty darn hard to achieve. But you shouldn't abandon hope that an appropriately worded threatening communication might do the trick. It might. And if you DO take advantages of copyright protection, you do have some remedies under US law provided you are willing to take advantage of them and pay an attorney to follow up.

SimonDoom said:

... And if you DO take advantages of copyright protection, you do have some remedies under US law provided you are willing to take advantage of them and pay an attorney to follow up.

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US Law on copyright is weak, deliberately so.

I do not believe any genuine US lawyer would accept a copyright case for a Literotica author.

Unless the lawyer just wanted the substantial fees for a failed case.

How much are you willing to pay to pursue some kid in Mom's basement? $5,000; $10,000; $50,000; $100,000? Knowing that the US law is designed to ensure you DON'T succeed?

SimonDoom said:

If you have registered the copyright you have options and remedies against online infringers, and sometimes those infringers face significant penalties.

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And this is too optimistic. People don't formally copyright their smut. That's reality.

It's a disservice to Literotica authors to make them think people do or that they have anything but bluff working for them to prevent their work from being reposted to the Internet, for profit or not, without their permission. Yes, sometimes bluff works. It doesn't work very well if you start off thinking you have more control than that, though.

KeithD said:

And this is too optimistic. People don't formally copyright their smut. That's reality.

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Even if they do, the receipt isn't worth the paper it is written on.

Added:

Just look at the copyrighted pictures littered across Literotica, including as AVs.

How many streamed videos have you seen on YouTube or elsewhere that were made by big name companies who play whack-a-mole with people who repost within minutes of a video being erased for copyright infringement?

KeithD said:

And this is too optimistic. People don't formally copyright their smut. That's reality.

It's a disservice to Literotica authors to make them think people do or that they have anything but bluff working for them to prevent their work from being reposted to the Internet, for profit or not, without their permission. Yes, sometimes bluff works. It doesn't work very well if you start off thinking you have more control than that, though.

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I don't disagree with you about that. Where I disagree, somewhat, is with the idea that by letting people know what the rules are one is giving them too much hope. I doubt that people are going to be running to file documents with the courts because of anything someone says here. My view is that it's fine to talk about what the rules are even if as a practical matter a Literotica author may not be willing or able to avail himself/herself of them.

My disagreement is with blanket statements that you lose all rights when you post things to the Internet. That's not true. But you're absolutely right that as a practical matter Lit authors have few remedies because none of them actually take the steps needed to protect their copyrights. I've never said otherwise.

Hypoxia said:

Anything you post on the Internet is beyond your control. You have given it away for anyone to take. That is the reality. You can try to slap down thieves. Good luck.

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bullshit.

Tanuki said:

How do you go about finding your own story? It seems if they changed the title and character name it would be hard to find.

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It is rather easy actually. You search for a short snippet as a fixed phrase (using quotation marks around it). It has to be from few first paragraphs (because more may not be displayed where search engines can index), be reasonably unique (to not get tons of false results; somewhere it was suggested to use end of one sentence together with begging of another, because any simple enough single sentence may be recreated independently, but two sentences in that exact sequence are far less probable) and not contain any character names or other stuff that might be likely changed (obviously).

To defeat your chance to find a ten words snippet one would have to change at least every tenth word throughout the first page, and that's usually way more work than thieves are willing to invest or conformable to make (because they can't write by definition).

LupusDei said:

It is rather easy actually. You search for a short snippet as a fixed phrase (using quotation marks around it). It has to be from few first paragraphs (because more may not be displayed where search engines can index), be reasonably unique (to not get tons of false results; somewhere it was suggested to use end of one sentence together with begging of another, because any simple enough single sentence may be recreated independently, but two sentences in that exact sequence are far less probable) and not contain any character names or other stuff that might be likely changed (obviously).

To defeat your chance to find a ten words snippet one would have to change at least every tenth word throughout the first page, and that's usually way more work than thieves are willing to invest or conformable to make (because they can't write by definition).

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Thank you, I tried that and got no results with google. I think I've been spared cause I never finish my stories, or maybe they just stink.

SimonDoom said:

I don't disagree with you about that. Where I disagree, somewhat, is with the idea that by letting people know what the rules are one is giving them too much hope. I doubt that people are going to be running to file documents with the courts because of anything someone says here. My view is that it's fine to talk about what the rules are even if as a practical matter a Literotica author may not be willing or able to avail himself/herself of them.

My disagreement is with blanket statements that you lose all rights when you post things to the Internet. That's not true. But you're absolutely right that as a practical matter Lit authors have few remedies because none of them actually take the steps needed to protect their copyrights. I've never said otherwise.

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You give people false hope and they snatch at it as if it's going to work for them. It's not. Hypoxia is correct and GA is being a shit. When you post something for free use on the Internet, you've valued it at zero and even if someone could get a suit to court, which they couldn't do in the United States because, as Ogg says, the reality is stacked against them (the United States doesn't want to flood its court with zero-value lawsuits), you wouldn't win anything. Say, you got your story taken down. In ten minutes somebody else will put it up and you're right back to zero.

If you are going to hyperventilate about having your stories stolen and reposted to the Internet, don't post them to the Internet for free yourself. It's as simple as that. The Web site is not going to tell you the reality of this, because being given your stories for free is providing the product they are making their profit off of.

This may give you some ideas https://www.searchenginejournal.com/3-ways-find-stolen-content-take-action/162831/

The advice a person bestows upon you tells much about their character. It's better to take action than to wave the white flag up before the fight starts, because giving up becomes easier the more times you do it. Put up dem dukes!!! Even if no one but you cares. Good luck.

SimonDoom said:

My disagreement is with blanket statements that you lose all rights when you post things to the Internet.

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I did not say one relinquishes rights. I said that anything posted is beyond your control. Once out there, any text, dataset, image, music, app, whatever, is free for the taking. Recourse? Attack infringing website(s). Right. The stuff is still out there and a violator can always restart elsewhere. You want to play legal whack-a-mole? Have fun.

Anything you post is a gift to the world. If you don't want a file stolen, don't post it. That's the reality.

Hypoxia said:

I did not say one relinquishes rights. I said...
....Anything you post is a gift to the world. If you don't want a file stolen, don't post it. That's the reality.

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I like that...just make that gift send the message you want it to.

Bill_Cosplay said:

This may give you some ideas https://www.searchenginejournal.com/3-ways-find-stolen-content-take-action/162831/

The advice a person bestows upon you tells much about their character. It's better to take action than to wave the white flag up before the fight starts, because giving up becomes easier the more times you do it. Put up dem dukes!!! Even if no one but you cares. Good luck.

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Fingernails on chalkboard time. When are folks like you going to wake up and accept that slapping a story for free on the Internet was YOUR decision and YOUR responsibility and YOU thereby have valued your story legally as worth zero and should expect no one else to take on YOUR responsibilities?

oggbashan said:

I do not believe any genuine US lawyer would accept a copyright case for a Literotica author.

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In a case where the author actually filed a copyright registration (either before the infringement happened, or within three months after publication), and the infringer is someone who can be found in the U.S.?

Lots of competent copyright attorneys would take that case, since having registered it before the infringement (or within three months of publication) is when statutory damages and the other side having to pay your attorney's fees kick in.

The problem, of course, is that most authors don't bother to register their copyright, or it's being republished by some anonymous guy in Russia, so it's not worth pursuing.

(You can, of course, still go after someone for copyright infringement even if you haven't registered, but at that point, your damages are going to be the financial harm you suffered and/or the financial benefit they gained from the infringement, which is probably going to be less than the lawsuit would cost.)

Copyright registration costs $35 per work, and any reasonably competent person should be able to do it online on their own without an attorney.

That gets somewhat expensive for the authors who are essentially publishing a bunch of short stories, but for novel-sized works, it's definitely something every author should at least think about.

KeithD said:

It's a disservice to Literotica authors to make them think people do or that they have anything but bluff working for them to prevent their work from being reposted to the Internet, for profit or not, without their permission. Yes, sometimes bluff works. It doesn't work very well if you start off thinking you have more control than that, though.

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DMCA takedown notices are a thing.

Yeah, you're right that most Literotica authors aren't going to register their copyrights and are unlikely to end up with a copyright infringement lawsuit worth pursuing.

That's a separate thing from being able to stop works from being reposted, particularly for profit. A Russian clickfarm website? Okay, good luck getting anything taken down. But if they're reposting your work for profit, it's probably on a site either in the U.S. or one with some degree of respectability, which means you have a good chance of them respecting a takedown notice.

Valint said:

Lots of competent copyright attorneys would take that case, since having registered it before the infringement (or within three months of publication) is when statutory damages and the other side having to pay your attorney's fees kick in.

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Name one who will take such a case for an erotica story originally posted to Literotica for free even if a formal copyright registration was made (which is a gross hypothetical in itself. At the same time name one Literotica author who has formally protected their erotica through the U.S. copyright office--and if you do, I'll point to someone who has wasted their money.). Name one who ever has taken such a case. Just one . . . ever.

God, you people are hardheaded.

Valint said:

I

DMCA takedown notices are a thing.

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They are a thing that requires you to identify the real you. Who do you think you're fooling?

'Fraid not.

No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”

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https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register

In the U.S., your copyright is completely unactionable in court if you haven't officially filed with the copyright office. Without that, you're not even getting the time of day from a court, let alone any sort of compensation, or any payment of attorney fees.

Valint said:

(You can, of course, still go after someone for copyright infringement even if you haven't registered, but at that point, your damages are going to be the financial harm you suffered and/or the financial benefit they gained from the infringement, which is probably going to be less than the lawsuit would cost.)

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OK, once again, over and out. Live your delusions if they make you feel protected, if you like. You aren't. And at the same time folks complain here about their stories being stolen, a good many of them are stealing images to use as avatars.