YouTube, Plagiarism & Copyrights

[Spreadaxle53]

I listen to YouTube for long stretches of the day. I have many stories from Literotica with no attribution to the author. As a creative source, do you want to be notified of such transgressions?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I listen to YouTube for long stretches of the day. I have many stories from Literotica with no attribution to the author. As a creative source, do you want to be notified of such transgressions?

I think many authors here would appreciate the tip-off if somebody's swiping their content.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I listen to YouTube for long stretches of the day. I have many stories from Literotica with no attribution to the author. As a creative source, do you want to be notified of such transgressions?

Yes. I’d rather know so I can try to lodge copyright strikes. I have no problem with people writing noncommercial sequels with my stuff to post here, but monetizing it? Hell no.

 

[lovecraft68]

There's been a few threads about this, there are quite a few channels posting "women evil" man baby stories, many stolen from here and I am sure all their content is lifted from somewhere. I know myself and several others have reported them to YT and nothing is done.

TBH, I have a feeling YT doesn't care when the copyright is for a story on a free erotica site.

 

[Cagivagurl]

I listen to YouTube for long stretches of the day. I have many stories from Literotica with no attribution to the author. As a creative source, do you want to be notified of such transgressions?

Yes please.

Cagivagurl

 

[mildlyaroused]

TBH, I have a feeling YT doesn't care when the copyright is for a story on a free erotica site.

YouTube is notoriously terrible when it comes to copyright. Even if you have no agent you are technically within your rights to make a copyright claim on a video, but good luck seeing it through.

Meanwhile there are all the big corporations who have no trouble striking videos that fall under fair use, taking creators' income, and nothing is done about it.

 

[lovecraft68]

YouTube is notoriously terrible when it comes to copyright. Even if you have no agent you are technically within your rights to make a copyright claim on a video, but good luck seeing it through.

Meanwhile there are all the big corporations who have no trouble striking videos that fall under fair use, taking creators' income, and nothing is done about it.

You tube and Kindle on amazon are identical. At their inception they were both scoffed at by major creators, so they turned to everyday people. Everyday people blew them up, now they let in the big boys and do everything they can to screw the people who made them.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

YouTube is notoriously terrible when it comes to copyright. Even if you have no agent you are technically within your rights to make a copyright claim on a video, but good luck seeing it through.

Meanwhile there are all the big corporations who have no trouble striking videos that fall under fair use, taking creators' income, and nothing is done about it.

The thing is, in order to have YouTube (or any Alphabet service) react to your copyright claim, you first have to prove that you are the copyright holder. For that, you need to provide your real identity, followed by proof of the copyrighted material being created by you.

Now, my question is: How exactly did you prove to YouTube that you are the copyright holder to a story you posted under an alias, for free, to the internet?

The big corporations don't have that problem. They use Content-ID and similar systems to automate that process. They don't even have to provide paperwork anymore, thanks to that automation.

 

[Ada Stuart]

The thing is, in order to have YouTube (or any Alphabet service) react to your copyright claim, you first have to prove that you are the copyright holder. For that, you need to provide your real identity, followed by proof of the copyrighted material being created by you.

Now, my question is: How exactly did you prove to YouTube that you are the copyright holder to a story you posted under an alias, for free, to the internet?

The big corporations don't have that problem. They use Content-ID and similar systems to automate that process. They don't even have to provide paperwork anymore, thanks to that automation.

I've just given them a link to my stories on Lit, and that has been enough for both Amazon and YouTube. In all cases (except one) the illegal copy has been removed. And I would never reveal my real identity to anyone.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The thing is, in order to have YouTube (or any Alphabet service) react to your copyright claim, you first have to prove that you are the copyright holder. For that, you need to provide your real identity, followed by proof of the copyrighted material being created by you.

Now, my question is: How exactly did you prove to YouTube that you are the copyright holder to a story you posted under an alias, for free, to the internet?

It would be a bit less irksome if this were applied evenly, but it's not.

One of my friends used to upload videos of herself performing classical music, but she stopped because she was getting strikes from organisations claiming she was infringing on their copyrights. Obviously they did not provide proof that they owned the copyrights to the music of Bach etc. because no such copyrights could possibly exist. (A recording of somebody performing Bach is protected by copyright, but somebody else recording the same piece doesn't infringe that.) But presumably they put some nonsense in as "proof" and the automated process did the rest, with no recourse to a human who could've seen that the claim was patently bogus.

This is an extortion game: the copyright troll offers the option to keep the video up on condition that they get ad revenue from it, otherwise the third such strike gets the account closed. My friend stopped sharing her music rather than pay their ransom.

YT have occasionally taken action against the most blatant copyright trolls, but it still seems like a system that's rigged against small creators.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Welp, it looks like someone finally scraped one of my stories.

I've requested a copyright strike, so we'll see what happens.

ETA: Looks like they've done it with three of them, actually. If YT does what they're supposed to, maybe I can get their channel shut down in one fell swoop.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Welp, it looks like someone finally scraped one of my stories.

I've requested a copyright strike, so we'll see what happens.

ETA: Looks like they've done it with four of them, actually. If YT does what they're supposed to, maybe I can get their channel shut down in one fell swoop.

Strange question, maybe, but should I be clicking on that link and giving them whatever fractional revenue? Feels odd, but on the other hand theirs a lady with big tatas in the thumbnail - so I'm kind of conflicted...

 

[NoTalentHack]

Strange question, maybe, but should I be clicking on that link and giving them whatever fractional revenue? Feels odd, but on the other hand theirs a lady with big tatas in the thumbnail - so I'm kind of conflicted...

Doesn't matter to me. They made an extra mistake, too: one fo the stories they stole is Longings From the Past, which I've actually published to Smashwords. So... yeah. Hopefully they'll get banned.

 

[LadyLibido]

I think it's always good to contact the author so that they can decide what to do with it. Some might be fine and let it be, some might just want to contact the creator and work it out directly, and some might want to copyright claim. But I think most people would just like to know, regardless of the action they finally take.

 

[MrPixel]

"Video unavailable. This video has been removed by the uploader."

@NoTalentHack : Did you say something and it got results?

 

[NoTalentHack]

"Video unavailable. This video has been removed by the uploader."

@NoTalentHack : Did you say something and it got results?

I went with carrot and stick: report them to YouTube and reach out through email telling them I held the copyright and didn’t authorize their use of them. They pulled them ASAP. I wonder how many of these guys don’t understand vs. don’t care that they’re violating copyright.

 

[alohadave]

I went with carrot and stick: report them to YouTube and reach out through email telling them I held the copyright and didn’t authorize their use of them. They pulled them ASAP. I wonder how many of these guys don’t understand vs. don’t care that they’re violating copyright.

They know. They don't care, and unless someone makes noise, they'll keep it up.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Update: I've landed copyright strikes on three channels, with a fourth likely to get one as well.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Hah! One of them mailed me asking me to withdraw the strike.

"We deeply value the creative community on YouTube and wish to resolve this matter amicably and respectfully. Your understanding and cooperation in removing the strike would be greatly appreciated, as it significantly impacts our channel's standing and ability to share content with our audience."

No, no I don't think so. Instead, their crass form letter (they clearly know they're violating copyright if they have that shit ready to go) has inspired me to write a how to on finding infringing videos and getting them flagged for copyright theft on YouTube. Thanks, random Russian content farm! I'll finally have an entry for How To!

 

[NoTalentHack]

Another thing I've learned during this: the listeners really are... something. Some of them think the events in the stories are real things that happened, probably mostly because these channels originally scraped from Reddit's "true" story subreddits. Second, a huge chunk of them don't know they're text-to-speech voices; more than once I saw a reference to "this guy's other channels," which were unaffiliated AFAICT, but which used the same TTS voice.

And a big ol' FYI to every author on here: I thought it was just LW stories that were getting lifted. It's not. Those do the best, especially the BTBs because they're closest to the original Reddit cheating stories, but I also had Longings From the Past and Meat Market show up on a romance-themed channel affiliated with one of the LW-style channels. I didn't dig too much further, but I expect the "Humans, Fuck Yeah" themed channels will start lifting from SF/F soon, if they haven't already. Anything where the sex can either be glossed over or which is close enough to what might show up in mild-spice-level romance novels is likely going to be scraped sooner or later.

 

[lovecraft68]

Irony.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've never checked for anyone on YouTube reading one of my stories. DirtyBits Podcaste has used some of the tales, with full credit and permission, and a link here, Smashwords and Amazon.

Edited my mistake.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Irony.

 

[Ada Stuart]

Hah! One of them mailed me asking me to withdraw the strike.

"We deeply value the creative community on YouTube and wish to resolve this matter amicably and respectfully. Your understanding and cooperation in removing the strike would be greatly appreciated, as it significantly impacts our channel's standing and ability to share content with our audience."

No, no I don't think so. Instead, their crass form letter (they clearly know they're violating copyright if they have that shit ready to go) has inspired me to write a how to on finding infringing videos and getting them flagged for copyright theft on YouTube. Thanks, random Russian content farm! I'll finally have an entry for How To!

That's great! If no one speaks up they will just keep on ripping other author's stories, so keep up the good work

And yes, they have these fantastic excuses, like:
- "oh I bought it from a ghost writer over at Fiverr. I never knew it was stolen" - That's what she told me after publishing it on Amazon while mine was still up there. She also published the same story a second time with the same cover, and asked me kindly to not report her to Amazon. Needless to say, I'm following her every move from now on
- and another favourite from Wattpad: "Oh, I thought it was always allowed to copy stories that I like and publish them as my own on my Wattpad page". I'm just....what?

So, after a while you just stop googling your author name