Anyone else have something like this happen?

[PayDay]

So I wrote a story, a bunch of readers liked it, got some feedback, blah blah blah.

So tucked away in some e-mails and comments, was the following:

This message contains feedback for:
This feedback was sent by: ***@fetishbucks.com

Comments:

Hello,
I was just browsing Literotica.com and came across your story. I loved the story so much i posted it on our website(hope you don't mind), You can see it at slutwives.com. Also I have taken the liberty in making you a user name and password so you can log in and see our author area. Here are your credentials:

User Name: Payday
Password: ***********

If you have any problems with us posting your content on our website or would rather us not do so, please give me an email back.

Thank you for your time,

*DO NOT hit the REPLY button to respond to this email.*

=====================
Please Note: This feedback was sent by a visitor to the Literotica.com website without revealing any information about you to the person who wrote it. If you do not wish to receive anonymous feedback, you can log into the member area at Literotica.com and turn the option off for your account. If you have questions, please contact Webmaster@Literotica.com.

Anyone else get something like this? What did you do? Is it just SPAM? What would you do if it wasn't? Is it good? Is it bad? WTF?

Just thought it was odd enough to ask.

 

[Darkniciad]

At least they sent you something. They've stolen a couple of mine, and I wouldn't even have known if it didn't come up in a Google search

I don't think I'd trust the login thing. If they're lacking in scruples enough to steal your story first and ask for permission later, lord knows what kind of malware they have haunting the place. I went in with java and everything else disabled on top of a fully updated adblock and virus scanners just long enough to confirm the Google hit.

 

[shewantsmore]

i would certainly not trust that at all sounds like spam to me

 

[PayDay]

That'll do it.

At least they sent you something. They've stolen a couple of mine, and I wouldn't even have known if it didn't come up in a Google search

Word. If you want the e-mail address that came with it, to attempt communication with them, I'll fork it over, just ask.

I don't think I'd trust the login thing. If they're lacking in scruples enough to steal your story first and ask for permission later, lord knows what kind of malware they have haunting the place. I went in with java and everything else disabled on top of a fully updated adblock and virus scanners just long enough to confirm the Google hit.

Yeah, I previewed the site long enough to know i didn't want to. Not enough variety, but I have zero intent to login. Nty.

But I am going to hit them with an e-mail. Watch me.

 

[PayDay]

...

Sent it. Short and stupid

Hey 'blahblah@fetishbucks.com' or whatever,

I guess thanks for doing what you did with my story "A Blah Blahed Blahdyblah". If you liked it that much, thank you again for the gesture. If you link it as mine, to my Lit author's page, and my e-mail, then I will be cool with it being used elsewhere for free. I particularly don't need another website account, so I may/not use it, maybe. Careful though, as some authors may not be so slick about it.

Under no circumstances may you profit from my story. If your website is not free under all circumstances when it comes to the reading of my story -- You cannot use it.

Any profits will be mine, in whole, not in part.

Otherwise, have at it.

-PayDay

Yup, did it. Lamest thing I ever did, right there-----^

Good times.

 

[lovecraft68]

So I wrote a story, a bunch of readers liked it, got some feedback, blah blah blah.

So tucked away in some e-mails and comments, was the following:





Anyone else get something like this? What did you do? Is it just SPAM? What would you do if it wasn't? Is it good? Is it bad? WTF?

Just thought it was odd enough to ask.

There is a possibility they never took your story. It may just be a ploy to get you pissed enough to log in.

A month or so ago someone commented on one of my stories saying they loved it and then "I read the first half on ***. com and was happy to find the rest here.

I got pissed googled the site. It was a site that sold erotic e-books. I could not find mine there, but figured they changed the name. Later on another author contacted me and said he received the same comment word for word as did a friend of his. they were just trying to get traffic to the site.

 

[LordMhoram]

I thought, as the owner/holder of the copyright for the stories we publish here, that it is a violation of copyright law for someone else to publish our story without our express consent, whether or not they profit from it.

 

[Darkniciad]

I thought, as the owner/holder of the copyright for the stories we publish here, that it is a violation of copyright law for someone else to publish our story without our express consent, whether or not they profit from it.

Technically, but from an actual legal standpoint in the U.S., unless you file a formal copyright and pay for it, you have zero legal standing. Likewise, posting it on a free use site eliminates any value your work has in the eyes of the law.

As soon as you post something for free on the internet, you've more or less given it away under U.S. law. Your only recourse is to attempt to guilt-trip the site, host, or retailer into doing the right thing.

 

[amofiga]

I had a similar situation with a website that I did not voluntarily contact. It wasn't about a story here though. I tried in vain to get through to them, but these places often have layers of addresses and contacts that lead nowhere. I even contacted the state police who supposedly have an internet fraud group but they just basically told me there was nothing they could do since the trail of addresses I compiled led out of state. I was told that maybe I should consider contacting the FBI if I wanted to escalate it to that level. I didn't want to pursue it that far (probably I should have) and let it drop. I think that's what these people with such websites depend on. People will just give up.

 

[LordMhoram]

Technically, but from an actual legal standpoint in the U.S., unless you file a formal copyright and pay for it, you have zero legal standing. Likewise, posting it on a free use site eliminates any value your work has in the eyes of the law.

As soon as you post something for free on the internet, you've more or less given it away under U.S. law. Your only recourse is to attempt to guilt-trip the site, host, or retailer into doing the right thing.

I don't think that is true. Whilst registering a copyrightable work strengthens your legal position, copyright automatically attaches to an author upon creation of a work. You might be confusing this with Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act. If I wished to sue someone for violating copyright, I must register the work before the suit can be heard in court.

Literotica clearly states that all works on this site remain the property of the authors, and they even have the © symbol against the author's screen name when you read a story. Publishing to a free, public site does not automatically waive ones rights of ownership.

Of course, it might end up being a moot point; a "we said/they said" as to who the actual author is. well, no one promised me the world would be fair

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, Darkniciad has it absolutely corrrect. After all the mumbo jumbo about the work being protected upon being written (worded this way because the United States very belatedly and reluctantly signed the Berne convention), you'll find the statement (of reality) that you cannot get a court date for a copyright suit without one of parties holding a formal copyright registration. So, absolutely no teeth in all of that mumbo jumbo. The only thing left to you is moral suasion.

What do you think the effect protection is of a work you can't take to court? What is any leverage you think you have? Your defense position has no teeth.

And, also as Darkniciad said, the courts are clear on being centered on financial damages. Even if you copyrighted it and got to court, they will point to the zero value you placed on it by posting it on the Internet for free. You might get the offending website to take it down (and they'll promptly put it up on another websight), but you will have wasted all of the time and money for zero financial return.

All of this is moot, of course. No one is stupid enough to actually do that. And the website that stole and posted it knows that.

 

[PennLady]

Literotica clearly states that all works on this site remain the property of the authors, and they even have the © symbol against the author's screen name when you read a story. Publishing to a free, public site does not automatically waive ones rights of ownership.

Of course, it might end up being a moot point; a "we said/they said" as to who the actual author is. well, no one promised me the world would be fair

All the first part means, though, is that Literotica has no rights. That symbol means nothing unless you've formally filed for copyright. I mean, perhaps you could provide a time-stamped file that you wrote it first, but I'm not sure that would hold up legally.

We may not waive our rights to ownership, but once something's on the internet, it's there and even if you take it down, it's cached or whatever somewhere out there. Ultimately, from what I know (which is little), if you don't file for copyright, then you have little or no legal recourse.

 

[PacoFear]

In the U.S., a copyright, that is, literally an author's legal right to copy his creative work, attaches at the moment it is created. Nothing has to be filed. He doesn't even have to mark it with a pretty 'C.' Floating it in the public domain doesn't wave it. Seriously, there's an international treaty over it and everything.

So why bother filing for a copyright registration at all? To enforce the darn thing. For an author to file suit for copyright infringement in court, the copyright must be filed with the Library of Congress. A copy of the copyright registration gets attached to the complaint. As I recall, some circuits even let a plaintiff file a copyright at the same time the complaint is filed; a copy of the copyright application gets filed with the complaint instead of the issued registration.

What does this mean? It means that an author doesn't have to file for a copyright registration right away. He can bide his time until someone infringes on his art-y goodness in such a way as to tick him off, then he can file for the copyright registration and sue somebody's pantalones off.

 

[estragon]

In the U.S., a copyright, that is, literally an author's legal right to copy his creative work, attaches at the moment it is created. Nothing has to be filed. He doesn't even have to mark it with a pretty 'C.' Floating it in the public domain doesn't wave it. Seriously, there's an international treaty over it and everything.

So why bother filing for a copyright registration at all? To enforce the darn thing. For an author to file suit for copyright infringement in court, the copyright must be filed with the Library of Congress. A copy of the copyright registration gets attached to the complaint. As I recall, some circuits even let a plaintiff file a copyright at the same time the complaint is filed; a copy of the copyright application gets filed with the complaint instead of the issued registration.

What does this mean? It means that an author doesn't have to file for a copyright registration right away. He can bide his time until someone infringes on his art-y goodness in such a way as to tick him off, then he can file for the copyright registration and sue somebody's pantalones off.

Unless the bad guys file first.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Commercial law in the western world is primarily oriented at stopping someone 'rip you off'. If you publish a 'not for profit' smutty story on the net and someone republishes it giving you author credit you have lost diddly squat.

The crusade by music publishers against file sharing sites is wholly to protect profits. As is the fight by drug companies to protect their patents against generic alternatives.

Strictly, the US advice is rather parochial. UK and Australian copyright law (and probably others) allows an attestation of authorship rather than registration to prove copyright (see any Ogg Bashan story) and as lit 'publishes' in both countries you could pursue a copyright case there.

Seriously, be realistic. If you've lost nothing, you'll get nothing 'cept a large bill from the lawyer.

Because copyright and plagiarism are murky waters, most celebs and TV characters go for trademark protection. I know the caveat on the celebs category but I believe the Hustler parody justification doesn't cover the trademark infringements of many stories there. I know big corporations don't usually attack fanfiction, but that doesn't mean it is legal - a question of the pesky fly on the hippopotamus's ass.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

best thing to do, for your sanity, is just suck it up.

 

[estragon]

best thing to do, for your sanity, is just suck it up.

Unhappily, I agree. Creative writing, barring the best-selling commercial authors, is the lowest level of intellectual property. Paraphrasing something I read fifty years ago (I think it was Philip Wylie), you can build a brick shithouse and it's yours forever, but if you write a story that changes ten million lives, you lose it after a while.

 

[estragon]

Unhappily, I agree. Creative writing, barring the best-selling commercial authors, is the lowest level of intellectual property. Paraphrasing something I read fifty years ago (I think it was Philip Wylie), you can build a brick shithouse and it's yours forever, but if you write a story that changes ten million lives, you lose it after a while.

My memory isn't as good as I hoped it would be. Here is what Philip Wylie said in his novel "Opus 21", in 1949: "Indeed, such is the unconscious hostility of the mob toward the fruits of intelligence that, not long ago, a group of representatives, commercial he-whores and contumelious morons, endeavored to do away with copyright altogether on the grounds that what a man thought and wrote down, or what he felt and painted, belonged free of charge to the whole people; noneconomic, since it was Art.”

I wish I could write like that.

 

[LVDesertGuy]

they steal from here all the time

slutwives is rife with stories they have stolen from here