Another Site Grabbing Stories

[lovecraft68]

This was inevitable

the copyright debate round 10,534 and counting

 

[oggbashan]

Copyright applies on the Internet, even if it's not specifically stated. Unless a work has a specific license, such as Creative Commons, it is copyrighted. I don't have a phone number for these "digital ambulance chasers", but they do exist. The only "research" I can cite is my notes from copyright seminars and educational blogs, but I'm convinced enough to take the time to use only my own or CC licensed digital materials.

...

As has been said several times in the Authors' Hangout, copyright in the US is meaningless unless you have registered (and paid for) your copyright. Literotica is a US based site. If you haven't formally registered your copyright, you haven't got it.

In the UK and most of Europe the position on copyright is different. You do have copyright.

Whether you have formally registered copyright in the US or not, by posting on Literotica you have given the site owners permission to use your work HERE.

If someone copies a story from Literotica, a PM to Laurel will help because she will try to get the other site to remove it.

But you have no practical redress in law, particularly in the US. You have to prove that you have suffered a loss. How can you have suffered a loss when you posted a story on a free site? Even if you could get past that impossible hurdle, you would have to prove your copyright. If you haven't registered and paid IN THE US, you haven't got copyright in the US.

All you would be doing is to pile up expensive legal fees for an unwinnable cause.

 

[patientlee]

And I'm saying that folks here deserve to know the truth, even if you have to use dynamite to deliver it. And have to do it twice a month because they all think they are inventing the wheel by bringing it up.

Your "lawyers are cruising the net for clients in these matters" was both off the wall and potentially invited your colleagues into a scam (not that I believe there are any lawyers doing this).

It's uninformed guidance such as that that is keeping people in self-damaging ignorance.

And "be nice" wasn't all you were saying--not by a long shot.

You don't have to read the thread, and you don't have to be nasty (to the OP. I don't care if you're nasty to me). Yes you know more about erotica than everyone because that's what you do all day. Since you are making such a good living with your erotica, I can only imagine that the only reason you post here is to stroke your retired military ego. You are not always right, just because you say you are.

I made an off hand suggestion, trying to make pleasant conversation. You were nasty. Maybe it's a "copyright seminar conspiracy" that these lawyers exist. I know that I've been in 3 different seminars, conducted by professionals who are not in the erotica business, who have warned teachers that "fair use" doesn't apply like it used to and they cited cases (which I didn't bother to write down) in which teachers and their students found themselves in legal trouble because digital ambulance chasers are drumming up business by trolling the net for copyright violations.

Perhaps the next time I find myself in such a seminar, I'll borrow a tinfoil hat.

Once again, I was killing time, making conversation. You went out of your way to be nasty to the OP when you could have chosen to move on to another thread.

Did it make you feel better about yourself?

 

[patientlee]

I meant no offense to the military and its members. I wish I hadn't said that.

 

[sr71plt]

I meant no offense to the military and its members. I wish I hadn't said that.

Since I wasn't in the military, you were firing blanks at me on that. (And I don't pretend to know everything about everything. About copyright, though, yes, quite a lot about it, and not because I work on e-books--because I've been working in the mainstream publishing industry for a couple of decades. I can guarantee I know more about it than you do.)

As for the rest of it, it looks to me like you're the nasty one--in addition to peddling false information that can hurt your fellow authors here. That's what tees me off here: posters who don't know what the hell they are talking about giving false guidance, and then others drinking it in because it's what they want to hear rather than what they need to know to actually protect themselves.

Maybe you folks will at least read what Ogg posted--and maybe someday drop your delusions about your protections or what you're going to do to protect stories you gave away to the world for free already.

 

[slyc_willie]

Posting something to the internet DOES NOT, in any way shape or form, place that item into the public domain. Period. I don't need to change my mind set about that. Will that law stop people? No, of course it won't. People, for the most part, don't care about the content providers as long as they get their stuff for free.

"Posting something to the Internet DOES NOT, in any way shape or form, place that item into the public domain."

Whether going by legal or casual definition, this sort of "rage against the machine" thinking always makes me roll my eyes. As soon as any writer posts a story on an Internet website like Lit, or SOL, or whatever, it's out there and just as open to theft as anything else. Any writer should understand and accept this before posting. Otherwise, supreme naivete will result in the OP's sort of outcry.

Also, I don't remember any hair pulling while mentioning the situation. I simply felt other authors had a right to know what is being done with their work and what is not being done to protect it on this site.

Lit is not obligated, "in any way shape or form," to keep stories from being stolen. That Laurel does so when the infraction is brought to her attention is a testament to her support for the original authors of the stories.

If you post here, do so at your own risk. Just know that whenever you publish a story on Lit, there is a virtual guarantee that, at some point, it could be stolen. Deal with it, or move on.

 

[Handley_Page]

As has been said several times in the Authors' Hangout, copyright in the US is meaningless unless you have registered (and paid for) your copyright. Literotica is a US based site. If you haven't formally registered your copyright, you haven't got it.

In the UK and most of Europe the position on copyright is different. You do have copyright.

Whether you have formally registered copyright in the US or not, by posting on Literotica you have given the site owners permission to use your work HERE.

If someone copies a story from Literotica, a PM to Laurel will help because she will try to get the other site to remove it.

But you have no practical redress in law, particularly in the US. You have to prove that you have suffered a loss. How can you have suffered a loss when you posted a story on a free site? Even if you could get past that impossible hurdle, you would have to prove your copyright. If you haven't registered and paid IN THE US, you haven't got copyright in the US.

All you would be doing is to pile up expensive legal fees for an unwinnable cause.

I wonder if there's a case to argue that 'loss of reputation' or similar is possible ?

This chaos about copyright in the US is something for which Congress might profitably address; maybe.

 

[sr71plt]

I wonder if there's a case to argue that 'loss of reputation' or similar is possible ?

This chaos about copyright in the US is something for which Congress might profitably address; maybe.

Loss of reputation of a made-up account name?

I think you missed my frequent explanation that the United States government doesn't want to enable copyright cases. Beyond the fact that it's always pursued a free access policy to the extent that big copyright-owning companies (not individuals) permit it to, it doesn't want the already almost crippled U.S. court system to be flooded with a bunch of low-level he said/he said nuisance suits, which is what trying to protect an erotica story with established zero monetary value (because it was made availabe for free already) would be.

Folks naively think that their "rights" of ownership come with enabling legislation and executive and judicial pursuit in the United States (they don't--purposely) and that these "rights" are the same as a functional capability to get redress that justifies the effort put into tracking down the thief and wringing redress out of the thief. That's pie in the sky thinking. Especially the part about thinking that the U.S. government has any interest in expending its resources to help you do this.

The U.S. government doesn't mind if you can be fooled to think you have leverage. It helps keep you off their back.

 

[DeYaKen]

I wonder if there's a case to argue that 'loss of reputation' or similar is possible ?

This chaos about copyright in the US is something for which Congress might profitably address; maybe.

Yes you can. that is exactly the argument used by designer jeans manufacturers when they stopped their products being sold cheap in chain stores. They suffered no material loss since the buyers had paid the same price as the buyers from upmarket boutiques. They argued, successfully, that their reputation was damaged by them being sold in major chain stores alongside run of the mill products.

In the case of nookiestar, not only do they steal the product from a site to whom it was given freely, but they also date stamp it six months previous to it's appearance on Lit. This gives the impression that it is the actual author that has stolen the work, effectively labeling them a plagiarist. definitely a loss of reputation and even possible defamation of character.

However, as the chair of the law board at Kent University used to say, "The law is like the Ritz Hotel. It's open to everyone, but very few can afford to dine there."

 

[Handley_Page]

Loss of reputation of a made-up account name?

I think you missed my frequent explanation that the United States government doesn't want to enable copyright cases. Beyond the fact that it's always pursued a free access policy to the extent that big copyright-owning companies (not individuals) permit it to, it doesn't want the already almost crippled U.S. court system to be flooded with a bunch of low-level he said/he said nuisance suits, which is what trying to protect an erotica story with established zero monetary value (because it was made available for free already) would be.

Folks naively think that their "rights" of ownership come with enabling legislation and executive and judicial pursuit in the United States (they don't--purposely) and that these "rights" are the same as a functional capability to get redress that justifies the effort put into tracking down the thief and wringing redress out of the thief. That's pie in the sky thinking. Especially the part about thinking that the U.S. government has any interest in expending its resources to help you do this.

The U.S. government doesn't mind if you can be fooled to think you have leverage. It helps keep you off their back.

Sorry, Pilot, but I feel you are sadly in error about this one.

I do not know how many other pseudonyms you write under, but do you not care is your name gets missed off some of your carefully-crafted work published elsewhere without your authority? If you say 'No,' I reserve the right do not believe you.

So how is the USA so different to Western Europe (even China & Japan have mostly joined in) in respect of Copyright? We don't have too many copyright arguments reaching the Court over here; why should that not happen over there?

Crippled Court system?. That's hardly a real difficulty, is it?.
Employ more Judges and so on.

I always fondly imagined that the US Government was By the People, For the People.
Not, please note, by the Rich via the Lawyers. Therefore, if enough force of a popular movement (fat chance, I know), the USG would have to do something. The fact that (stereotypically), Daddy Bigbucks is doin' OK and keepin' others from the trough does not change the situation. The USA should (and I really mean SHOULD) join with the rest of the damned world on matters such as this. You can take isolationism too far.

Yes you can. that is exactly the argument used by designer jeans manufacturers when they stopped their products being sold cheap in chain stores. They suffered no material loss since the buyers had paid the same price as the buyers from upmarket boutiques. They argued, successfully, that their reputation was damaged by them being sold in major chain stores alongside run of the mill products.

In the case of nookiestar, not only do they steal the product from a site to whom it was given freely, but they also date stamp it six months previous to it's appearance on Lit. This gives the impression that it is the actual author that has stolen the work, effectively labeling them a plagiarist. definitely a loss of reputation and even possible defamation of character.

However, as the chair of the law board at Kent University used to say, "The law is like the Ritz Hotel. It's open to everyone, but very few can afford to dine there."

I recall that Jeans argument. Tescoes bought the posh jeans over in mainland EU and imported them, paying the proper taxes and all. All the case did was to prove to the jean-wearing public that they were being had by posh named products.
Not that it stopped them for long. . .
or so I'm told.

 

[sr71plt]

Don't worry about me HP. I understand the system and am working the system and don't waste my time trying to run down phantom thieves using "powers" I know I don't have. Nor do I fool myself that my various author names in erotica are real people I'm going to go to court with associated with me. Stories are a renewable resource. I publish them in the paying market first--before slapping them on the world's plate for free and making them available for the type of Web site theft this thread points to. And I use the time others are using in this wheels spinning in writing and publishing more stories. I don't have one or two "precious babies" that I'm trying to protect for no particular benefit in the real world as it is, including the reality of what the U.S. government is really going to do in supporting ownership claims on dirty stories written in pseudo and posted to the Internet for free.

The old Lincoln adage comes to mind: You certainly can fool most of the people most of the time--expecially when they want to be fooled.

Go ahead and live your delusions. Here's an "I told you so" in advance when the reality finally hits you.

 

[Handley_Page]

I don't have one or two "precious babies" that I'm trying to protect for no particular benefit in the real world as it is, including the reality of what the U.S. government is really going to do in supporting ownership claims on dirty stories written in pseudo and posted to the Internet for free.

The old Lincoln adage comes to mind: You certainly can fool most of the people most of the time--expecially when they want to be fooled.

Go ahead and live your delusions. Here's an "I told you so" in advance when the reality finally hits you.

Oh please don't imagine that I have a serious interest in the subject apart from the academic.
I'm not so prolific or competent an author that I need to do it.
Apart from anything else, we in the UK have a fairly decent system for copyright and should I need to employ it, I'll take expert advice first.

But I'm serious about my views on US copyright, which seems to be little more than a bag of nails.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh please don't imagine that I have a serious interest in the subject apart from the academic.
I'm not so prolific or competent an author that I need to do it.
Apart from anything else, we in the UK have a fairly decent system for copyright and should I need to employ it, I'll take expert advice first.

But I'm serious about my views on US copyright, which seems to be little more than a bag of nails.

So you're just another uninformed poster dispensing opiates to the wishful thinkers?

 

[Handley_Page]

So you're just another uninformed poster dispensing opiates to the wishful thinkers?

Not quite. I had to do quite a bit of research on the subject at one time.
But really do feel that being ripped off should incur some wrath and cost only a modest sum; if it's needed.

 

[sr71plt]

Not quite. I had to do quite a bit of research on the subject at one time.
But really do feel that being ripped off should incur some wrath and cost only a modest sum; if it's needed.

Yep, we are talking about the difference between "is" and "should be." The wishful thinkers are stuck on a false "is" and they're getting a whole lot of help from false prophets.

And, as usual, they shoot the messenger.

 

[Doopey]

So you're just another uninformed poster dispensing opiates to the wishful thinkers?

Just like the information that you have dispensed about your history with your username. If you weren't in the military, how did you fly a military plane?

You also state you worked in the publishing industry, but tis is the digital age. Have you intact kept up with teeter changing was? You challenge others to pet case files supporting there knowledge, let's see some of your case files that support yours.

In my personal opinion, yes like everyone else, I am entitled to it and it will probably does stink, I thought this is a message board that allows everyone express and share their opinions freely with out fearing someone thumping their chest and bashing or bullying them for it.

Welcome to the digital age!

 

[sr71plt]

Just like the information that you have dispensed about your history with your username. If you weren't in the military, how did you fly a military plane?

You also state you worked in the publishing industry, but tis is the digital age. Have you intact kept up with teeter changing was? You challenge others to pet case files supporting there knowledge, let's see some of your case files that support yours.

In my personal opinion, yes like everyone else, I am entitled to it and it will probably does stink, I thought this is a message board that allows everyone express and share their opinions freely with out fearing someone thumping their chest and bashing or bullying them for it.

Welcome to the digital age!

Gee, I wonder whose cowardly, pissant attacker alt this is?

The SR71, like the U2 before it, was paid for by the CIA, and, where certain target countries were overflown, for deniability purposes on military action (as with Francis Gary Powers and Russia), was piloted by CIA pilots--from Udorn, Thailand, Kadena AFB on Okinawa, and Offutt AFB, in addition to a few California bases, where the planes were/are maintained by the U.S. Air Force. Do your research.

Beyond that you should be ashamed of yourself, whoever you really are, for bringing up such irrelevant (and, typically, misinformed, I might add) trivia to perpetuate misunderstandings of what authors here should know, whether they like it or not.

Is anyone really doing themselves a favor by insisting on being ignorant about this copyright issue?

That said, I'm not trying to warn anyone off from posting stories here. I have 630 stories posted here and add one every couple of weeks (and, yes, my stories get ripped off and reposted). I'm such saying that A. reality is reality and you'r better off knowing what reality is, and B. Your stories aren't a lump of gold. Be real about what the damage is of having them reposted without your permission.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

And I'm saying that folks here deserve to know the truth, . . .

You don't have to read the thread, and you don't have to be nasty (to the OP. I don't care if you're nasty to me). Yes you know more about erotica than everyone because that's what you do all day. Since you are making such a good living with your erotica, I can only imagine that the only reason you post here is to stroke your retired military ego. You are not always right, just because you say you are.

I made an off hand suggestion, trying to make pleasant conversation. You were nasty. Maybe it's a "copyright seminar conspiracy" that these lawyers exist. I know that I've been in 3 different seminars, conducted by professionals who are not in the erotica business, who have warned teachers that "fair use" doesn't apply like it used to and they cited cases (which I didn't bother to write down) in which teachers and their students found themselves in legal trouble because digital ambulance chasers are drumming up business by trolling the net for copyright violations.

Perhaps the next time I find myself in such a seminar, I'll borrow a tinfoil hat.

Once again, I was killing time, making conversation. You went out of your way to be nasty to the OP when you could have chosen to move on to another thread.

Did it make you feel better about yourself?

I don't know. I'm thinking he might need to be nasty. It seems to be his "thing."

The site mentioned by the original OP seems to have done some wholesale ripping off of Lit.

For those who don't know how to check - take a unique sentence from one of your stories, perhaps something that includes a character name and some description, toss some quotes around the sentence and offer it up to our Google Overlords. They'll be more than happy to display everywhere else your story is found.

As an example, my story Cleverly Disguised - I pulled the following sentence fragment from the first paragraph: "Terri shared at one of the round tables with her boss, Derrick McIntire" I received four results - one of them from Lit, one from the site mentioned by the OP and the other two from sites I don't know.

Google ain't perfect with their results, either. For example, my story The Pegging of Mr. Carroll - produced five Google answers one for Lit's and two for the OP's original listing. But digging deeper, I find the story on a femdom site. Bing brings up two more unique sites.

Shit, this is getting depressing . . .

Of course, according to Pilot - it doesn't matter. I should have expected it. It's apparently what I signed up for as soon as I posted my first story. It's all on me for being a sap . . .

Except, maybe, like the OP, I don't WANT to be a sap. Maybe, like the OP, I'm pulling stories right and left from Lit and making some HUGE judgment calls about my continued participation.

As Literotica.com authors, we're faced with one of two choices -
1) Expose our work to unbridled thievery as an extra, hidden cost of submitting to Lit, or,
2) Keep it to ourselves

Oh, and if we head to the forums to alert our fellow authors or to simply cry "FUCK!" - then we can apparently expect the "Well, what did you think would happen?" ridicule from others. It's a beautiful world we live in, isn't it?

 

[sr71plt]

Well, what did you expect, Bucky, if you didn't/won't inform yourself of the consquences of what you decide to do? Smiley face feeding of your delusions when you shoot the messengers?

Not informing yourself at Literotica includes not bothering to check the monthly discussion of this on the forum. Ultimately in this "feed me" world, the reality, is that you are responsible for yourself.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I don't know. I'm thinking he might need to be nasty. It seems to be his "thing."

As Literotica.com authors, we're faced with one of two choices -
1) Expose our work to unbridled thievery as an extra, hidden cost of submitting to Lit, or,
2) Keep it to ourselves

Well, what did you expect, Bucky, if you didn't/won't inform yourself of the consquences of what you decide to do? Smiley face feeding of your delusions when you shoot the messengers?

Not informing yourself at Literotica includes not bothering to check the monthly discussion of this on the forum. Ultimately in this "feed me" world, the reality, is that you are responsible for yourself.

Hey! Baiting IS fun! Thanks for playing, sr71plt!

 

[lovecraft68]

I meant no offense to the military and its members. I wish I hadn't said that.

Don't worry Pilot has never been in the military.

 

[sr71plt]

Hey! Baiting IS fun! Thanks for playing, sr71plt!

I guess that means you were the cowardly alt as well(?)

Doing your fellow authors a real service here on their understandings of how protections do/don't work, aren't you?

I declare that some of you here misplaced whatever brains God gave you.

 

[Handley_Page]

To return to the subject at hand.

We write a story for fun; under our own (unique, but assumed) name and place it where WE want.
We do not place it (with deliberation, anyway) at another site not selected by us.

We have every right to be accepted as the author of the piece.
We should be able expect that other sites at least ASK if they can also have a copy,
not rip it off and (what's worse), under a different authors name.

Call it copyright if you like, but it just strikes me as little different from outright THEFT.

 

[sr71plt]

To return to the subject at hand.

We write a story for fun; under our own (unique, but assumed) name and place it where WE want.
We do not place it (with deliberation, anyway) at another site not selected by us.

We have every right to be accepted as the author of the piece.
We should be able expect that other sites at least ASK if they can also have a copy,
not rip it off and (what's worse), under a different authors name.

Call it copyright if you like, but it just strikes me as little different from outright THEFT.

True. I repeat (in case you had your fingers in your ears the first time). "Should" is not "is," nor will it be, if there's a difference as there is with the subject of this thread, just by insisting on living a fairytale on an Internet discussion board.

You can perhaps manage to use moral suasion and the ignorance of the offending Web site to get your story off their Web site on Tuesday. That doesn't mean that it won't be up on another Web site (perhaps even another Web site owned by the offending one) on Wednesday.

But I've tried to help and most of what I've gotten back is the shit of denial and personal attack on my background and knowledge. So, live and learn yourselves. That's what I did. I went out and found what was really what.

 

[oggbashan]

To return to the subject at hand.
...

Call it copyright if you like, but it just strikes me as little different from outright THEFT.

It is theft, but many people don't see it as theft. They see it as a victimless crime and therefore no crime at all.

But what sr71plt (and I) have been trying to say is that stopping the theft or punishing the thief is impossible under US law, even if you have the money to throw away on expensive lawyers. The US government's policy on copyright is designed to make copyright theft easy and unless you can afford lawyers to enforce your copyright, you can't protect your stories from theft.

But if you have posted your stories on the internet, on a free site, you have given away your copyright anyway. All the expensive US lawyers can't fix that.

IF you want to protect your copyright, DO NOT POST ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET. But even staying away from the internet won't stop those with OCR software.