Another Site Grabbing Stories

[sr71plt]

Any suggestion that I'm saying someone is a fool for posting stories at Lit. obviously means they aren't aware that I've done it myself every two weeks for years--and continue to do so.

I don't think anyone is a fool for not (initially) recognizing the reality of the lack of effective protections for what you post for free on a public-accessible Web site.

Where I think you would be a fool is to to continue to stick your fingers in your ears and hum lalalala without recognizing reality when it's pointed out to you by someone who is only trying to help you see reality.

Reality is going to change very slowly if at all--and it's not likely to change at all for erotica stories posted for free to a free-access Web site--and certainly not at all in the United States if the author doesn't fork out the money for a formal copyright and then is willing to fork out a big bunch of money for a moral victory that may not last more that an hour.

That being the case, it's the mind-set of the author expectation that needs to change.

 

[MSTarot]

It's amazing, but in this one instance I'm in agreement with Plt. I know that hell has frozen over and pigs are flying through the air as I type.

Oh, so your the one to blame for the swine flew going around.




I knew when I posted the first story that I was in essence making a paper plane of it and flying it out the 'window' and into the wide wide world. Shrug.

I value my stories, they mean a lot to me. They mean a very great deal in fact. They are each and everyone a small piece of me that I decided to share.

To share for free.

I didn't put them on a paying site now did I? I didn't tell the world I was so good a writer that they needed to pay me money just to read my work. I gave it away.

So someone decide to steal it. Hell that's almost a compliment to me. Why should I be mad at them for trying to make a buck?

That's like sitting something on your front lawn with a sign that says free to who ever wants it then getting mad that someone came and took it. That they can sell what you were giving away and make money isn't their fault.

For me Lit is a free to use writing clinic, with tons of feedback, nice contest to test my writing on and a few snarky instructors.

I've met a couple of very nice people here. They have been very helpful to a strange, voiceless, person who is hundreds if not thousands of miles from them. My writing has improved from what it was last year. A lot. When it gets good enough that I think I can sell what i write and make money then I will.

That is the whole reason I'm here. Well, that and the hope that maybe my writing will give someone a few moments pleasure.

I actually feel kind of sorry for the people that are reading those stolen stories. I looked over a few of mine and they have been trashed. All the formatting is gone, they are one huge paragraph with no spaces. I would puke from nausea trying to read it like that.

And Like Ogg said it's generally only the first page. Hell, most of my stories don't even get going till page two.

You write something, you post it, you learn from doing that and then move on to the next story till you're one day outselling Stephen King, Jim Butcher, and certainly E.L. James.

Till then lather, rinse, repeat and stop worrying that someone stole your writing homework.

My opinion worth what it's worth.

M.S.Tarot


P.S. on my story 'Aurora' the story stealing dip shit actually copied my Literotica name into the first sentence. What a fuck head.:caning:

 

[xelliebabex]

P.S. on my story 'Aurora' the story stealing dip shit actually copied my Literotica name into the first sentence. What a fuck head.:caning:

I agree with everything you said but this last post-script made me laugh so much, Thanks!

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I knew when I posted the first story that I was in essence making a paper plane of it and flying it out the 'window' and into the wide wide world. Shrug.

I like that and thought it was worth repeating.

While we come and go as if this is a free website, it's not. It's an advertising supported website, regardless of how unobtrusive the ads. How much do the sites owners/managers make? No way for me to know. Probably not as much as I believe they deserve. Nor do I believe they have maximized their site for generating revenue. But that's a judgment call and it's theirs to make.

Stealing a story steals from the value of the site. It robs the owners/managers of the potential to generate income. Though they seem to be "hands-off" a lot of things on these forums, they don't appear to be completely absent. (I've received answers to questions rather promptly.)

One of the advantages of posting on Lit is the generous terms of "you keep the copyright." If you ask for something to be taken down, they'll do it which can provide the illusion of control. I've never considered my material worth stealing. However, I've learned that's not the case and it forces me to make a judgment call.

How many paper airplanes should one release for the enjoyment (and potential theft) of others before they decide, "Hey, this is taking a toll on me?"

I continue to have a real issue with "blowhard and pompous" who chooses to attack the messenger with claims of
". . . don't bother"
". . .your mind-set that needs to be changed . . ."
"You valued [your stories] at zero by posting them to Literotica . . ."
"Stories are an unlimited product . . ."

A wonderfully set of snarky responses to the OP who ". . .simply felt other authors had a right to know what is being done with their work . . ."

Perhaps saddest is that I can agree with some of what ol' B & P has to say outside of his snark. Scrawling on a bathroom wall to publishing in The New Yorker, subjects words to plagiarism. Is Lit.com the equivalent of the alt.sex.stories newsgroup? Maybe.

Motivate yourself, dear author. Examine your motivations. Act on your goals. Post in a way that completes your desires. And thank you OP for the heads-up!

. | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |

 

[sr71plt]

How many death scenes does your little "He's Taken My Marbles and You Won't Get Them Back for Me" play script have in it, Bucky?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You seem to be telling me that I was a fool to post my stories on Lit. That being the case then the only sensible thing to do would be to remove them. and not post any more.

Not what I said, at all. What I said is that once you post to a site such as Lit, your work is there for the taking by anyone without ethics and if you want to protect your work, it's up to you to do so.

 

[DeYaKen]

Not what I said, at all. What I said is that once you post to a site such as Lit, your work is there for the taking by anyone without ethics and if you want to protect your work, it's up to you to do so.

I'm sorry to appear thick, but You are saying that Lit offers no protection. Got that

You also say if I want to protect my stories, it's up to me. Got that.

So if I don't want my stories stolen they should not be on a site that offers no protection. Got that

But apparently that is not saying that if I don't want them stolen take them off lit. Haven't got that at all.

Incidentally there now appears to be almost a full house of Lit stories on Slutwives.com.

 

[oggbashan]

...

But apparently that is not saying that if I don't want them stolen take them off lit. Haven't got that at all.

...

If you have already posted them on Literotica it is probably too late to stop them being stolen. Once here, or anywhere on the internet, they have probably been downloaded by someone.

Taking them off Literotica is bolting the stable door after the horse has gone.

 

[sr71plt]

So if I don't want my stories stolen they should not be on a site that offers no protection. Got that

Yes, if that's truly your position. I've been suggesting that people reassess what they just gotta have with stories they are writing for fun, writing development, and to share. Most of you (the ones who haven't put them in the marketplace for a profit-based run before posting them here for a free-read) have already given up on the thought of making money off of them by posting them on a free-use Web site.

Take a look at reality--not just of the environment for protection of material posted to a free-use Internet site (and in 99.99 percent of the time not even covered with a formal copyright in the case of U.S.-system authors) but also at what your reasonable expectation is for the future of that story you are posting somewhere on the Internet under an assumed name for free-read. That was your decision. The problem is that you may not have thought out what it meant and what you thought you were getting out of it.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I'm sorry to appear thick, but You are saying that Lit offers no protection. Got that

You also say if I want to protect my stories, it's up to me. Got that.

So if I don't want my stories stolen they should not be on a site that offers no protection. Got that

But apparently that is not saying that if I don't want them stolen take them off lit. Haven't got that at all.

Incidentally there now appears to be almost a full house of Lit stories on Slutwives.com.

Not posting anywhere is the best protection. Even e-books are stolen, redistributed and probably plagiarized, too. Before Lit, I published for the magazine market back when there was a magazine market for erotica. For a long while, I had a vanity blog where I posted stories and never had an issue with theft. Why? Too small of a readership. With Literotica.com, you gain lots of extra eyeballs for your material. The trade-off? Literotica.com is a well known website (1.5 million visitors a day according to the site managers). So, in exchange for more eyeballs, you risk substantially more theft.

I'm not web code savvy enough to do more than guess at ways the site could better protect stories. Most "protection" schemes would reduce how easy it is to surf the site. Maybe posting all stories as pictures of words instead of text? Perhaps a form of Java script or an .html tag that prevents a person from highlighting, copying and pasting text? Maybe requiring readers to log in or require a CAPTCHA to read a story to at least prove you're human? Dunno.

Examine your motivations. Act on your goals. Post in a way that completes your desires. And report websites reposting stories without authorization to the site moderators/owners/managers via a PM. The site earns its money from ads, so they have a vested interest in discouraging thievery.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I'm sorry to appear thick, but You are saying that Lit offers no protection. Got that

You also say if I want to protect my stories, it's up to me. Got that.

So if I don't want my stories stolen they should not be on a site that offers no protection. Got that

But apparently that is not saying that if I don't want them stolen take them off lit. Haven't got that at all.

Incidentally there now appears to be almost a full house of Lit stories on Slutwives.com.

At least over on Slutwives.com they credit the real author of the story, so I would consider that free advertising and I'm sure if the author complained they would take them down and probably just hot link to Lit.

Now tell me how the authors have been harmed by slutwives.com?

And if you try to tell me that slutwives.com is making money on the backs of the oppressed author...wouldn't the same be true for here at Lit.? Except you posted it here for free with the complete knowledge that Lit would be making money, somehow, with you work.

As for taking down after it's been stolen, that seems kind of foolish. Once its out there, it's always out there. Even is a website is shutdown, the owner of the site has copies to place on another website, and another and another until the story, picture, vid can be found in any of a million google hits.

 

[Manu]

I just posted in another thread, but then I saw this one, so I want to make sure that people following this thread see my reply as well.

I was commenting on Nookiestar specifically, but in general I want to agree with what BuckyDuckman said - Amazon.com ebooks are stolen and reposted at copyright theft sites all of the time. As are Hollywood movies, HBO TV shows, and mainstream video games. The only way to truly protect your work is to show it to no one.

We spend quite a bit of time every month going after sites that steal stories from Literotica. We also do our best to help authors who want to file DMCA complaints (the most effective, but not 100% effective, way to get your work taken down if you do find it posted without your permission). However, the same thing that makes the internet great (freedom) also makes it difficult when someone wants to make trouble.

Here is the message I wrote about Nookiestar in the other thread:

This site is known to us and to every other story site on the web (probably up to and including Amazon).

We have attempted to talk to them and they appear to not care about copyright law at all. In fact, their partners appear to be sites who steal mainstream movies and/or TV shows. If you look here for example:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/iosecaddons/

You can see the alleged webmaster of Nookiestar's name "Sebastian Enger".

Some info on the webmaster here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/storiesonline/lxNEsXJ-m3g

The sites listed on that page include:
http://www.moviestreamz.com/
http://www.kinodownloads.com/
http://www.cineloads.com/
http://www.nookiestar.com/

Those same sites are listed as sponsors on the Nookiestar website.

Look at Google and you can see that the other sites are also copyright violation sites.

The people involved in these sites don't care if you publish your work with Penguin and Random House or have an HBO TV show or a Hollywood movie. They will take anything they can find - online or offline - and copy it.

We will continue to work on ways to stop them from copying Lit authors, but in the end the MPAA or someone else may get to them first.

 

[DeYaKen]

At least over on Slutwives.com they credit the real author of the story, so I would consider that free advertising and I'm sure if the author complained they would take them down and probably just hot link to Lit.

Now tell me how the authors have been harmed by slutwives.com?

And if you try to tell me that slutwives.com is making money on the backs of the oppressed author...wouldn't the same be true for here at Lit.? Except you posted it here for free with the complete knowledge that Lit would be making money, somehow, with you work.

As for taking down after it's been stolen, that seems kind of foolish. Once its out there, it's always out there. Even is a website is shutdown, the owner of the site has copies to place on another website, and another and another until the story, picture, vid can be found in any of a million google hits.

To their credit, slutwives.com have contacted me asking for a url . Yes they do credit the original author which is good.

The argument is the same as the one used by manufacturers of up market products (not that I'm saying my stories are up market). Your reputation is affected by where your goods are sold. I was happy with lit because readers did not have to endure animated adverts for porn sites alongside my stories. Lit has the look and feel of a story site with a little porn on the side. Slutwives has the look and feel of a porn site with a few stories on the side. It's not that I object to people making money from my work I just want to choose who those people are.

I never mentioned removing stories that I know have already been stolen, that would be silly and I even said that in previous posts. What I am considering is pulling those that don't appear to have been stolen yet.

Yes, I was naive when I posted my stories on lit. I'd read a lot of stories here, some of them quite wonderful. I was swept up by the desire to contribute, to see if I could entertain others the way they had entertained me. With my knowledge of the internet, I should have known better but I never imagined that my stories had enough value for someone to claim them as theirs. Again I should have known better, I've lived in countries where even the inside of a broken radio had value.

This whole sorry episode has had one very negative effect. It has increased the pressure, from my wife, to try and make money from my inane ramblings. No it's not that she's a money grabbing bitch, It's just that what cash we had was tied up in the wrong place at the wrong time and we now struggle.

I am encouraged a little by Manu's recent post, at least it shows a degree of concern.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I just posted in another thread, but then I saw this one, so I want to make sure that people following this thread see my reply as well.

I was commenting on Nookiestar specifically, but in general I want to agree with what BuckyDuckman said - Amazon.com ebooks are stolen and reposted at copyright theft sites all of the time. As are Hollywood movies, HBO TV shows, and mainstream video games. The only way to truly protect your work is to show it to no one.

We spend quite a bit of time every month going after sites that steal stories from Literotica. We also do our best to help authors who want to file DMCA complaints (the most effective, but not 100% effective, way to get your work taken down if you do find it posted without your permission). However, the same thing that makes the internet great (freedom) also makes it difficult when someone wants to make trouble.

Here is the message I wrote about Nookiestar in the other thread:

This site is known to us and to every other story site on the web (probably up to and including Amazon).

We have attempted to talk to them and they appear to not care about copyright law at all. In fact, their partners appear to be sites who steal mainstream movies and/or TV shows. If you look here for example:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/iosecaddons/

You can see the alleged webmaster of Nookiestar's name "Sebastian Enger".

Some info on the webmaster here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/storiesonline/lxNEsXJ-m3g

The sites listed on that page include:
http://www.moviestreamz.com/
http://www.kinodownloads.com/
http://www.cineloads.com/
http://www.nookiestar.com/

Those same sites are listed as sponsors on the Nookiestar website.

Look at Google and you can see that the other sites are also copyright violation sites.

The people involved in these sites don't care if you publish your work with Penguin and Random House or have an HBO TV show or a Hollywood movie. They will take anything they can find - online or offline - and copy it.

We will continue to work on ways to stop them from copying Lit authors, but in the end the MPAA or someone else may get to them first.

It's good to know you are on top of things. Thanks for letting us know.

Just a...I was wondering if you ever thought about disabling the copy/paste function on the story pages? I know there are always ways around things like that and I know you would probably receive dozens of complaints from those who like to download the stories to their personal readers, but it might deter the thief if they have written a macro to scrape the stories. Just asking?

 

[RejectReality]

I seriously doubt it would work here ( because the site I'm talking about is members-only and a lot smaller ) but one place I post checks for thing like accept headers and referrers and delivers gobbledygook text littered with links back to where the story was stolen from when bots failing the checks try to scrape.

As soon as it went live, people were posting links laughing at the known thieving sites where the bots had auto-posted dozens of link-back letter salad "stories" straight onto their sites.

On an "anybody can view full stories" site, any controls you put in place to try to prevent copy-pasting/scraping are more or less a waste of bytes that are more likely to irritate genuine users than to stop malicious folks and bots.

 

[oggbashan]

Found on a search for 'oggbashan'. WTF?

blog sex video clips - horses fucking people
She beast free links sex knew where the werewolf from the zoo was. Proof is easily found by looking at contestants like Oggbashan and Edward Teach.

 

[redzinger]

Anyone heard of 'askjolene.com'? Something about 'the free porn search engine'?

I searched one of the first lines of a story on google, and it popped up in a couple of results with some lines from the story. However, the pages won't load for me to check out if it's been stolen wholesale. (The story is the first in my sig, Playing Up.)

I'll probably be taking my rugby stories down, 'cos I have other related novels being published imminently (huzzah! ) so after some rewriting/merging I may use it as a taster elsewhere.

 

[oggbashan]

Anyone heard of 'askjolene.com'? Something about 'the free porn search engine'?

...

askjolene is a search engine. It will find your stories on Literotica and list links to those stories.

It will also find links to where your stories have been posted without your permission. Be very careful before clicking on some of those links. They can be filled with spam and bots.

 

[SamScribble]

Nearly all of my Lit stories have been stolen. But but not all. And that is starting to worry me. What was wrong with the stories that weren't stolen? Were they not good enough? Or were they too good? Yeah, yeah. I know that the raiding bots are not English professors (as in: professors of English), but still ....

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Nearly all of my Lit stories have been stolen. But but not all. And that is starting to worry me. What was wrong with the stories that weren't stolen? Were they not good enough? Or were they too good? Yeah, yeah. I know that the raiding bots are not English professors (as in: professors of English), but still ....

Some of those sites only do a swipe once, then any thing posted after that will remain un-stolen, until the next site swipes them wholesale again.

 

[glynndah]

Nearly all of my Lit stories have been stolen. But but not all. And that is starting to worry me. What was wrong with the stories that weren't stolen? Were they not good enough? Or were they too good? Yeah, yeah. I know that the raiding bots are not English professors (as in: professors of English), but still ....

Exactly!

 

[oggbashan]

Nearly all of my Lit stories have been stolen. But but not all. And that is starting to worry me. What was wrong with the stories that weren't stolen? Were they not good enough? Or were they too good? Yeah, yeah. I know that the raiding bots are not English professors (as in: professors of English), but still ....

Some of my Essays have been stolen and posted on dubious erotic sites. Why would they steal my rants about Free Speech to put on an Anal Fisting site?

Some of my stories have only the first Lit page taken, leaving the story unfinished.

I think they are raiding for quantity, not quality. Almost any text would do, but preferably from another 'erotic' site.

 

[sr71plt]

I think they are raiding for quantity, not quality.

Oh, no, I'm sure it's because they find your essays erotic.