Anything we can do about this ass-hat?

[LexxRuthless]

I had been tipped off some time ago that there was this author "ken" on ASSTR who had stolen and re-posted a couple of my stories. The Literotica member who notified me of this guy referred to him as a "serial story thief" and urged me to report him to the site manager. When their "report" button failed to work, I shrugged and moved on.

Earlier this evening I was chatting with another author and recalled this guy. I looked again and saw that he had posted almost every one of my standalone stories as his own, plus a lot of familiar titles I had recently seen here on Literotica. When I saw my most recent story had been posted on his page, I clicked on it and started to get really pissed. I had written that story as a reader request for someone specific, not this jackass. He had removed the forward, and at the end he had posted a link to a story site, meaning he may be making money off of my story.

I don't know if it matters to you guys, but you may find a lot of your work on this guy's page as well: https://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/ken/

Is there anything we can do about it? I haven't been able to reach the site manager for that site, and it looks like they're just letting it die. However, I don't want this jackass taking credit for my writing.

*Edit: Upon closer review, he has "only" stolen 9 of my I/T stories.

 

[MetaBob]

One of the stories this person posted is a story I like very much that was posted on this site first. I'm attempting to contact that writer now.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I just looked, this loser's stolen all 5 chapters of 'Nia', an I/T story written by my husband, beachbum1958. What anyone can do is probably academic, and an exercise in futility, you post on a free site, you accept the consequences, which is that sleazy little rip-off artists are going to steal your work. Unless he's selling it on Amazon which he can't, they don't publish I/T, bb isn't going to do anything, Laurel won't, asd ASSTR don't give a shit.

 

[EvelynEden]

That really really sucks Pretty low of someone to take other peoples work.

 

[RejectReality]

As to what can be done — likely nothing. Asstr has been all but dead for more than a decade. Somebody's paying to keep the lights on, but I doubt they're doing fuck all beyond that.

 

[TriadWriter]

The first thing to do is to file a DMCA Takedown notice to the webmaster, and threaten legal action if nothing is done.

Then, if nothing is done within a certain amount of time that is specified in the notice, you can either file a lawsuit against the webmaster (a court can subpoena the information necessary to contact them for it), or you can file a lawsuit against the user (a court can also subpoena their information). Granted, it's costly to go through the court system, and there's no guarantee it will change anything, but those are the only options.

 

[Misshotndeep]

Report it to Manu as well. Tech speaking all your stories belong to Literotica once you submit them. It is a violation of their legal rights to repost, print or other. They may get more traction then a private person.

 

[Haulover]

He stole one of mine as well. It was a LONG time ago - I wasn't able to do anything about it.

 

[NotWise]

Report it to Manu as well. Tech speaking all your stories belong to Literotica once you submit them. It is a violation of their legal rights to repost, print or other. They may get more traction then a private person.

Read the terms of service that you agree to when you submit a story.

The author retains ownership of the story after it is published. Lit has no right to the story, but they assert the right to defend your copyright (which seems virtually impossible to do).

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Report it to Manu as well. Tech speaking all your stories belong to Literotica once you submit them. It is a violation of their legal rights to repost, print or other. They may get more traction then a private person.

No, they don't. If you read the FAQ you will find that you the author retain all rights and responsibilities of your work.

 

[Heartsongs]

He (?) just submitted another story at ASSTR.org about 15 minutes ago. I saw it post while I was checking his submissions over there out. The story is called Real Sex. Son teaches mom what real sex is written here by MoutainDewMan and posted yesterday.

 

[Heartsongs]

Yep I've checked a couple titles. They've all been written here and have the red H. He's worse than a troll. Scumfuck!

 

[oggbashan]

I have tried to send a message via asstr's feedback form. It timed out!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Report it to Manu as well. Tech speaking all your stories belong to Literotica once you submit them. It is a violation of their legal rights to repost, print or other.

This isn't quite true. Literotica is explicitly clear that they do not own the stories we submit, and we still have the legal right to publish them elsewhere.

Somebody who rips off a story from here is violating the author's rights, not Literotica's. What we're giving Literotica is authority to enforce our copyright on our behalf, or so the FAQ says.

 

[yukonnights]

I stopped worrying about lifted stories long ago. If the stories made up some part of my income, I'd do something. But as it is; Why would I care? They are free here, just means more people get to read my propaganda if they end up on some other platform — even if my "fake name" is scrubbed. I guess every person is gonna have their own feelings on this, but I think it's wasted energy.

 

[KeithD]

This issue has cropped up here periodically for decades. Literotica has not taken your copyright. You've given Literotica the right to nonexclusively publish your work--you've retained copyright to do whatever else you want to do with the story. This includes the total responsibility of protecting it from theft. Literotica has taken on no responsibility to go after story thieves. It's worded is role in copyright to make the unwitting author more comfortable posting here, but I've seen no evidence that Literotica has, does, or will actively pursue theft from Literotica files in any significant way.

Legally, you have given your work away for free by letting it post on Literotica. You have valued it at zero. Courts operate on damages sustained, assuming they can establish ownership--which, in the United States is solely by registering it with the U.S. Copyright Office. You've valued it at zero and most of you have used a fake account name in which to post it. There are no legal damages to show and you won't even get a court date without pointing to a registration in your name. (Any Literotica author who can produce an example of having gotten to court in the life of Literotica on a story theft is invited to establishing that here.)

You might get away with bluff in succeeding to get a stolen story taken down, and if you do, applause to you, but bluff is what it will be. You also will be playing a game of whack-a-mole. if you enjoy spending time and effort on that, again, happiness to you.

I've given how I've responded to this reality before. Except for some themed contest works, I don't post anything to Literotica that hasn't already had its likely revenue-producing life in the marketplace. Interestingly, I've seen that posting here doesn't end its revenue-producing life in the marketplace for me. One benefit of this is that if it appears in the marketplace as a stolen work, the major distributors can be shown that it was there first in their system (and at their profit) by my publisher. And that's the other thing I do. I use publishers who are getting revenue from my books as well as me. They have higher standing with publishers than a fake-name me does and they have the incentive to be the ones to fight the take-down fight if they deem the damage done is great enough.