Is Posting Here Worth the Eventual Plagerizing?

[Jake Marlow]

Here's a question I have for the authors who post their stories here: Is the exposure you get and the feedback worth it for you, knowing that eventually, more likely than not, someone is going to come along, skim your stories, and sell them as ebooks?

My situation is this: Most of what I write these days I publish as ebooks through an Renaissance ebooks and sell. However, works shorter than about 10k, I publish for free here, at ES and other places, as "loss-leaders" hoping to find fans that might want to pay for something. So my major problem with these skimming plagerizers is that I'm not getting credit, not any little amount of money.

But seeing as how this skimming is really picking up speed, I am starting to reconsider the loss-leader thing. So I am curious about how other authors feel, especially ones who do publish in the ebook arena.

Jake

 

[michchick98]

Here's a question I have for the authors who post their stories here: Is the exposure you get and the feedback worth it for you, knowing that eventually, more likely than not, someone is going to come along, skim your stories, and sell them as ebooks?

My situation is this: Most of what I write these days I publish as ebooks through an Renaissance ebooks and sell. However, works shorter than about 10k, I publish for free here, at ES and other places, as "loss-leaders" hoping to find fans that might want to pay for something. So my major problem with these skimming plagerizers is that I'm not getting credit, not any little amount of money.

But seeing as how this skimming is really picking up speed, I am starting to reconsider the loss-leader thing. So I am curious about how other authors feel, especially ones who do publish in the ebook arena.

Jake

As it's been said several times in the past week, when you post on the internet for free, you take the risk of your work being stolen. Many people think that if it's available on the internet for free then it's okay to take it. Not the case, however. I won't get into the whole copyright thing because that's been (being) discussed on other threads.

As far as posting my work here, I'll continue to do so. Yes, I think it's wrong that people take other people's work and post them for profit (and no credit) elsewhere, but I basically do this for fun, as a hobby. Writing is not what pays the bills for me, so I tend not to worry too much about my stuff being stolen.

Even the e-books I've had published are at risk of being stolen. It would only take one person buying one copy, stripping the publisher's info from it and posting it as their own. It happens. It's something I can't stop. Sure, I could get the person who stole it to take the copy of my work down, but what's to stop him or her from creating a whole new identity on a new site and posting it there?

It'll never end, I'm afraid and I don't have the time nor the energy to worry about it. If someone wants to steal my stuff and post it as theirs, let them. It'll eventually come back to bite them in the ass later on. If it doesn't I won't lose any sleep over it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't condone the practice by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don't fret over it. I have more important things to worry about.

 

[Bebeslut]

My characters are apparently so unpopular, I don't run that risk much.
I did have three more or less straight-forward BDSM stories stolen, but I think that problem has been taken care of.
But you're right; I have considered not publishing any more on Lit, as well. But I might go ahead anyway. Who knows? I don't. Haven't written anything in a while anyway.

Here's a question I have for the authors who post their stories here: Is the exposure you get and the feedback worth it for you, knowing that eventually, more likely than not, someone is going to come along, skim your stories, and sell them as ebooks?

My situation is this: Most of what I write these days I publish as ebooks through an Renaissance ebooks and sell. However, works shorter than about 10k, I publish for free here, at ES and other places, as "loss-leaders" hoping to find fans that might want to pay for something. So my major problem with these skimming plagerizers is that I'm not getting credit, not any little amount of money.

But seeing as how this skimming is really picking up speed, I am starting to reconsider the loss-leader thing. So I am curious about how other authors feel, especially ones who do publish in the ebook arena.

Jake

 

[oggbashan]

My stories seem to have been stolen and posted in very unusual places but the thieves leave 'Copyright Oggbashan' on.

Odd.

Og

 

[Pure]

i think one has to look coolly at financial damage suffered under the plagiarism scenario.

for 99% of stories here, and 99% of authors here, it's essentially $0.
here is how i derived that figure.

expected earnings from story had plagiarism NOT occurred: $0.

expected (and actual) earnings given the occurence: $0.

LOSS. $0.

NOTE: consider the math for the skimming plagiarizer case mentioned
So my major problem with these skimming plagerizers is that I'm not getting credit, not any little amount of money.

There is the same result: Assuming your story attracted no attention of paying customers [the usual case], your gain $0.
Assuming a plagiarizer shows off the story under HIS name and you thus get no notice or gain of paying customers:
your gain, $0.
Your LOSS: $0.

==

i think, to stay sane, and assuming you have a saleable story--rarely the case--it's best to think of posted freebies as 'loss leaders', essentially advertisements [for what you're selling elsewhere]. the nice thing is that this 'advertising' is free at Lit, and the actual loss, as stated, for such stories, is nugatory.

==
incidentally, i think plagiarism, esp. for financial gain off another, is despicable. above, i'm simply stating the facts from a (lay) legal perspective.

 

[estragon]

Although my stories aren't that good, I would be furious if someone stole them. I was one of the recent copyright discussers (if there is such a word) on this Forum. Now that my story did get onto the Literotica site, I feel a possessory interest.

George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1889: "There is also a case--a very strong case--in favor of Communism as against Private Property; but the implied suggestion that Communism should be the rule as to works of art whilst Private Property remains the rule for everything else is unworkable. We cannot reasonably deny to the author or composer those rights (or wrongs) which others have against him." [editor's note--sorry ladies, Shaw was writing in the Dark Ages]. So abolish all private property, if you can; but while private property remains, my right to my work remains also.

 

[DarthJulius]

i think one has to look coolly at financial damage suffered under the plagiarism scenario.

for 99% of stories here, and 99% of authors here, it's essentially $0.
here is how i derived that figure.

expected earnings from story had plagiarism NOT occurred: $0.

expected (and actual) earnings given the occurence: $0.

LOSS. $0.

NOTE: consider the math for the skimming plagiarizer case mentioned
So my major problem with these skimming plagerizers is that I'm not getting credit, not any little amount of money.

There is the same result: Assuming your story attracted no attention of paying customers [the usual case], your gain $0.
Assuming a plagiarizer shows off the story under HIS name and you thus get no notice or gain of paying customers:
your gain, $0.
Your LOSS: $0.

==

i think, to stay sane, and assuming you have a saleable story--rarely the case--it's best to think of posted freebies as 'loss leaders', essentially advertisements [for what you're selling elsewhere]. the nice thing is that this 'advertising' is free at Lit, and the actual loss, as stated, for such stories, is nugatory.

==
incidentally, i think plagiarism, esp. for financial gain off another, is despicable. above, i'm simply stating the facts from a (lay) legal perspective.

Your view is a little skewed...

While my gain is $0 the plagerizer has made a gain, no mater how slight that gain may have been, I as the author deserve not only the credit for thinking of, writing, having the work edited and being brave enough to post, I also deserve any and all renumeration paid to the thief for my work.

 

[Stella_Omega]

If your loss leader stories link back to your for-sale stuff-- then a wide disemination might not be such a bad thing. You might add a paragraph in the middle of your loss-leader stories, linking to your sale site. The harvester bots are as likely to leave it in as not. They don't do much actual content control.

 

[michchick98]

Although my stories aren't that good, I would be furious if someone stole them. I was one of the recent copyright discussers (if there is such a word) on this Forum. Now that my story did get onto the Literotica site, I feel a possessory interest.

George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1889: "There is also a case--a very strong case--in favor of Communism as against Private Property; but the implied suggestion that Communism should be the rule as to works of art whilst Private Property remains the rule for everything else is unworkable. We cannot reasonably deny to the author or composer those rights (or wrongs) which others have against him." [editor's note--sorry ladies, Shaw was writing in the Dark Ages]. So abolish all private property, if you can; but while private property remains, my right to my work remains also.

Don't get me wrong by my previous statements. I do get angry about someone stealing my stories if it happens. I just know there's not much I can do to stop it unless I pay to have my work copyrighted.

I understand the reaction of some people, but as I've said, I agree with the pilot. Unless you have a registered copyright, it's not worth the effort to get a plagiarized story removed. There may be instances where an author can get some results, but a week a month or a year later, someone else (or the same person with a different ID) will be doing the same thing again.

Laurel and Manu do the best they can to get plagiarized or stolen stories written by Lit authors removed from other sites, but again, there's going to be another one popping up next week or next month doing the same thing.

Do what Stella said. Add a link or some sort of identifying marker within your story so when the plagiarists steal your work, readers know where the original came from. At the very least, it can keep sales for the plagiarist(s) to a minimum once their readers realize the work is stolen.

 

[Jake Marlow]

The funny thing is, admirable as their efforts are, and I was an author do appreciate it, Laurel and Manu do not own the stories and therefore have no legal standing to get anything taken down from anywhere, unless there's something in that agreement we check off about their acting as our agent. As someone in another thread has said, when trying to get something taken down you mostly have to depend on moral pressure and hoping the person will do the right thing.

These are all reasons why I asked what other writers think. It's probably never going to be about YOU making money, but is the potential of SOMEONE else profitting from your work enough to stop you from posting?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well, Laurel and Manu have to do something to appease the people who have entrusted the site with their little works of art. It's not like they're paying anyone...

The internet is a do-it-yourself proposition, and literotica is no exception to that. This site began back when a horny young couple decided that they should set up a website to post dirty stories. They did some brainstorming, and added some categories, according to their own personal preferences and also-- limited by their own personal experiences, (vis "loving wives" which certainly means something different to most people than it was intended to).

That's all it was. Neither of them had any particular qualification as editor or gatekeeper and they've been making it up as they've gone along. Any success is because the site has been in existence for so long-- in internet years since the Renaissance era... And all of its faults, however you see them, are because of that original framework which is too deeply imbedded into the site's build to be revamped.

 

[kromen]

The day someone makes a dollar off one of my tales is the day I go hunting for a publisher and open my vault. I think my genre choices are too milquetoast for the Amazon thieves anyway.

 

[Jake Marlow]

Like I said, I do appreciate their efforts. This is off topic, but has there ever been a redesign or overhaul of Literotica? I've been around for something like 10 years and I don't recall it.

 

[Pure]

reply to darth

pure said //NOTE: consider the math for the skimming plagiarizer case mentioned
So my major problem with these skimming plagerizers is that I'm not getting credit, not any little amount of money.

There is the same result: Assuming your story attracted no attention of paying customers [the usual case], your gain $0.
Assuming a plagiarizer shows off the story under HIS name and you thus get no notice or gain of paying customers:
your gain, $0.
Your LOSS: $0.

==
incidentally, i think plagiarism, esp. for financial gain off another, is despicable. above, i'm simply stating the facts from a (lay) legal perspective. //

Your view is a little skewed...

While my gain is $0 the plagerizer has made a gain, no mater how slight that gain may have been, I as the author deserve not only the credit for thinking of, writing, having the work edited and being brave enough to post, I also deserve any and all renumeration paid to the thief for my work.

==

of course you have a point. i hate to see the gain only in other's bank account, not mine. but the fantasy seems to be that that gain could have been or might have been mine. that the other's gain is my loss, so to say. who knows?

to see the problem, consider this minor variation. instead of a pure plagiarizer we have an entrepreneur. he asks to buy your story, and offers you something you've never gotten, $50 cash, for it and all future rights, you relinquishing all of yours.

he then formats the story into an ebook, makes minor revisions, and puts his name as main author and perhaps a tiny acknowledgement in fine print somewhere, 'original story by darth j.'

he makes $1000 dollars the first year.

now, does he owe you any part of that? morally, perhaps; legally, not a cent. this sort of thing happens all the time.

the well known story of Siegel and Schuster, creators of Superman, went as follows:

As part of the deal which saw Superman published in Action Comics, Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to the company in return for $130 and a contract to supply the publisher with material.[55][56] The Saturday Evening Post reported in 1940 that the pair was each being paid $75,000 a year, a fraction of National Comics Publications' millions in Superman profits.[57] Siegel and Shuster renegotiated their deal, but bad blood lingered and in 1947 Siegel and Shuster sued for their 1938 contract to be made void and the re-establishment of their ownership of the intellectual property rights to Superman.

The pair also sued National in the same year over the rights to Superboy, which they claimed was a separate creation that National had published without authorization. National immediately fired them and took their byline off the stories, prompting a legal battle that ended in 1948, when a New York court ruled that the 1938 contract should be upheld. However, a ruling from Justice J. Addison Young awarded them the rights to Superboy. A month after the Superboy judgment the two sides agreed on a settlement. National paid Siegel and Shuster $94,000 for the rights to Superboy. The pair also acknowledged in writing the company's ownership of Superman, attesting that they held rights for "all other forms of reproduction and presentation, whether now in existence or that may hereafter be created",[58] but DC refused to re-hire them.[59]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman

the drama had many turns, after, but the point is that the creators and their heirs mostly lost, or received a pitiful share of the gains.

moral: rights to future gains on one's creation do not always stay in one's possession, in the eyes of the law.

in moral terms, of course, it's blatant theft:

He[Sams] and Gates both knew of the operating system Paterson had built at Seattle Computer Co. As Sams recounts, "Gates said: 'Do you want to get [QDOS], or do you want me to?' I said: 'By all means, you get it."' Gates bought Paterson's program, called QDOS, for $50,000, renamed it DOS, improved it, and licensed it to IBM for a low per-copy royalty fee.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905109_mz063.htm

 

[HeyAll]

I think it is.


You can really get a lot of views here, and a lot of people enjoy reading your work. I obviously hope no one steals my stories for their profit, but as I've said, the fact that so many people have enjoyed it on here for free is worth the risk.

 

[sr71plt]

I have nearly 450 stories posted here under this name, all of which are published for pay in some form as well. I understand the risks and still find it advantageous to have them posted here.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Theft is the way of the world.

Generally speaking, if your wares are excellent count on thieves.

 

[oggbashan]

Theft is the way of the world.

Generally speaking, if your wares are excellent count on thieves.

I can understand that, but why do some of the thieves steal only the first page of my longer stories to post them on sites that have a different audience? For example, why put the first page of one of my mild fetish stories on a site labelled 'ass-fucking Asian teens'? There are no Asian teens in any of my stories, and none of my characters ever gets fucked in the ass/arse.

Og

 

[Liar]

Back when I wrote stuff for this site, I didn't do it for the money or for the glory. I did it for the fun of telling erotic stories, and to practice my skills in English.

So then someone stole my stories and poems and posted them as theirs somewhere else, I still owned the most important thing: the smug knowledge that I wrote it and that it was good enough for some pathetic loser to steal.

The only one it would potentially hurt, was Lit. Since said theft illegally provided content for a competitor in the "erotic story site" business. So I reported it, and Laurel set the dogs on them. She's pretty good at that.

If someone plagarize my stuff and sell it (happened once that I know of), that annoys me more, just for the principle of it. But still, everything I've published online, I consider cut loose to the public domain. It will happen wherever you can read it on a computer and someone can cut and paste. So why worry about it?

 

[Liar]

I can understand that, but why do some of the thieves steal only the first page of my longer stories to post them on sites that have a different audience? For example, why put the first page of one of my mild fetish stories on a site labelled 'ass-fucking Asian teens'? There are no Asian teens in any of my stories, and none of my characters ever gets fucked in the ass/arse.

Og

Really, I thought you'd have covered every kink under the sun at least twice by now?

 

[favoritesgoddess]

No, it's not worth it.

My stories are down. It's one thing to claim my work as your own--if you're not getting paid for it and you get off on taking credit for work that's not yours, it just makes you an idiot.

But if you're making so much as a nickel off of it, fuck you.

I haven't found any of my stuff for sale yet, so I consider this a preemptive strike. Maybe it's a sign that I've just outgrown this phase of my writing life.

 

[oggbashan]

Really, I thought you'd have covered every kink under the sun at least twice by now?

No I haven't. The range of fetishes is much greater than my number of stories. I'm still hoping to finish the 'south indian women's hairy and sweaty armpits' fetish...

Og

 

[FallingToFly]

I've actually changed how I write and post work online since my writer's block broke a couple months ago.

I do it all as fanfiction, with credit for the characters given to the original authors, and the standard fanfiction disclaimers. I make no profit, and I never will make a profit off of fanfiction. It's fun, it keeps my fingers moving. That's my excuse.

But I write the stories I WANT to write. I play with the plots, the premises, the characters, and figure out how to make the story work. I create a world I want to create- anyone who has read my fanfiction can tell you that non-canon is my middle name. It might barely retain a shadow of the original concept.

That's because I seldom write true fanfiction (21st Century Cure and Mightier Than The Sword are possibly my only "true" fanfiction ever). I write the story, and sort though about 20 million fantasy, sci-fi and paranormal romance novels to find one that kind of loosely fits the story. Then I plug in the names and basics of the canon and throw it to the wolves. Sometimes it gets shredded- in which case I pull it, cannibalize it down to the bone and recreate.

Couple of reasons for this- one, spider bots take the whole thing- Fanfiction disclaimer and all. Second- if someone steals it- what they got is NOT the story I'm planning on editing for the final draft and publishing. They get a fanfiction trial run that I'm throwing out to see how people respond. The only person who sees my final draft before it goes to either a publisher or to an eBook is going to be my editor.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I can understand that, but why do some of the thieves steal only the first page of my longer stories to post them on sites that have a different audience? For example, why put the first page of one of my mild fetish stories on a site labelled 'ass-fucking Asian teens'? There are no Asian teens in any of my stories, and none of my characters ever gets fucked in the ass/arse.

Og

Theyre obviously stupid.

When I was a kid I drew cartoons and decorated my book covers with my art. Well, idiots stole my books to get the cartoons, but these kids were easy to find cuz their books had my book covers!