Possible Plagiarism, Need Help Please!

[madam_noe]

KDP blocked the publication of "Wolf Tales Volume I." They sent me a message saying they thought they found a lot of the content in my book on the web for free. I did have 3 of the 6 stories up at one point or another in earlier first-draft form on my website and here, but they've been removed from both sites, and edited.

Character names were changed, scenes were added, cut-out, all grammar/spelling was edited, and I even changed the title of one of the stories. The other 3 are brand new.

After 4 hours of Googling, Binging, and Yahooing (I didn't know those last two are words but trust me, now they are) I can find nothing except a book from 10 years ago with a very same name. Seems the author and I made the same pun, but after reading it I know there is no real similarity beyond our characters are the same type of monster.

No one is telling me where they found this magical content. If they did, i'm afraid someone stole my work from here, but I'm having no luck finding it. Has anybody seen the following on another site:

Wolf Tales 01: The Claiming
Wolf Tales 02: The Craving
Wolf Tale: The Magic

I'd really appreciate your help, thanks!

 

[sr71plt]

This raises the age old "and then do what?" question. You put it on an open, free-use Internet site. So, you valued it at zero worth, as far as a court is concerned. Are you in the United States and do you have a formally registered copyright on it--not just a "I wrote it, so I own it," but an actual registered copyright? If not, the most you can count on in getting anything taken down is moral suasion after a whole lot of time-consuming effort--and that only lasts until someone wants to put it up again.

If you want to protect your stories, don't post them for free on the Internet.

Sorry, but most of us have gotten bitten by this ourselves. You either learn to let it go as background noise or you stop giving your stories away for free on the Internet to begin with.

 

[Darkniciad]

Don't Google the title. Google individual lines -- preferably early in the story. If there are any specific lines that haven't changed between the early drafts you had posted and the final you're attempting to publish, that's even better.

When you Google them, put the whole sentence in quotation marks so it looks for that exact phrase. That should track down the places where it's been posted, or which Google still registers, even if they've been pulled.

"Autumn looked out the window into the season that was her namesake"

That search turns up my story here on Lit, and when I expand by allowing the "very similar" results, it shows the other site where I posted it, as well as all of Lit's mobile versions.

If the first line you choose turns up a lot of results that aren't your story, pick another one and try again. The more words you use ( without going crazy about it ) the better chance you'll find that exact match and avoid irrelevant hits.

It could be that Google hasn't updated to reflect that you've pulled the stories from Lit and your website.

 

[madam_noe]

Thanks guys. I Googled character names and whole unique sentences in quotations, I know the trick.

My lawyer called and discovered the problem: the Amazon bot found all the old Google links to the original post on literotica and it didn't seem to care it got a 404 page. So 26 Google link take-down requests and one 5 minute call from my lawyer later and amazon is cooperating.

As a note, I did discover nookiestar takes stories from literotica and posts them, but is happy to take them down.

be wary however, cdn.seekeros.com posts a long preview and then links back to literotica, but there seems to be no way to contact them to remove the content. My lawyer is working on that, but Amazon is okay with it since the link goes to a literoticca 404 page.

One thing Amazon told me that really helped; in wolf Tale: the Magic the first line was "Copyright Nora Quick 2012" which is what saved me.

So if, like me, you post first drafts for free then publish later, try to put your copyright in the first line. It's all that saved me with seekeros.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Darkniciad]

Doesn't hurt to put the name of the website in there either.

Then, even if you're not planning to pay publish, people can find the story where it's supposed to be, and the rest of your work.

Most of the places that hork stories don't bother to remove anything, including those notices. They also tend to steal only the first page, so someone who stumbles across it and is intrigued might very well be inclined to find the rest of it, and your authorized postings if you give them direction.

When I think about it, I tend to put "This story is copyright Darkniciad. If found anywhere other than Literotica.com with this note attached, this story is posted without my permission."

I've had at least a dozen messages from people who have found my Lit stories this way, and considering how few people actually offer feedback, there are probably a lot more who have found me this way but never said anything.

At least the story grabbers end up doing a little work on your behalf that way.

 

[madam_noe]

Doesn't hurt to put the name of the website in there either.

When I think about it, I tend to put "This story is copyright Darkniciad. If found anywhere other than Literotica.com with this note attached, this story is posted without my permission."

I've had at least a dozen messages from people who have found my Lit stories this way, and considering how few people actually offer feedback, there are probably a lot more who have found me this way but never said anything.

At least the story grabbers end up doing a little work on your behalf that way.

Great idea, thank you! I believe I will add a similar phrase to all new stories.

yeah, story grabbing can be good for exposure but when it comes to things like this, revamping the story and published a year later, it's a headache. Just goes to show, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[sr71plt]

One thing Amazon told me that really helped; in wolf Tale: the Magic the first line was "Copyright Nora Quick 2012" which is what saved me.

So if, like me, you post first drafts for free then publish later, try to put your copyright in the first line. It's all that saved me with seekeros.

Thanks for all the help!

Since the United States signed the Berne Convention, it's now against U.S. law to claim copyright on the published version unless you actually filed for formal copyright. Not that anyone's paying any attention to that, of course.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Query about your stories (don't laugh! not to much)

Madam, I'm really glad you managed to get this resolved. You must've been tearing your hair out.
I know this is a very faint hope but by any chance are your werewolves responsible creatures who practise safe sex? (OK, now pick yourself up from the floor where you were rolling about laughing!) I'm establishing a blog where I review erotica for less experienced people (Feminist Erotica) and I'm very keen to have a werewolf story but for reasons I spelled out on the blog I made it a rule that the stories must all be safe sex.
Some really helpful info in here from contributors and yourself and again, so glad you managed to get this sorted.
xxx

 

[NaokoSmith]

I was just logging on to my books on Amazon and I suddenly realised how strange that is. I published some of my stories free here and on Smashwords and put them on Amazon @ $0.99 simply because you can't publish free there unless you sign up for KDP Select but I never had any trouble.

 

[lovecraft68]

I was just logging on to my books on Amazon and I suddenly realised how strange that is. I published some of my stories free here and on Smashwords and put them on Amazon @ $0.99 simply because you can't publish free there unless you sign up for KDP Select but I never had any trouble.

I've been under the impression that when something like that happens its more likely a case of someone reporting it to amazon rather than them searching around on their own.

Someone who read that story here and then recognized it on amazon may think it was stolen from you and may even feel as if they are doing you a favor.

 

[evanslily]

I had a similar email when I first published on Amazon. But in my case, all I had to do was explain that I owned the stories on Literotica and provided a few links. That seemed to do the trick - I didn't need to take them down.

On a similar but unrelated note, I see that you said you searched for your stories on character names and unique sentences. Be aware that there are some folks out there who may publish your story and simply substitute character names. CWatson and I (and a few others) found our stories on fan fiction sites, the names of our characters shamelessly substituted by the names of Buffy and One Tree Hill characters.

Cease and desist messages did the trick quite nicely, but this is the sort of thing that goes with the territory when you publish freely to the Internet, I guess!