A case of plagiarism

[oggbashan]

I think people use that mark to try to discourage "pirates".

The copyright mark is attached to all our stories posted on Literotica.

 

[lovecraft68]

The copyright mark is attached to all our stories posted on Literotica.

Yes, you're right! I never saw it next to my name before.

Jeez, says a lot about my powers of observation here.

Now does that mean Lit, not the author is "copyrighting" it?

As to this topic when I see my stuff somewhere and they still have me as the author(and many times still with my author's intro) I just let them stay, I mean who cares really?

The only time I have pushed to get them taken down is if my name is removed and I did find one on SW that someone was trying ti sell under a different title.

 

[oggbashan]

Yes, you're right! I never saw it next to my name before.

Jeez, says a lot about my powers of observation here.

Now does that mean Lit, not the author is "copyrighting" it?

...

From the FAQs if you click on submissions on Lit's home page:

If I submit a story to Literotica, do I still own the copyright?

Absolutely. You are simply granting us a non-exclusive right to publish your story on Literotica.com and granting Literotica the right to enforce the copyright on your story should it be used without your permission by any other publication - online, print, or other media.

While Literotica is not in any way required to enforce your copyright for you, you are granting us the right to do so if we become aware of anyone using your story without your explicit consent. The right to enforce your copyright that you are granting us includes the right to file DMCA complaints, file lawsuits, and any and all other necessary actions, both foreign and domestic, to prevent unauthorized people and companies from using your submissions without your permission.

The reason we require you to grant us the shared right to enforce your copyright (of course you also retain the right to enforce your own copyrights) is so that we have the legal power needed to protect your works from unauthorized publication on websites and in other media. As long as you grant permission to a website or other media to publish your stories, we have no right to enforce copyright law on them. Only websites or other media that publish/copy your stories without your permission are included in this granting of rights.

Other than these two issues, all rights to the story still belong to you, the author.

 

[sr71plt]

If you don't formally copyright your own stories, nobody has. Lit. doesn't file for copyright. (But if someone wants to steal your stories and you haven't formally copyrighted them, they could do so and then the stories would be theirs. Now isn't that a pleasant thought?)

 

[lovecraft68]

If you don't formally copyright your own stories, nobody has. Lit. doesn't file for copyright. (But if someone wants to steal your stories and you haven't formally copyrighted them, they could do so and then the stories would be theirs. Now isn't that a pleasant thought?)

Its an interesting thought, but going along with the topic being discussed lit would hold no formal copyright either.

End of the day it's as simple as if you post it here(or a similar site) consider it "gone"

But I don't think many people realize that and then get upset when they figure it out.

 

[sr71plt]

But I don't think many people realize that and then get upset when they figure it out.

Most don't figure it out. They go into denial.

 

[oggbashan]

Most don't figure it out. They go into denial.

It doesn't really matter whether you are based in the US and file for copyright, or based in Europe and use copyright provisions of the Berne Convention.

Unless you have a large amount of spare cash that you can afford to waste, you can't assert your copyright effectively. Even if you do have the money, if you have posted your story on Literotica or anywhere else on the internet, you have given it away. You might be able to stop someone claiming your story as theirs, but you won't get any compensation.

 

[lovecraft68]

It doesn't really matter whether you are based in the US and file for copyright, or based in Europe and use copyright provisions of the Berne Convention.

Unless you have a large amount of spare cash that you can afford to waste, you can't assert your copyright effectively. Even if you do have the money, if you have posted your story on Literotica or anywhere else on the internet, you have given it away. You might be able to stop someone claiming your story as theirs, but you won't get any compensation.

This debate rages over photos as well all the time.

 

[sr71plt]

It doesn't really matter whether you are based in the US and file for copyright, or based in Europe and use copyright provisions of the Berne Convention.

Unless you have a large amount of spare cash that you can afford to waste, you can't assert your copyright effectively. Even if you do have the money, if you have posted your story on Literotica or anywhere else on the internet, you have given it away. You might be able to stop someone claiming your story as theirs, but you won't get any compensation.

True. Which means once you've decided to give your stories away on Literotica, you're just spinning wheels and giving yourself unnecessary hypertension to worry about where else they go.

 

[lovecraft68]

Most don't figure it out. They go into denial.

Honestly, I didn't realize it. When I came here I thought my stories would be "protected"

But after the first couple of times this debate came up-and it does weekly it seems- I did some checking up on what some people posted here and saw it was not.

So at that point it was simply you live you learn.

 

[talismania]

Hey, how about a true experience? My stories here got enough good feedback that I thought maybe I could get them published. I approached a publisher (a couple, actually, because of diverse genres) and they decided to publish my books. Great, right? But imagine my surprise when one of my publishers emailed me to say, "This book has already been published by someone else. Can you help clarify this matter?"

Yep, someone had taken a few of my stories off Lit and published them as ebooks. They even had Goodreads and Amazon ratings. I wrote a blog post about it. [HERE'S THE POST]

My book was back on the shelves in 24 hours and the other ones vanished. But if I had not registered copyright when I first put my stories up on Lit, it would have taken weeks, if not months, to prove my ownership. Lit is a great place for feedback and I really love it here. But Lit affords no protection at all to writers. Those stories can be picked up by anyone and if they're willing to pop for $35, they can own them. Usually thieves won't bother. But the best Lit can do legally is serve as a record of where the work first appeared and under whose name.

Make no mistake, stealing is rampant, and not just on Lit. Lazy "authors" steal even published, copyrighted work and pass it off as new stuff. Here's a recent case of that.

Anyway, my whole point is people should figure out how much protection they want to give their work. Registering copyright doesn't prevent work from being stolen. Neither does the title of your car or that deed to your property. Registered copyright does provide a means (not the only means, but a really strong one) of proving ownership. In my case, I figure if anyone is going to make money off my words, that should be me. So I register copyright.

 

[sr71plt]

Might add to that that you can combine works (an anthology or even a series) under one copyright registration--for the one-time $35 fee. So you could group a bunch of your stories under one title. I grouped six novels--a half a million words worth--under one copyright once. So, it need not be astronomically expensive to register.

 

[lovecraft68]

Above is a good point. I put all eight books in my "Broken" series under one copyright so $35 rather than $280.

I also copy righted "tales of the Circle" as a series so I believe everything under that "umbrella" is covered as long as I use that as part of the title. I may have to check more closely on that though.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My book was back on the shelves in 24 hours and the other ones vanished. But if I had not registered copyright when I first put my stories up on Lit, it would have taken weeks, if not months, to prove my ownership. Lit is a great place for feedback and I really love it here. But Lit affords no protection at all to writers. Those stories can be picked up by anyone and if they're willing to pop for $35, they can own them. Usually thieves won't bother. But the best Lit can do legally is serve as a record of where the work first appeared and under whose name.

Even for that it's not ideal. Somebody recently linked to a site that was ripping off stories from Lit and posting them backdated to before they appeared on Lit. (In my case, at least, backdated to before I'd even written the chapter in question!)

 

[lovecraft68]

Even for that it's not ideal. Somebody recently linked to a site that was ripping off stories from Lit and posting them backdated to before they appeared on Lit. (In my case, at least, backdated to before I'd even written the chapter in question!)

A time traveling, mind reading thief! Maybe it was a back to the future scenario.

 

[sr71plt]

You don't have to have the series title in the tile of each book. When I lumped novels together, the series title came after they all were already written and titled and it only appeared on the copyright application form and then as a subtitle in later promotion.

 

[talismania]

Even for that it's not ideal. Somebody recently linked to a site that was ripping off stories from Lit and posting them backdated to before they appeared on Lit. (In my case, at least, backdated to before I'd even written the chapter in question!)

Something like that completely mystifies me. That kind of data can eventually be tracked down, but still... people will do just about anything, and for what?

 

[talismania]

You don't have to have the series title in the tile of each book. When I lumped novels together, the series title came after they all were already written and titled and it only appeared on the copyright application form and then as a subtitle in later promotion.

Good advice. I have three novels I might try that with, find out how it works. I could have done more this way if I'd known.

 

[sr71plt]

Something like that completely mystifies me. That kind of data can eventually be tracked down, but still... people will do just about anything, and for what?

The data won't be tracked down, though. Major distrbutors like Amazon aren't any more anxious to get into a he said/he said quagmire (especially for erotica) than the U.S. government was when it set up current restrictive U.S. law in spite of the Berne Convention. Amazon will just cut both sides off--and if it gets really bad, just stop distributing that line of products.

 

[lovecraft68]

You don't have to have the series title in the tile of each book. When I lumped novels together, the series title came after they all were already written and titled and it only appeared on the copyright application form and then as a subtitle in later promotion.

Right, that's what I was getting at. I.E. "Black Friday" and beneath it "A Tale from the Circle"