Internet site copying a lot of our stories:

[crysede]

The kind of reply one gets from "Chantal" is:

Yes, rather like talking to a brick wall isn't it lol

I hope that either Laurel, or the Dutch Webmaster you have spoken with, can explain to her that it is our rights as authors that we are talking about here.

 

[crysede]

For those who found their work on Chantal's site, there appear to be two mirror sites that your stories will also be posted on. For example, my story shows up at the following URL's:

http://members.lycos.nl/seksverhaal/nonhuman/nonhuman001.html
http://stories.fasthost.tv/nonhuman/nonhuman001.html
http://chantals.allsexpages.com/nonhuman/nonhuman001.html

However, the 'fasthost' and 'allsexpages' embedded infringement reporting forms both go to the same person (T. K. of Greenwich Standard Limited). I don't know if that means they just use the same legal services, or are actually the same company.

 

[TheEarl]

I want someone to steal one of my stories. I'm getting really hurt at hearing that everyone else's stories are worth stealing, but mine are avoided like the plague .

The Earl

 

[KillerMuffin]

The stories haven't been removed and I sent her a cease and desist notice 24 hours ago.

 

[Laurel]

First, I apologize to the authors whose stories have been stolen and not yet removed from the other site. We try very hard to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it looks like this person doesn't have much regard for copyright law or author's wishes.

The possibility that the commercial banners on the other site aren't hers is totally irrelevant. Even if there weren't banners - which there are - that would not excuse stealing the work of numerous people. Using that logic, it should be okay to steal anything you want from anyone you want so long as you don't plan to make money on it. Free Winona!

The fact that this person mentions getting stories from the Usenet is also telling. It is NOT legal to copy material from the Usenet onto a website without the consent of the person who created the material.

We have heard the "someone submitted these stories" line before. Anything is possible. However, the quantity of stories along with the apparent disregard for copyright law by this person makes one wonder. Usually, once we bring a violation to a webmaster's attention, they immediately remove all infringing work. This webmaster appears to feel entitled to use stolen stories on her site.

Because of her repeated refusal to remove the stolen material, we will be forced to ask her hosting company to remove the stories. It is very unfortunate that she couldn't have simply removed all the stolen material when we first contacted her.

Once again, thanks to the authors who have contacted me, sorry for the problems, and this will be resolved in the near future.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Stealing Earl's signature

Scene: The toaster has just been newly repaired, despite Lister's utter hatred of it.

Talkie Toaster: Howdy doodly do! How's it going? I'm Talkie, Talkie Toaster, your chirpy breakfast companion. Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Anyone like any toast?
Lister: Look, I don't want any toast, and he doesn't want any toast. In fact, no one around here wants any toast. Not now, not ever. No toast!
Toaster: How 'bout a muffin?
Lister: Or muffins! We don't like muffins around here! We want no muffins, no toast, no teacakes, no buns, baps, baguettes or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no pancakes, no potato cakes and no hot-cross buns and definitely no smegging flapjacks!
Toaster: Ah, so you're a waffle man!

Feeling better, Early?

 

[Just-Legal]

Its ok earl, they don't steal mine either.

Maybe they have something against English fics?

Oh, and yes I am aware of SnitchFiction having a copy of Seducing Severus, whoever sent me that e-mail. I posted it there under my other nic

 

[Pure]

TheEarl said,

I want someone to steal one of my stories. I'm getting really hurt at hearing that everyone else's stories are worth stealing, but mine are avoided like the plague .

It's truly sad that you are not among the luminous elite who are being ripped off by Chantal.



You might remind yourself, however that there's a downside to this dubious backhanded glory that the ripped off authors have: As their stories get posted around, they lose any possible commercial value, imo. If widely circulated, they would never be anthologized.

Console yourself, though:
In other ways, you're like many of us ordinary folks in that you don't have to worry about having your BMW stolen, or being mugged for your Rolex. Look at the bright side of being in hoi polloi!

 

[Akito01]

thanks for the vigilant

I'm definitely thankful to those looking out for the rights of the writers here on this site. I feel bad, just because in those cases where I've seen my fics ripped off and posted on other sites, I often get a helpless sense of loss as to what to do about it. I guess, because I've put these things out for free anyway, I can't let myself get too worked out about it -but at the same time, it defintely sucks to see or hear other people take credit for one's own work. Whether the material is free to access or not, I know I should be more vigilant myself in protecting my own rights. As for now, another hearty thanks to those who've taken the time and trouble to get to the root of this particular problem.

 

[JordonLynn]

I went to Chantel's site and checked out her ethnic (interracial) stories, and came away somewhat dejected. Although I recognized several stories from Literotica and a couple of other sites, apparently my work is deemed not worthy of plifering. Now that, my fellow authors and authoress, besides being utterly reprehencible, is damned depressing. I consider my work to be a bit better than 10th rate.

The damage done to my fragile writer's ego aside (and I'm certain some of you will vehemently disagree with me on this point, but...) I think I can now sympathise with those artists who resented having their material, in effect, pirated on line from sites like Napster. We've chosen to post on line, we have, therefore, relinquished our private property rights. Or so the consumer seems to think. But, have we?

An awful lot of work goes into what we do; be it in the audio, visual, or literary field. We, as writers (creators), understand this. The consumer (in our case, our readers) see only the finished product, the majority of them never take into account the endless hours it takes to put an idea into the chosen words that allow them to invision your vision, nor do they see the hundreds of words that get flushed down the toilet during editing.

Is not our time, our imagination worth the right not to have our creativity stolen? Take this into account regarding your own work, consider it carefully, and you may find yourself, at least partially, agreeing with what I've said above.

s & s to all of you. Jordon Lynn

Man is the only animal who blushes. He's the only one who thinks he needs to. Mark Twain

 

[crysede]

I went to Chantel's site and checked out her ethnic (interracial) stories, and came away somewhat dejected. Although I recognized several stories from Literotica and a couple of other sites, apparently my work is deemed not worthy of plifering. Now that, my fellow authors and authoress, besides being utterly reprehencible, is damned depressing. I consider my work to be a bit better than 10th rate.

I'm very sorry about your stories not being stolen

But welcome to Lit anyway

 

[Pure]

JordonLynn said,


I went to Chantel's site and checked out her ethnic (interracial) stories, and came away somewhat dejected. Although I recognized several stories from Literotica and a couple of other sites, apparently my work is deemed not worthy of plifering. Now that, my fellow authors and authoress, besides being utterly reprehencible, is damned depressing. I consider my work to be a bit better than 10th rate.

Hey this was supposed to be a joke, right? about the insult of not being stolen. There is no reason to suppose that Chantal took the best ones. I bet some of our best stories were not stolen. I've not generally compared stolen pieces with rankings: in my case, though, a story ranked below 100 was stolen, but not one ranked over 50. (And there is the point that lit. ranking are not necessarily reflective of quality.)

My theory would be that the thief was sloppy and looked at first couple paras, and if that caught his interest, he downloaded it.



The damage done to my fragile writer's ego aside (and I'm certain some of you will vehemently disagree with me on this point, but...) I think I can now sympathise with those artists who resented having their material, in effect, pirated on line from sites like Napster. We've chosen to post on line, we have, therefore, relinquished our private property rights. Or so the consumer seems to think. But, have we?

It does feel odd to be on the other side of the fence! You're right.
If I had prepared a document, say a texbook, I was selling, I would be pissed. One student said to me, "We don't have to buy any textbook or course material now."

OTOH, and frankly, almost none of us expected to make a cent from posting here. I think we did give up privacy, in that we could have sat on the stories, or just given them to friends, or sent them to erotic magazines (hard copy). Except for those rare stories that might be anthologized, and which, hypothetically are ripped off and become widely known, we have suffered no financial loss.

Literotica, of course, could be hurt; the cents go into their pockets. They are the ones who one would expect to be concerned. If a good chunk were duplicated elsewhere, perhaps their volume would decline, and thus the advertising revenue.

I do, however, fear a situation where (unlike Chantal) my name is NOT stripped off, but retained AND the story altered, chopped up.

There is an analogy, in that I hear some songs are modified or remixed and posted to the net.

This would really piss me off.

 

[Pookie]

As far as I'm concerned, it's mine. If someone wants to use it, they can ask me. If I say, no. Then it's no. It doesn't matter if it is worthless or not in other's eyes. It belongs to me. My stories are personal to me, that makes them priceless to me at least.

I would doubt seriously that Chantal isn't making something off of her banners. How else does she pay for the costs she would incur for running her website? I'm not sure if she has to pay for bandwidth or disk space, but I doubt she would pay out of her pocket for too long for any friend that might make money off of her efforts.

She seems to have put a lot of work into a money making website, and then planned not to make any money from it. I don't buy it.

Pookie

 

[eyefish]

I've read stories at Literotica that were identical to stories I'd read at asstr (except for the author's name).
Lit posted a story(At the Car Wash by WayneJ) about 10 days ago that had been posted at asstr in 2000(Carwash by B. Boner).
I emailed Literotica informing them of the copied story 5 days ago. I just checked and "At the Car Wash" is still here.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Don't email, it's hard to get it through.

PM Laurel and put plagiarism in the subject. She's anti-plagiarism. However, she can't possibly have read every single story on the web. She does not go out and look for stories to post, she only accepts submissions from authors. There are people who submit other's work and call it their own. Slightly different from Chantal who actively steals stories.

If you don't know how to PM, then go just click here:

https://forum.literotica.com/private.php?s=&action=newmessage

Put Laurel in as the recipient. If you can provide links, please do.

Note: I can't read your account, anyone logged in who clicked that link would be taken to their own persona mailbox.

 

[Pure]

Hi Pookie G


As far as I'm concerned, it's mine. If someone wants to use it, they can ask me. If I say, no. Then it's no. It doesn't matter if it is worthless or not in other's eyes. It belongs to me. My stories are personal to me, that makes them priceless to me at least.

I feel that way too.


I would doubt seriously that Chantal isn't making something off of her banners. How else does she pay for the costs she would incur for running her website? I'm not sure if she has to pay for bandwidth or disk space, but I doubt she would pay out of her pocket for too long for any friend that might make money off of her efforts.

It's certainly possible that "Chantal" is making money. Indeed I picture "her" as a potbellied mobster with this little scam going. And the profits finance a slave trade in Thai women in Amsterdam.


She seems to have put a lot of work into a money making website, and then planned not to make any money from it. I don't buy it.

Who knows? My argument, though, somewhat based on Lancecastor's, is that to have a lawsuit -- or a crime, for that matter -- there has to be harm done. It's hard to say what the harm is, in the use of 99% of the stories (the ones that cant ever be sold). There are many forms of exploitation that make money off someone, which are not crimes or grounds for lawsuits, afaik.

Take for instance the appearance of Jennifer Aniston's mom on talk shows, talking about JA. (This indeed pissed off JA, so she wouldn't speak to the mom any more.)

You are a star and you have a personal valet, and there is no explicit agreement about confidentiality [as with the Queen of England]. The valet leaves after ten years and writes a 'tell all' bio; it's my lay opinion, that, in the absence of slander, endangerment and a couple other effects, you don't have a basis for a lawsuit.

IF you have been making money, then the harm is clear, just as with a song on a record. (Got any mp3's?). The pirate might put a dent in your income. If, however, you _give_ away something, like your autograph (as a celebrity), I don't believe a person's making money selling it, is something you can sue over. That's my lay opinion. But I'd like to hear from a lawyer on this whole issue.

This isn't to say I don't fantasize about a hacker disabling Chantal's website.!

I'm with you in spirit, PG.

 

[Pure]

Hi KM,

you said

Don't email [Laurel], it's hard to get it through.

PM Laurel and put plagiarism in the subject.

[Edited, 2-03-03, 7:58 pm est, to be more precise about Laurel]

This doesn't reflect well on Literotica, does it? You're saying Laurel doesn't get or doesn't respond to emails (while suggesting their use). That's a number of people's experience.

My own experience is that often she is a gem about answering (or doing something requested), and sometimes the email is not responded to. But of course it may be that she didn't get it. I presume, if there's delay, that she's busy, for I'm sure she's a fine person, and wishes all 'her' writers well.

[On another topic, having no connection with Laurel:]
[KM on plagiarism:]

There are people who submit other's work and call it their own. Slightly different from Chantal who actively steals stories.

A fine distinction, KM!. Someone--a plagiarist-- who finds my story, removes my name, inserts theirs instead -- perhaps makes hundreds of minor changes, such as the character's names, as is common -- is not 'actively' stealing? Someone's typing their name in as author of your story, is perhaps akin to sleepwalking, you're suggesting?

 

[KillerMuffin]

Did you know that there are bots that do nothing all day but crawl all over the web looking for those little email tags in HTML documents? Did you know that Laurel gets more spam every single day than most of us combined? Things get lost. Spamming a PM box is just too difficult to do.

Laurel will find the email, but not in a manner that any of us--including her--would find timely enough to deal with plagiarism.


Let's try this again. Laurel does not steal stories from other people. Other people steal stories from other people and submit them to Literotica. When these things are discovered, Laurel removes the stolen story or properly credits them to the author, depending on the author's preference. This sort of thing has been happening since they first started mass producing printed matter. Hell, probably even before that. Just ask Janet Dailey and Nora Roberts. Or do you think that

Chantal steals stories. Chantal goes out and finds stories, reformats them, and puts them on her website.

Can you tell the difference or are you just pulling my chain again?

 

[Lancecastor]

My argument, though, somewhat based on Lancecastor's, is that to have a lawsuit -- or a crime, for that matter -- there has to be harm done. It's hard to say what the harm is, in the use of 99% of the stories (the ones that cant ever be sold). There are many forms of exploitation that make money off someone, which are not crimes or grounds for lawsuits, afaik.

Hi;

Thanks for asking me to comment on this matter, Pure.

My view is that having grounds for successful lawsuit is one thing; being able to recover any damages is another.

The former is a legal point; the latter is a practical matter.

So, to put those two separate yet equally important points in context and perspective, let's talk for a moment about Chantal.

Chantal has acquired your work without permission. She is legally bound to remove it once advised as to the material's actual owners and their desire to have it removed. (Cease and desist, as KM said).

If Chantal does not remove the material in a reasonably timely fashion once advised of your claim to ownership and your clear instructions to remove it, you have a right of action against her.

Here's where the practical side comes in....sure, you'll win a lawsuit. How will you find her real identity, who really owns the site and location, serve her documents, determine what court in what country the trial is held in, attend trial....and then prove how much is your story of anal sex with your sister in law at a christmas party (e.g.) is really worth when it comes time for damage assessment? How much is the name of the author Pure (e.g.) been damaged?

It's a good thing that web hosting companies will (usually) respond to legitimate requests...though "Chantal" could and likely will reappear under another name on another Host with your stories another day.

Ultimately, I don't know that anyone has really lost anything of value worth fighting for at a practical level, even though we are "right" in the eyes of the law.

In the end, posting your stories under an assumed name on a free web site is hardly the best way to protect your intellectual property....we post here for fun, entertainment , sharing and feedback as amateur writers of erotia. Pros obviously need to look elsewhere.

The real damage done (if any) is to the owners of Lit. If the stories here are copied freely and hosted elsewhere....at some point the quality and variety of Lit's database of amateur erotica becomes watered-down...if you can see the same stuff in 1,000 different places, why come here? becomes the eventual effect.

Those are my thoughts.

Cheers

Lance

 

[hiddenself]

In defense of

Let's try this again. Laurel does not steal stories from other people. Other people steal stories from other people and submit them to Literotica...

Chantal steals stories. Chantal goes out and finds stories, reformats them, and puts them on her website.

Can you tell the difference or are you just pulling my chain again?

KM, I think Pure's main complaint was about the people who actually steal the stories -- no matter whether they just post them without attribution or whether they change them and list them as their own.

The gripe about Laurel not answering emails was a side issue. But now I think your explanation regarding spam clears things up. She probably has filters setup that may occasionally filter out some legitimate emails -- thus, the lack of response.

At least that's how I read it...

hs

 

[Pookie]

Who knows? My argument, though, somewhat based on Lancecastor's, is that to have a lawsuit -- or a crime, for that matter -- there has to be harm done. It's hard to say what the harm is, in the use of 99% of the stories (the ones that cant ever be sold). There are many forms of exploitation that make money off someone, which are not crimes or grounds for lawsuits, afaik.

Take for instance the appearance of Jennifer Aniston's mom on talk shows, talking about JA. (This indeed pissed off JA, so she wouldn't speak to the mom any more.)

You are a star and you have a personal valet, and there is no explicit agreement about confidentiality [as with the Queen of England]. The valet leaves after ten years and writes a 'tell all' bio; it's my lay opinion, that, in the absence of slander, endangerment and a couple other effects, you don't have a basis for a lawsuit.

IF you have been making money, then the harm is clear, just as with a song on a record. (Got any mp3's?). The pirate might put a dent in your income. If, however, you _give_ away something, like your autograph (as a celebrity), I don't believe a person's making money selling it, is something you can sue over. That's my lay opinion. But I'd like to hear from a lawyer on this whole issue.

Pure,

From my point of view, what has occured is a theft. To me it is no different than someone stealing my car, other than the car is probably worth a hell of a lot more than my story (looking out the window at my car ... grimacing at how that's not true in my case )

I seriously doubt I would file a lawsuit against someone like Chantal. The expense and time would not be worth it. Doesn't mean I wouldn't try to make her life miserable though, in as completely a legal way I could.

I have been told that isp's and server operators just don't want to deal with their users that break the law/rules. They will in most cases just pull the plug on them without even asking them to remove the copyrighted material. They don't want the legal headache that one of their irresponsible users is creating for them.

So keep working your way up the ladder is what I have been told. If Chantal won't remove it, complain to the company that runs the server. If they won't do anything, complain to the isp that provides bandwidth for that server. If they don't do anything, then complain to who the isp purchases bandwidth from. I was told you won't have to go past the isp, they will take care of it.

As for personal valets, family, etc. that give interviews, publish articles and books ... that is within their right because it is "their story". As long as it doesn't contain slander or libel, you can say what you want. I'm sure you can reach a "legal harassment" point eventually (I know nothing about this legal issue). But my story is my property. Just as there are laws to protect physical property, there are laws to protect intellectual property.

Thanks for your reply, and asking Lancecastor to reply as well.

Pookie

 

[TheEarl]

Although I would be flattered if someone stole a story of mine, I would insist on it being removed. Don't anyone get the wrong idea (BTW Svens, My sig is already plagarising from someone else's work, so that doesn't count. But thanks for the effort).

Legal action is well nigh impossible, especially for those of us who like to keep our identities quiet. Although it is a theft of intellectual property, it would be construed by courts that a) we're sick deviant bastard for doing this kind of thing (prejudiced, I know, but a lot of people are and we wouldn't get any sympathy) and b) we haven't lost out monetarily.

Unless we had published the stolen stories for money or were planning to, then we'd get minimal damages for mental anguish that wouldn't even cover our costs.

Sad but true.

The Earl

 

[eyefish]

KM

Don't email, it's hard to get it through.

That must be why I've never received a response in the 4 years I've been registered*.

If you can provide links, please do.

I included a link to the story at asstr in my email.

*The same applies to PM's I've sent.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You're wonderful, eyefish!

Success guys!

From Chantal's site:

"Sorry all the by abuse illegal publicist stories in this group are deleted. To save the hole web site from a quick and painful end !!!

<snip>

Thanks in advance,
Chantal"

 

[Pure]

Thanks Laurel, it looks like the job is almost done:

Remember the incest section had two pages, about 30 per page.

At page 2, the links to these seven stolen stories still work.


http://chantals.allsexpages.com/incest2.html

a child is born -
a beloved mom goes down -
a family adventure 1 -
a family adventure 2 -

a mother's new love for her son
a mother's secret needs -1
a therapist's opinion